So today Lord, would You make Your Name known. Would You make Your glory known in Your people. Would You make Your glory known through Your Word. Father, may You be known not only in our hearts, but may You make Your Name known in our community, in this place, and in this nation. We thank You Father. Bless Your Word and bless this time, in Jesus’ Name, Amen! Thank You God! And God is so awesome, right? How He pours out His presence on His people.

And today I’d like to talk about the voice of God, the voice of the Lord. We read all about it in the Scriptures, we hear about people who say, ‘You know, I heard His voice.’ We hear messages after messages about His voice guiding and touching His people. And you know in the world, we know that there are all sorts of voices - and all these voices are fighting for what? For our attention - and what are some of those voices? Many of us know that sometimes those voices are the voices of our friends that are saying, ‘come follow me,’ and sometimes are even calling us what? To follow them into trouble - we know it sometimes right away. What other voices are there? Sometimes there's that voice of deceit: it's a voice that says, ‘listen, you got to make money; you've got to get out there; you got to work extra hours; you’ve gotta put it all aside - forget God, forget staying in church - you’ve got to get this money; you've got to store it up for yourself, and that's what life is all about.’ You may even hear the voice of temptation that says, ‘listen, you’re young, your life is not over - party it all away; go do what you got to do, live no regrets just go.’

And we can go on and on right about the many different voices that pull for our attention, but the whole point is this: is that following these voices that fight for our attention, when we go after them, when we are for them, in the end it's all the same: it's a very sorrowful end for those who follow it. And we find ourselves, for example, maybe abandoned by those very friends that called us to follow them. All the money that we earned and all the money that we stored up was great, but it didn't keep our families together. And you know, all these voices sadly in the end lead us away from God, which is worst of all. But then Hallelujah! We have the voice of God! He is the voice that will speak into your heart that will guide you into safety. Sometimes God with His voice may even be whispering to you - He may be whispering in your heart even now saying, ‘Come, I am life - come to Me and follow Me.’ You see, God's voice is the voice that will lead you to Himself. He will give you power with His voice: power for you to know who He is, and power to make His Name known! Amen!

Now some of you might be wondering today, saying “who hears this voice? Is it a special person? Is it everybody, is it just a select few?” Well what does the Word of God say? It says in Proverbs 8:4 “to you, O people, I call out. I raise my voice to all mankind.” You see, God is speaking to all of mankind, and to those who listen and follow Him, they are blessed. They are blessed to be kept safe despite all the other voices that are fighting for us to follow them. Blessed being able to be kept by God, being able to come close to God, and to live as God meant for man to live - in fellowship with Him. In fellowship, following His voice, not just waiting for Heaven to walk with Him, but walking with Him even now in full joyfulness. You see, it's not about empty religion, but it's about a relationship with God - God who has created man for Himself. Will you hear the voice of the Lord today? Will you receive His voice and will you follow and be blessed? Blessed to come to know Him, blessed to follow Him, and blessed to do the work of His Kingdom.

Now we know that God is speaking today - but not everyone chooses to listen. There are some that decide, ‘hey it's better to ignore this voice.’ some may even decide it's better to just ignore it, and the result of it all is a hardness of heart and mind toward the Lord and His voice - and the Bible makes clear that those who walk away from this voice are destined to perish. But there are some, hallelujah today, and there might be somebody here that says, ‘I'm gonna follow that voice; Father, I hear You speaking and I set my heart to hear and acknowledge what You are saying and what You are doing.’ In turn for the man or woman, for the child that says, ‘I'm gonna follow You Lord, I’m gonna follow that voice,’ God blesses them! He pours out His Spirit and they are blessed with God, they are blessed with life, and they are blessed to live and to walk in the power of the Almighty God. This is the Gospel that the Lord Jesus Christ, the day that He rose out of the grave and He burst through that ground, He also made a way that those who would call upon Him and believe in Him would also rise from the grave; rise from any other voice that calls us, and rise to live according to the voice of God and the voice that brings us into His glory. You see, apart from Christ, man is empty. Man is full of only self and a lust for this world, for money, things, and deadened in sin. But hallelujah! When man hears the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ and rises up, he is empowered, he is brought to life and he's able to live for Him, by Him and through the power of the Lord Jesus in the power of His resurrection. God desires that we would know Him this day. He desires that His people would have His mind and have His heart and truly walk so that not only would we know Him, but also hallelujah, make His name known! Is anybody hearing the voice of the Lord today? Is anybody ready to follow and seek His face?

So what happens when we decide to follow the voice of the Lord? And I want to share with you a few things that begin to happen. When you follow the voice of the Lord, the first thing that happens is you receive power to do His will. We’re gonna look at Proverbs 8:34 and it says: “Blessed are those who listen to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway.” This scripture is very simple: it's speaking about those who daily pursue God's voice and His direction. They are blessed; and what is that blessing? See the blessing is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God who gives us power from on high. The apostle Paul called this the blessings of the Holy Spirit and by this great blessing, we can do the will of God. Now we can say, ‘what is the will of God?’ It's very important for us to understand that. The will of God is very simple: that He would be made known; He would be made known in the heavens and be made known on the earth. He said to his people Israel, “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one God.” In other words, amongst all the other voices that you may hear in this world, there is only one voice that you must hear. Hear the voice of the Lord: “I am the Lord God, I am the one true King, I am the one true God that rules and reigns over all. Hear, O Israel!”

So God wants His people to hear Him, and so that as we hear him, we can follow Him and we can be those who He displays His power through. This is the call for the church, this is the call for the people of God. He wants to reveal Himself through each person that chooses to follow His voice and to do and to go where He calls them to go. And so as we follow the voice of the Lord, we receive power - and that power is the working of His spirit in our lives. You see, if we’re gonna do the will of God, God knows very clear that we’re going to need help. As a matter of fact, we’re going to need a lot of it, right? And if we hear God, for example, say, “you know what, remain in Me.” And God says, “remain in Me,” you hear His voice and you feel weak, you feel like you don't have the power, you may be in the midst of a trial that seems impossible - but as you hear His voice and you remain, all of a sudden the power of the Spirit of God will come in the midst of a trial, he will push you, you will feel something say, ‘I'm gonna keep going, I’m gonna remain, I cannot stop because it is His power that is working in me, His power that is working in you.’ Will you follow His voice? God may say to you, ‘listen, give Me your children; let Me have them, let Me raise them within My house,’ and you say, ‘Father, I hear Your voice; take them, here they are, teach me, instruct me.’ And all of a sudden, God begins to empower you to instruct your children in the right way to be servants in the house of the Lord. And all along the way through every situation or circumstance, you’re learning and you’re getting to know God is the One who gives you wisdom just when you need it; you’re learning that He is God who knows how to parent; you’re learning that he is God that will give you power to set the standard even in your own home. You see, with God the impossible is possible, and as we follow His voice, He empowers us to do His will and to testify to the God of all glory and all power that in which nobody compares, Amen!

I want you to think of Moses with me for a moment. Moses we know he was 40 years in Egypt and he was under Pharoah, but then he left as he was into a lot of trouble and turmoil - so he winds up in the desert for how long? Another forty years. And you know, Moses knew in his heart that God had planned something special for him; that God had a special will that He wanted to accomplish through Moses. But Moses had waited in that desert. He waited for 40 years until that day, hallelujah, he walked and he saw a bush that was burning, and all of a sudden he heard the voice of the Lord begin to say, “Moses, I'm calling you to Myself, come, you stand on holy ground.” And as he heard the voice - that poor shepherd, that man in the desert that was broken - was now empowered to not only be delivered, but to deliver an entire nation for the glory of God! Just like Moses, maybe some of you are in the desert today. Just like Moses, some of you may feel as though you've been awaiting your destiny. Well today is your day, hallelujah! Hear ye the Word of the Lord, Moses, hear the Word of the Lord calling you to come and to follow Him. And He says that if you follow Me, if you allow Me to do my working, if you allow Me to display My power, I will go before you, I will be before you, and I will walk with you wherever you go. Hallelujah!

See to follow and obey the voice of the Lord is such a blessing. It is truly a blessing to fulfill what God is calling us to do. You see, to fulfill God's will requires obedience. And there’s only one reason that God will empower a man or woman - and that is to obey Him, to fulfill His commands - there's no other reason. But what a blessing that is to obey! Now we know, the Word of the Lord makes very clear that those who disobey God, who walk away from His voice and decide to not follow Him and do their own will, that they end in great punishment before the Lord because they are not blessed. Those who walk away from His voice, those who do not follow are not blessed but cursed. Everything that they have is cursed: you may have lots of money, you may have lots of things, you may seem to have it all going for you, but it is all cursed because it simply serves to pull you away, further and further away from the Lord our God. And none of it can save us. None of it can save us from the day that we will one day, all of us, stand before judgment in God. But I've got good news today, that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is also speaking by His Son, that those who hear His voice, those who turn to the Lord Jesus and believe on Him are not only saved from hell, but saved from a life of disobedience, saved from a life of rebellion, and brought into the will into the power and the glory of God!

God rewards those who are watching and waiting for His command. For those whose heart is set upon His voice. You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock; the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. It says you will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. And you want to know the greatest part of it all is that you get to come to know God. You see, the blessing is not the promotion - the promotion is great and we benefit from it, but that's not fully the work of the Holy Spirit. It’s great when God keeps us out of trouble - and some of the young guys and young women say, ‘yes praise the Lord’ - it's great when God keeps us out of trouble and it benefits us, but that is not the full purpose of the Holy Spirit. It’s that you and I would be blessed to come to know the one true God. To know the Lord Jesus Christ is the reward. This is how you know you heard the word of the Lord, this is how you know you've truly been empowered: when you follow His voice, your goal and your one purpose now becomes about knowing God and making Him known. And this is the will of the Father, that we would make Him known, that we would come to know Him.

And in the power that He gives, the power that He pours out on those who follow His voice - this power is an empowerment for the impossible. What is the impossible? We know that according to the Scriptures that when it comes to obeying God, man has a very very big problem. You see, man has been subdued by sin. Man is incapable of following the Lord. The Word describes the human heart as very rebellious against anything that has to do with God. We are prone to wander away from His voice, prone to fall into sin; we are enslaved by the carnality of flesh, unable to serve God, only serving self. This leaves it impossible - literally - for man to follow God. But praise the Lord today! You see, when your heart is set on following that voice, you receive power to do that which is impossible. See, when the Spirit of God is poured out, the impossible begins to happen. The man that was incapable of ever loving anything but himself all of a sudden is loving his God, all of a sudden is loving the people of the Lord, and falling in love with His voice that has completely changed his life. The one that has been enslaved to their flesh and cannot overcome, can now overcome, because hallelujah, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom! Where the Spirit of the Lord is, the impossible is done!

You may be deaf today in the Spirit, not able to hear. Turn to the Lord, and the deaf shall hear. You may be blinded, you may have been blinded all of your life; God says, ‘I will open your eyes, come, and wait at My doors and hear My voice.’ Today, many believe within churches that it's impossible to get the youth excited and into the Lord. And many believe that the world is just too powerful, way too enticing, we have no competition, we can't do it. Therefore, programs are created; methods are brought up, and we try everything to get teenagers and young adults to come into the church. But I've got a message today: that when you follow the voice of the Lord, something incredible happens. When you hear His voice and you beckon, you are empowered, and you’re empowered to do something incredible: to be filled with the Spirit! And I tell you one thing, we don't need methods, we don't need programs, we need the Spirit of the Lord, because when the Spirit of the Lord comes, people are set free!

Young men and young women, young adults will be drawn by the power of the glory of the Word of the Lord. Praise the Lord, that in His power it is always brought back to Him. You see, as we receive God's power and follow His voice all that was meant for God is brought back to Him in our life. It's not, ‘God, let me hear today so that I can be blessed and be okay and keep it for myself.’ It's about hearing the voice of God and bringing that blessing back to Him over and over. You see, true power of God and the true Spirit working in our life is always bringing it back to God. We know we're in the Lord and He’s working because we just gotta say, ‘God, we got to give back to You, You've got to be glorified.’ You see, many asked God for healing; many asked God for help with the family or for that thing that they may need, but sadly when many receive that healing or get what they were after, they move on without God. What was the motive, what is our motive? Who will bring it back? But hallelujah, praise the Lord, true power, real power is when you follow the voice of the Lord. The Spirit of God will satisfy you in a way that your sole purpose, your sole meaning of life is only found in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's got to be back to Him, it's got to be back because it's not about the blessing, it's about the Blesser. It’s about the one who blesses - His name is Jesus. Do you hear His voice today? Will you follow the call? Will you allow God to empower you to do one thing, to do his will?

Secondly, when you follow His voice, you receive His mind. Let's look at 1 Corinthians chapter 2, 15 through 16, and if you can't turn there quickly that’s fine, we’ll have all the verses up here. It says, “The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” And I love this Scripture, because as we hear we follow the voice of the Lord, He pours out His Spirit and we receive what? The mind of Christ. Now in order to understand this, we have to understand the mind of man. You see, every man and woman knows right from wrong. There's no such thing as ‘I don't know,’ because every person hears. But here's the difference: every man also chooses whether they're gonna follow the voice of God or not. When you follow His voice you do right and you follow what is right. You know, the day that we truly choose to follow this voice and we truly choose to follow God, the Gospel is able to penetrate our darkened minds, and able to bring about glory, because He pours out His Spirit in order to get to know Him; to know what is right and to have His mind right? To no longer think in the flesh. What a great promise of God, to be filled with the Spirit in our mind, and ultimately it's to know the Lord: to know the way that He does things, to know the way that He thinks.

And you know the difference of a person that has the mind of Christ. I was reminded this morning of speaking to the kids the other day, and I asked the young kids, I said, “hey, do you know anybody that you talk to him, and every time they talk about the Lord, it's like they know Him like they've been conversing with Him? it's not just some, you know, wide answer but just a true heartfelt thing.” You know, one of the young kids raises their hand, they go, “yeah, I know somebody,” and they go, “Pastor Janeth!” And I started laughing, because we all know that's so true, right, just such a deep mind of Christ. And then some of the other kids began to raise their hands, one said, “my grandmother, she just talks about the Lord that like she literally knows Him,” and another kid raised her hand and said, “my grandmother too.” And you know I want to say today, grandfathers and fathers and brothers, we got to pick up the pace, because it seems as though the grandmothers are taking over, right? And we want to have the mind of the Lord.

But it truly is powerful - it’s such a different mindset and such a different way to carry out our lives. And back to that voice, we know normally, right, that many hear the voice but they choose not to listen. You see, when you choose not to heed to the voice of the Lord, when somebody chooses not to, that is when our mind becomes hardened toward the Lord. You eventually continue to go down the wrong path away from God, pushing Him away. And what is the result? It is the result of the depraved mind - a depravity of mind where you cannot get to know God - you actually become your own god and everything that you know about God has nothing to do with the truth of really who He is. Therefore, God becomes the God that you create in your own mind, your own image of God, that is totally far away from who He is. And in the end we come before the light of Christ, and He shines in our minds, and we find that sadly we have not lived in His Spirit. But praise the Lord, in His Spirit - when you have the Spirit of God, you have God. You see, His Spirit is He Himself. When you have the Spirit of the Lord, you have the mind of Christ. You do know Him, not in an empty headed knowledge; you know God in a way that Paul came to cry - he says, “I want to know you; for this end I lived to know Your thoughts, to know Your ways oh God. This is why I'm here, this is my purpose, to know the one true God, the Lord Jesus, and to know Him and to make Him known.”

"When we have the mind of Christ, it compels us to move and to act for God..."

When we have the mind of Christ, it compels us to move and to act for God; to move and to act justly and to move and to live in His Word. This is why He urges His people to renew our minds. He says, “be ye renewed in your mind; let Christ, let the Lord Jesus come into your mind. Hear My Word, follow.” And every time you follow, there's gonna be a bit more Christ just coming in, more and more and more. Hearing His voice is good health to our mind. In this day and age, we realize that there is such a high rate of mental sickness increasing day by day. But I want to say that the Lord God Almighty is also doing a work in His people, in His church. Hear church today, that God is making minds whole; He is pouring out the mind of His Spirit; He is pouring out the mind of Christ to those who would beckon and hear His call and set their heart upon His voice. Maybe somebody here today, maybe your mind is held captive in oppression, maybe your mind is held captive in depression, or in fear or hopelessness, or even perversion - then turn to the Lord Jesus Christ this day. Hear His voice, and as you follow, receive the mind of the Lord Jesus. See, when you got the mind of Christ, all darkness is broken. Greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world. Greater is the One who lives in my mind than he who is in the mind of the world. When you follow the voice of the Lord, you will overcome no matter what it be, no matter what obstacle, God will give you the direction. God will give you the power; He will give you the mind of the Almighty Christ.

Paul received the mind of Christ - we know the apostle Paul was a man that was used greatly by God but he lived in the power of the Resurrection. You see Paul, he began as a man that was captive in his mind. You know, we know that he was truly zealous for God, but he was misdirected. In his mind, he believed that he needed to persecute the Christians, that he needed to put an end to this move and to their practices, because his mind was yet darkened. But we know the story, right? On that road to Damascus, the Lord Jesus Christ showed up in all of His splendor and all His power, and He began to speak His voice unto Paul. What did Paul do? Paul didn’t stop and say, “I wonder if this is the voice I should go for?” Paul didn't try and figure it out and say, “God, you know You’re kind of changing my life direction here.” Paul stopped and he said. “I will follow you Lord, I will follow Your voice.” And he decided that this was going to be everything for his life, and because he obeyed that voice, he was now given a new mind. Because he obeyed and followed, there was a spiritual deliverance of what? His mind. In the story, the scales had fallen off his eyes so now Paul would be able to understand and perceive God. Now Paul would be transformed in his mind, and all that lie ahead of him, all that would matter for him, he would now be the Paul that said, “Father I live to know You.” And the Paul that once persecuted the people of God now fell in love not only with the Father, but fell in love with the very church that he was trying to destroy.

And that is what the mind of Christ does! It empowers us to do just that - like Paul - maybe some of you have good intentions, but are misdirected. Will you allow the Lord Jesus to come into your mind and to renew your mind? Will you allow God to speak into your heart, into your life and cause you to think, to see, and to understand as He does? You see, the mind of Christ, as the Spirit comes in, all the lies are beginning to filter out; all that was dark God begins to renew; He begins to make new; all the things that we were misdirected, all the things that we thought were right that were really wrong, God begins to make new. You see, a common lie today that has covered many minds in our community, in our nation and Christianity today is that all you have to do is say ‘I believe’ and all will be well. And it is true that belief is an entrance into the Kingdom of God, but God never meant for us to just stop at the door. He never meant for us to just answer the call and never grow. God had called us, yes to believe and to enter in, but begin to come to know Him, to be renewed in our minds and truly come to know this great God, this great Savior that bled and gave His life for us.

We can believe God for many things. We can believe God to be good, we can believe God to be our provider and our deliverer - but not everybody comes to know God - to know Him where because you've been following His voice, because He's now filled your mind with His thoughts with His spirit and His desires, you know who He is, and that knowledge grows more and more and more. I've heard that it's been said - it's like a paradox that as you begin to receive the mind of the Lord, you’re feeling so fulfilled you’re so fulfilled here, but at the same time you just need more. And the more you get, the more you want, and it's a never ending flow that begins to move by the Spirit. The Word of the Lord says that, “In that day, they will no longer have to teach one another, saying ‘know the Lord’, they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest.” Church, these are those days. These are the days, no longer to walk in religion, no longer to walk away from the voice, these are the days that we should beckon to the call of the Gospel; to hear ye the voice of the Lord, to turn from our wickedness, to turn from every other voice, to turn from our own voice and to turn to the one true God. Thank you Lord!

Today God can filter out every lie in our lives as we follow His voice and receive the mind of Christ. All the wrong doing, all the lies begin to break. All that has held us back from walking in His righteousness, from walking down the path that He has laid before us, and worst of all what has held us back from knowing God, He says today you shall know Me! What a blessing! What a wonderful thing that we would know God in Heaven and see Him for who He truly is! There is hope today! There is hope today that we don't have to be in the depravity of our minds. There is hope today that our children do not have to anymore reap the darkness of our own following away from God, but there is hope that we can not only for ourselves come to know the mind of Christ, but that we would leave a legacy, that we would leave children that would know His voice, that we would leave behind a generation that live and breathe and think the mind of Christ and live out His power and make Him known. When we follow his voice, He pours out the mind of Christ.

Lastly, when you follow His voice, you receive His heart. We’re gonna look at Ezekiel 11:19, it says, “and I will give them one heart and a new Spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.” And we’re very familiar with this Scripture, and it’s so, you know, hopeful, and it gives us such a hope of victory. And what this Scripture is really talking about is receiving a new heart - but it's not just any heart; it’s receiving the very heart of Jesus toward His Father. That's how you know you've received it, when you become about the heart of God. Jesus' heart was for His Father, and the Father's heart was for His Son. He loved His Father, and everything that He did was motivated by His love and His concern for God. He prayed because He desired His Father's will. He healed people because He cared for His Father's house, and He traveled and moved from place to place because His heart was purposed to do the Father's work. And this is so awesome, because Jesus also gives that heart to those who follow Him: it says that “I will give them one heart.” Think about that with me for a minute: He didn't say many hearts, He said one heart. What is that one heart? That one heart that God gives today is the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ that will always beat for the Father. You see, the church is united by one heart; believers are united by one heart; our families are united by one heart. The Christian is about one heart - it is the heart of God beating as one beat, as an army for God, as a nation, as a people set apart to beat for His glory!

And this promise is for the Christian - the one who's heard His voice and followed because they've moved with God, and His Spirit has done such a work in them. That old stony heart is now gone and replaced with a heart that beats for the Lord. See, we love to sing, we love to worship, but it's never about the music. Deep inside it's about the heartbeat of God. Is your heart leaping for God today? Have you received the new heart that beats to a new song of Heaven, that even if the drums were to stop, even if the guitar were to cease, even if all the music were to cease, there's a song that doesn't stop ringing out, “praise the Lord, He is worthy to be praised! He is King of all!” That's why to turn from such a voice is to harden our hearts. He says, “today don't harden your hearts as the Israelites had done in the wilderness.” Don't ignore the voice today, yet man and his stubbornness will deny it and turn away. But God is calling us back to Himself today. God is calling us back to the voice, back to where we may have left Him, back to coming into the true heart that God desires for His people.

And we think about the heart condition of man. The Bible's description is found in Jeremiah 17:9. This is the description of man's heart: “the heart is deceitful above all things and is desperately sick. Who can understand it?” You see, man's heart is so sick with sin. It's cold, and it's like stone toward God. It’s stony whether it's from our prideful thinking going, ‘God you know what, I don't need to follow you fully I've got this, I can do it.’ Or maybe it’s stony and hardened from hardships that we face, whatever it may be, whatever voices we have followed. We understand the condition of man's heart that it needs to be renewed and changed. But what's even worse is the heart that hears the voice of the Lord, but out right denies it and says, ‘no, I will not follow.’ And this makes our heart impenetrable; hard, where you're unable to love, unable to connect, unable to know God. Paul describes the stony hearts of the end times - he says that, “a time will come where the love of many will grow cold. There will no longer be love, there would be a great love for self and for money, and there will be a hatred toward all that is good.” Left hopeless, but there is hope today.

Church of God, there is hope in the Word of the Lord! Hear His voice today! If you hear His voice, do not turn, don't deny, but come to Him and He will break the hardened heart, He will soften that stone, and he will bring you back to God. See God is the Spirit of reconciliation, and He will bring us back to loving Him. In our hardness, in our depravity, we must come to repentance so that God can unharden, so that he can reconcile us back to Him; to return to the One that we've abandoned. And you know, we can repent as the Spirit of God even now begins to lead us from God and from turning away from Him, from pushing away His voice and following our own leading. This requires the Spirit of God. You see, if the Spirit of the Lord is in us; if we’re hearing His voice and following, He is the Spirit that leads us to the Father. He is the Spirit of reconciliation. He is perfect at softening the heart. He can penetrate even the hardest of hearts; he can penetrate even the most stubborn when you follow the voice of the Almighty God. To receive the Spirit of the Lord is to receive a new heart. And it's a heart that doesn't ask God and say, ‘God, let me hear you so that I can improve myself.’ It's not a heart that says, ‘Father, let me pray and may You answer that I can receive whatever it is that I want,’ but it's a heart that says, ‘Father, I've got to come back to You. Have mercy Father. Have mercy, my heart is as stone, my heart is wicked, but I want to hear You once again. I want to follow You God, I've got to come to know You, I got to be in the house of the Lord, I've got to worship You, I've got to praise You, I got to give You glory. I need a new heart God.’

"And what this Scripture is really talking about...it's receiving the very heart of Jesus toward His Father."

It's the heart like David that says, “one thing I ask, one thing I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and His Temple.” This is the prayer of the person who has received the heart of God - there's nothing else to the equation: it's God, more God, and God. Father I want to know You, and your heart is set for Him. You know, I think of our Pastors, how God had done such a work in their lives, and how they carry His heart. How else can a person such as my mother, Pastor Janeth, choose to leave the safety of her home, to leave the comfort of our culture, and to go to Central America to begin and to continue a church in the midst of the most gang infested areas, where people are murdered and killed every day, where there's drugs and great violence and even going specifically to a landfill, surrounded by garbage and trash and disease yet going to meet with the people that God had sent her to? I'll tell you why she did it: because when you carry and you receive the heart of God, you'll go anywhere and you'll do anything for Him. I think of my parents: how could two people be at the top of their jobs, you know, supervisors, directors, and leave it all to go begin a church in the darkest region of America - the Northeast, at times being called the preachers graveyard, the heaviest of our nation - this is one of the darkest places to live, and to be, and to begin a church. We as a family could've moved to Florida - we’ve talked about this before - we could’ve had it a lot easier, maybe if we started something somewhere else. but see I'll tell you how. See, when you receive the heart of God, it beats for Him, and no matter where you are it's going to beat, you can be in the slums, you can be in the darkness, you can be in the light, but your heart will beat for the Almighty God and do as He calls! How can two people give it all to serve in the Kingdom? I'll tell you how. You see, when you have the heart of Jesus, your life is all about serving Him. You can have a job, you can have school, you can have a lot of things going on, but at the end of the day, your desire is that the altar would be burning with a fragrant worship; that the altar would lit on fire with the desire for Christ; that no matter where you are, no matter what you're doing, it's about Him.

Do you have His heart today? Will you beckon to the voice of God and begin to follow and receive all that He has called us to receive? You see, Christianity was never meant to be about religion; it was never meant to be about just trying to keep out of trouble; it was never meant about trying to always just do the right thing or say the right thing, trying to please God by our own works or capabilities. It's about hearing the voice of the Lord Jesus and setting your heart to trust and to follow. And as you surrender your heart, as you surrender yourself to Him, You receive His heart, and it shows in your life because when you have His heart, that heartbeat will cause you to move. It will beat, maybe to a different drum of the rest of the world, maybe to a different drum of some others, but you will beat to where God is calling you to go. Something in you will urge you to do and to say and to speak as God wills for you to do. This is the life of a Christian: to carry such a blessed treasure that we would live from it, that we would feed from it, Christ Himself, the very heart of the Father. Will you hear the voice of the Lord today? God is calling us back to Himself. He's not calling us back to anything else but to come to know Him.