Knowing God

I want to bring this to you today because this is a foundation in which God has laid in me and it continues to be what I teach to many individuals who want to have a deeper walk with God. I was in the book of Isaiah for a month and could not get away from it and Isaiah 53 paritcular has always appeared time and time again to bring a reminder and a freshness to my course of life. While reading this I want to point out the word knowledge, this verse is a prophetic word speaking of the coming one Jesus Christ. By his knowledge it was not a miraculous instant God event that he performed the great feat on the cross but merely it was God in Jesus the son of man. Meaning he was a human like you and I. It was his knowledge that allowed him to understand Gods heart in every matter.

Isa 53:11  Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 

This led me to search more in depth to the word knowledge. The word knowledge is made up obviously from the word know (yada in the hebrew Strongs Number 3045) It means an experiental knowledge of someone.

Now lets relate this word to another story in the Bible where David was chosen to have a beatuiful virgin lay with him to keep him warm.

The young woman was very lovely; and she cared for the king and served him; but the king did notknow her (1 Kings 1:4 NKJV)

The girl was very beautiful; she took care of the king and waited on him, but the king had no intimate relations with her.(1 Kings 1:4 NIV)

That is how deep the word know is and it can relate in so many ways to our relationships with Husband/Wives, we get to know each other by spending time with each other.

1. To know is to have experiential knowledge of the person or God

I had plans to start a business and to continue with my work running a truck in the oilfield with many customer prospects and things in place to finance the deal. It had me stuck to a job where I got paid well and could see many blessings and being blessings to others. God came and invaded me one night and shared with me my true desires to do ministry and to live by his provision. I knew that in the past how God had spoken to me and told me to go other places such as Bible College and remembered how he was faithful to provide for me. This Experience in the past helped me 1) recognize his tugging, and his voice to go 2) his faithfulness to get me where my heart desired to go 3) To trust and to give up my plans even though i thought it fitted me at the time. Now I am in ministry and have followed God in other areas because of his leading in my life and it was easier for me to trust and to turn right away to those things. This is an example of having experiental knowledge with God.

Trust is the most important aspect of it all and allowing ourselves to remember and being thankful for the things he has led us through in the past makes it easier for us to give up those things when he asks or is putting his finger on it.

2. To know is to be-loved and to love

God wants to be the first one you come to in good and bad. God wants us in the quiet place where we can hear his voice and lay aside our hearts worry. It takes time to cultivate this because so often our minds our at unrest and easily entangled in the things of the world. I always think of rest as Hebrews 4 type rest. When our souls our easy and at rest we can allow God into those areas of our heart that our often wounded or hindered by things we have been believing about ourselves. It allows the true lover of our souls to bring to memory those hurts and lies that our provoked and allows him to give us truth. Its not a quick fix often because we want it done but God is gentle and it often takes time for us to realzie we need to spend time in our day in the quiet place not just petitioning but listening. 

Hab. 2:1-2 NKJV -I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart And watch to see what he will say to me and what I will answer when i am corrected. THen the Lord answered me and said: Write the visino and make it plain on tablets That he may run who reads it. 

Habakkuk was waiting for Gods response after asking God a series of heart cries and he stood watch until God answered his pleas. Being willing and allowing God time to speak is important it shows the love that he has and he wants to answer our hearts questions personally not just through someone else. 

I believe that 1 Samuel Chapter 2 and 3 our a very good point for allowing time for God in our lives. Samuel was ministering to the Lord and waiting on his earthly master so to speak in Eli. He was honoring the leadership and when God started to reveal his word to him he instantly ran to Eli. Eli perceived that God was calling him after the third time and he shared with him how to be a willling and obedient servant to the Lord. 1 Samuel 3:10 Now the Lord came and stood and called at other times, "Samuel, Samuel!" and Samuel answred, "Speak for your servant hears," This was the start of Samuel the Judge and one who was faithful and wanted to do what was in Gods heart and mind. It states how the Lord stood and called as at other times! How beautiful is that, Eli's or those who know what the word of the Lord is need to teach Samuels or those who our young, how to hear from God for themselves. 

Intimacy requires time and it requires cultivating a love for God or maybe you need to fall back in love with your creator again. Knowledge and to know God, I believe is the most wonderful aspect of him. He reveals himself to us and we need to respond with time and care and attention because from this relationship and the secret place it will bring us victory in every area of our lives. He wants to give you counsel and wisdom on every area of your life, but it requires us to take apart that time in our lives toknow God and experience him with our 5 senses just as the definition of the word dictates, to smell, touch, taste, feel and hear.

God bless you

Alvin 

Grace

Recently, as I was sifting through facebook and reading some of the posts I was grieved in my spirit because often times I see so many bible scriptures posted out of context. The nature of God is a very hard concept to grasp if God has not breathed and made alive the texts in the bible. Now I know their are many aspects to the nature of God some that we are still learning and others that we think we know the depth and the width of them. Grace is a message that is very dear to my heart and I know that God is a God of grace. I know grace because of my passed experiences and the grace message is one that is at is becoming more and more on the move. First off grace is absolutely biblical and it is the very nature of God. Grace is found in justification. The unmerited favor or unearned favor we have with God is grace. In the New King James version we read  Romans 11:6 And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work. 
As I begin to read more and more peoples view on grace I saw many verses of the bible quoted out of context saying that grace is demonic and using Matthew 7:21-22 as their scripture basis. I felt my heart twinge and ache because I was disgusted at the quality of God was used with little or no care at all. I wanted to type in the comment box all the feelings I had raging up inside of me. As I sat their staring at the computer screen I knew that my battle was not against flesh and blood. The devil wants us to team up with him and be the accuser of the brethren so I left it. I started telling God how I felt and how I understood grace as and then I asked him what grace was to him. Instantly I was reminded of the woman at the well. The story is found in John 4. I am not going to post it you can read it on your own. As we look at the story though we realize that Jesus, in the nature of God did not condemn the woman but offered her living water. Jesus loved her being a woman of "low stature" and out of his Jewish class. He did not look at the outward appearance but it was "the goodness of God" (Romans 2:4) that lead her to repentance and told the surrounding community about the Messiah. In all the other instances God gave undeserved grace, in healing, wholeness and deliverance to those who were afflicted by sin and in the darkness. How can they know their in darkness if their is no light?  The Holy spirit is the convicter (John 16:8) It has nothing to do with us pointing the finger and telling people their living in sin. We need heavens perspective on every aspect of our lives and other peoples lives. Christians are not exempt from the grace message, we still make mistakes we our not perfect ourselves and we are being sanctified continually. You see the goodness of God, know thing that when we sin blatantly and that God loves us not for what we do but for who we are, when we can come to believe that it empowers us to live in holiness. Grace in another definition of it means to empower. Their is a coming holiness movement that is not going to be like the holiness movement of the passed, where much law and legalism came out of. Don't hear what I am not saying I believe in holiness, the law and legalism part is religion. The grace movement is going to empower us to live in holiness by seeing the goodness of God it is going to open our hearts to understand who God is more and more. Grace is empowerment and Holiness is power.

Love the Lord God with all your mind

The lord put this on my heart and he spoke to me and told me to write about this, He told me that many want to hear his voice but their are so few that love the lord their God with all their mind. Their are often times in my own life where I go through season of allowing things to pass through such as movies, music, pictures, facebook and my mind filter gets clogged up with things. I am a big sports fan and I watch baseball, I like to play fantasy baseball as I have been doing this I notice myself getting distracted by it. I don't think that it is wrong to play things like this considering it is a silly thing in the first place the value it has in my heart is entertainment and fun. He is about entertainment and fun but when we find even the littlest things coming up in our mind when were in the midst of doing a bible study and finding it distracting then it becomes a problem. Our minds our the very nature of how God speaks to us, as well as the devil. I got this image of a cluttered mind as I was sitting in my room today waiting on the Lord, he said so many people have put so many things in their head that they can't hear from him. Its a cluttered mess. When you start to honor God in what you input in to your mind you are going to notice things ease up anxiety is going to go, instead of that worry a promise is going to filter in. When you start to focus on God you won't be filled with what happened last night on Gilmore Girls or whose going to win the Stanley Cup. The Western world is filthy with distractions and every thing the enemy can slip in and make you distracted by God allows him to get the upper hand. I am not about to argue with you if its right or wrong to watch this or that I don't believe that is what he is getting at. I believe that if we really wanted to hear from God for ourselves or really wanted to live a life style pleasing to God the TVs would go out the door the radios would not be turned on the computers would be full of sermons and mp3s of Christian artists. Why because to honor and to exalt God in our minds takes more than the hour or two hours of listening or reading the word it takes a habit that forms into something we can't live without everyday. I am in no means close to coming to being pure in thought but my mind is precious and God speaks to me and when my filter gets plugged up I need to start pushing in the word of God and really honoring God with what I input. I don't make excuses for what I put in but I know this when I say I love God I want to say I love you with my actions. He honors those who honor him its a biblical principle at the very heart of God, spend time deep in the word and when you don't feel like doing that then start listening to sermons, and music, soaking music allowing God to consume your mind will let him speak to you more clearly, cleanse your mind allow him to consume it. David was a man of meditation on the law, sin starts with a thought, actions start with a thought we need to control what we put in and really ...we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ 2 Cor. 10:5 The battle of the mind starts with the washing of the word in the mind, perhaps we need to start repenting of what we have put in and allowing those strongholds to be exposed by the truth. Stop cluttering it up and stop making excuses and justifying what you put in, put in truth and you will get truth, our mind is precious to him and we are to be Christ like their is no in betweens we are either for him or against him!

Hearing the voice of God

Here's a quick way to understand how God speaks to us which can help simplify it. I use to think that God only spoke to people that prayed and fasted for 40 days or who had a name like Elijah, Rick Joyner, Graham Cooke, but thats totally not the case. 

As the Lord started to speak to me ever so clear after a prayer session I had alone with him it was the voice or the small though impression in my head overlapped the rest of them. Perhaps you can relate it this way as well, when your reading the bible and the lightbulb comes on and its like a thought was just completed in your head. That is what you would call a revelation or knowledge, supernaturally knowing something you didn't know before or could have known on your own. This is how God speaks to us in our mind, a revelation though changes our understanding(heart) so that we can better understand our creator. This is what Paul prayed for over the church of Ephesus in Ephesians 1:17-18. The spirit of revelation and wisdom, that we might know God better. Why would we want to know God better? Hosea 4:6 says my people are destroyed for their lack of knowledge!  It goes on in that verse and says I will forget you because you have forgotten me. They have not done what God asked them to do!Their our times in my life where God has asked me to do something and I haven t done it. You want to see God move in your life its hearing and doing what he has asked us to do, whether that be in our own lives or doing something for others. Faith comes by hearing- that word Faith in the greek means, "to persuade". But to hear you have to listen! Where do you listen, often times our hearts our in turmoil because we overturn the thoughts in our head and justify us with our minds not with the thoughts he has given to us. This is why he has asked us to love the lord god with all your heart all your soul and all your mind. When we love on God in our minds we then revolve thoughts around him constantly, we praise him we sing to him, we worship him, we meditate on the word their are so many ways to do this but it starts with a habit. My one goal in my life was to cut the junk out when I turned my life around to the Lord and I did that! As i begin to feed my mind, sermons, the word of God, songs, praises and prayers in my heart God begin to slip in revelation often to the scriptures I was meditating on. This is one common thing we see David doing meditating on the Law of the Lord, or Meditating and remember the great things God did before hand. He was loving on God in his mind, this is what i believe it means to Love god with our minds, the things we put into it honor God. 

When I realized how God spoke to me in a more clear way after that one day, I realized how many times he was speaking to me before but didn't recognize it because it was truly the still small voice. My mind then over thought it, I would ask him to speak to me and he would and I would be like that wasn't really God No way and then I would ask him to do it again sometimes he would and sometimes he wouldnt. I like to call it that fleeting thought, their are times now when I ask God for something and he gives it to me before I'm done asking, its literally that fleeting thought that just goes rushing through your head. 

The next thing that I am going to speak on, is this......We have a blank canvas in our minds now we can determine what thoughts our fleshly or of the devil by the understanding of who he is in the bible and our own lives. This is an easy way to understand this: Close your eyes......Let your mind go to ease......now picture this: Your front door of your house/apartment/cottage/shack wherever you live........Now walk through the door!? .........Or picture your car? picture you driving it?.....now get a blank slate out.....and ask the Lord to speak to you on your canvas. or ask him to give you a picture for a friend around or your mom and dad. Ask the Holy Spirit to embelish on it, if your not sure of what it is ask the Holy Spirit what it is, and listen to that first thought! 

It may take time to quiet your mind enough and put it at ease to hear from God but the more time you practice being quite (Psalm 46:10 be still and know that I am God) the easier it becomes, love the lord with your mind! He will honor you in every effort you use to hear from him, don't get disheartened its his desire that everyone hears from him clearly but we need to take up our part to put the things of God in our life. When he said be Holy as I am Holy, be set apart as I am set apart he really meant it. We need to give up the things we think we need to have to fill our time, fill our minds, fill our hearts. Our understanding is changed by God and by our surroundings, our hearts our sensitive to the things around us more than we often realize in a western sense because its hiding behind all the other things coming at us. God wants us to be like Isaiah 11:3-4 states: and he shall not judge by the sight of his eyes nor decide by the hearing of his ears but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.

God is in the business of speaking to those who listen all throughout the bible we see that he speaks to us and often we don't hear him because 1)we don't want to 2) our hearts our hardened 3)we don't recognize the voice.

Press in I pray this will make it easy to hear from the Lord, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any areas that are holding you back from hearing, you may need to repent of self reliance or maybe sin is hindering it or other issues. When you do ask him, be aware the first thought or impression you get in your heart is him speaking to you! Bless you all I pray this blesses all who read and if you have any questions let me know!

Ask the Holy Spirit for a word for me or an image and email me it! I will get back to you, I want to have everyone growing in the voice of God. I will write/teach something on the word of knowledge that I briefly spoke about in this article soon. God bless you all! (yet again!)

servantsoffire@gmail.com

Alvin Kaufmann

Servants of Fire

Psalm 104:4 He makes his winds messengers, His servants flames of Fire. The first part of this verse is the key in all of this. ``He makes,`` God is a God that gives increase, we are planters and waters as Paul states in Corinthians. He causes the increase (1 Corinthians 3:8-9). Striving is something that comes in and plays a role in our walks. Love somehow dissuades from us and then we start making it just something we do, religiously. Love is the key fundamental point I want to touch on in this, when we go to do something out of love it breaks religion. We are not doing it out of just head knowledge but it becomes a transforming in our heart. We come to love God so much that we start a passionate fire like the early believers in Acts had. They realized what Jesus came to do and that he died for them. They stood together as one who were in one mind or one accord. They had a passion for Jesus, a passion to wait 10 days in the upper room for the promise. When they were way laid by the circumstances around them that should have brought fear, they prayed for more boldness so they could continue in the efforts. Don`t get way laid don`t look at the crops you have planted because their is much more return to come. The Lord is going to cause growth in all of our lives in his timing but continue to water it and to plant more of the word in your hearts. Things that we have been promised our going to come to pass but its his timing. The body of Christ is not going to chug across the finish line, boldness is coming boldness is coming to us and we are going to move in authority, with more than we have even asked for because we are his. He knows where we are at and he is a God of increase, be obedient with what you have, use it for his glory and his purposes and more will come.

More thought....

I had an interesting encounter this weekend that really brought a new perspective to my understanding of who we are and what we need to do to fulfill what God has asked of us. Inside of us our gifts, abilities, love, encouragement, blessing, friendship, faithfulness and so on and so on. All brought on by what Christ did on the cross for each and every one of us. God has put a passion in my heart for teaching and leading others to a deeper walk with the living God. Specifically for the young people in my life right now and for the body of Christ. I believe that each and every one of us have it inside of us and for us not to share or pass on what we have is a slap in the face to our creator. The things he has put inside of you is for the body of Christ. Its not for you, its for your maker first and foremost secondly its for the body of Christ. God put us together and to work together and without a perspective like Abraham, building for things unseen or even a generation unseen then we have missed the mark. Hebrews goes on and on about the men of faith that walked in obedience(Action not inaction) to what God had asked them to do and now we look back at our forefathers and we should honor them because without them laying down their lives for us we would not be where we are today.
To submit to the will of God takes self sacrifice, it takes laying down your wants and your gifts and allowing God to use them for his glory. In the Exodus God approached Moses and Aaron and told them to go to Pharaoh and tell him, "let my people go so that they may serve me". This is the very reason why God frees us from the bondage we have in our lives. Much of the things we hold dear to or allow in our lives are because we have justified it. God would allow those things in our lives and maybe he hasn't asked you to give some of those things that take our time away but wouldn't we rather give up more out of honor and love for the one who sent his one and only son? Jesus gave up his will for the fathers and we owe him everything we have. I have made sacrifices in my life and laid down many things that I could use or watch in times I wanted to but out of the honor and love I had for the father I gave it up, He honored me as I did that because its a promise. Its much the same as grace we could chose to sin because we know that grace continues for us but what would your rather do? as the great Martin Luther stated.
Much of this is on my heart and it still hasn't gotten to my main point but many of these things touch on what I believe God wants you to hear out of this. I had a vision Sunday, I saw a girl who I recognized and as I pulled it back God expanded on much of it, I ended up seeing a girl I recognized that was their who I don't know very well. I saw her crying in her room and breaking down asking God if she should continue I saw her broken heart and much confusion going on in where she was assigned to. God very softly spoke you need to go and reaffirm her for I surely want her to continue where she is at. I kind of shrugged it off and went back into a time of worship, I didn't really know her for one, I didn't really know where she was but as I questioned this it didn't take me long to see her along the back wall with her hands raised. A song came on that made me thankful for God giving me a passion for the young people I had and to share what I had with others. God then spoke to me again and shared that the passion for young people not only is in me but that girl who he showed me. It was my duty to go and share what the Lord had showed me to reaffirm her in her ministry to empower the young people as well. I ended up going over awkwardly and introduced myself. I then said this may not make sense but I had a vision of you and I need to reaffirm you, her jaw dropped and said that makes total sense. It was in that instant that not only is our duty to empower the younger generations and tie into those around us but to empower other leaders who are on the same battlefield as well. Being open, and available for God to show us things because he is always willing to share with us but we are often caught up in our own affairs. While also being obedient to what he has asked because as servants like Samuel he waited on Eli until God called him and then he ministered unto the Lord, waiting and ready to go. Isaiah is another one that comes to mind, God shared with him many great things before God asked who am I going to send and Isaiah responded send me send me because he was willing and ready to go. God is not only about empowering others but I believe this season is about  stepping out into those visions we have had for years prior, last night, today. God is going to bless them, I believe much what we are lacking is people's inaction. This is a promise God is going to honor you as you step out in those things that he has prepared for you, just make sure their his vision and not yours. Prepare yourself body of Christ for God is going to cause growth in 2012, growth beyond imaginable those that are stagnant he is going to cause you to flow out like a river, he is going to shake the walls of his church and loose us from our inaction. He is going to honor those that honor him and he is going to separate those goats from the sheep. We are going to see new leaders stepping into places of church leadership that our going to cause separation because those that have sat back and not done anything with what they have our going to be cast away until they repent and come after him with a whole heart. Those that have much are going to have little and those that have little are going to have much for the time is for the harvest saith the Lord. Matthew 6:33 seek first his kingdom and all this shall be added unto you. God will provide for those that are in need to empower them into new territory.

Impressions on hearing the Lord

This is something I need to get off of my heart. As I continue to grow into whatever the Lord is crafting it makes me look back reflecting on what he has equipped me with. My story is one that has many ups and downs in it and that is not what I want to share here. I knew from the time I was very little for the rest of my life that the Lord had called me. It was irrevocable, we cannot get out of the destiny the Lord has had for us unless we decide to cover it up with our own desires. That is easy to do in the western culture because their is such a small amount really giving it all up for the Lord. It is so easy to be distracted by the many things we have, technology, phones, vehicles. Many of the people around us can't relate to the intimacy of the Lord because their minds are not on the things of heaven but things of the flesh which causes a hardening in our hearts and a world mindset. It simply is a trap, because when we start to see things in the temporary world we cannot believe the things going on in heaven anymore. We are horizontal minded and not vertically minded, or heaven minded. 

The God in heaven has always promised us that he would provide for us, that means at every point in life. I believe their are times in our lives where we need to have a job and that is a way of provision but I am really feeling this as I write this, we justify ourselves because we don't want to commit to something that is unseen or someone else hasn't done it. We simply cannot justify ourselves church because then we our self reliant. This leads to a hardening of our heart and a hardening to hear his voice. Psalm 9:10 Those who know your name trust in you, for we know you never forsake those who earnestly seek you. We know that God does not go against his word its a promise in heaven we should rejoice over.

His words do not just come from the Bible, yes it is such a powerful tool in our midst but the early church fathers only had scrolls and not the full bible. Paul was taught by the Holy Spirit, he was taught by the eternal one God himself. These were revelations he had and his message was on the Gospel and Grace. God has revealed these things to us so Grace can empower us to move into our callings with power. We need to rely on the voice of God not just on the word. The word is a foundation for us. It's Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not Holy Bible, The Holy Spirit will teach you all things! (John 14:26) Now being teamed up with the Holy Spirit to read the Holy Bible that is what will uncover much more than just a book. In no way am I putting down the Holy Bible but we need to justify ourselves by the words he speaks to us.

Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light for my path. Henry Claims in his commentary: The commandment is a lamp kept burning with the oil of the Spirit; it is like the lamps in the sanctuary, and the pillar of fire to Israel. 2. The use we should make of it. It must be not only a light to out eyes, to gratify them, and fill our heads with speculations, but a light to our feet and to our path, to direct us in the right ordering of our conversation, both in the choice of our way in general and in the particular steps we take in that way, that we may not take a false way nor a false step in the right way. We are then truly sensible of God's goodness to us in giving us such a lamp and light when we make it a guide to our feet, our path.

With his word he spoke the universe into existence how much more do we need to listen to him. 

Matthew 4:4 Jesus answered them, " Man does not live alone on bread but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,"

You see it is the utmost importance in this day and age that we need to listen to the Lord for his direction in our lives. We all have the ability to hear him but many of us lack the will to even try, they get frustrated or walk away from it. God wants to communicate with us more than we will every know, its not just randomly flipping open to a verse but God wants to speak to us. Where you ask in our minds, he speaks to us, it truly is a small still voice but as we gain to learn and hear more that voice becomes even more recognizable. 

Begin to pull yourself away from the world and go and lay down listen for a reply to your prayers like Habukkak 2:1. He waited for the reply of the Lord. He wants to speak to us to our inner most being but it requires us to push away to a place where we can receive and start to grow. 

Push aside our own desires and lets be fulfilled by the word of the Lord. He has many great things for those who are willing to push things that don't matter aside.