Hearing from the Lord: Your Pathway to Hearing and Obeying the Lord

By Kate I. Igwe

Many Christians believe that the Lord does not speak to them. Many Christians walk and work are in jeopardy today due to believers inability to hear from the Lord. The faith of many has been shipwrecked, a lot have been duped by disguised agents of the devil, couples have chosen wrong partners in marriage, and lifetime decisions that ended in painful regrets have occurred because people could not hear correctly from the Lord. To many, believers and unbelievers alike, hearing from the Lord is a mystery. They believe that God speaks to only a selected few, to their exclusion. Hearing from the Lord is your guide to effective hearing from God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Feb 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493141005

Kate I. Igwe

Kate I. Igwe is married to Igwe C. Igwe, a legal practitioner. Their marriage is blessed with Emmanuel and Samuel. She is the author of Holy Spirit, The Believer’s Victory and Following Jesus Christ and is a member and leader in Catholic Charismatic Renewal of Nigeria. She is a disciple of the Holy Spirit and is committed to guiding people to follow Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit’s discipleship. She is the founder and coordinator of Right Value International Organization (RVIO), a socio-religious nonprofit organization that reaches out to youths in their schools and neighbourhoods, promoting right values. She is an advocate of personal and national transformation.

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Copyright © 2014 by Kate I. Igwe.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4931-4099-2

                 Ebook           978-1-4931-4100-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Rev. date: 02/11/2014

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CONTENTS

1.   Hearing from the Lord

2.   Sitting at the Feet of the Lord

3.   Guide to Hearing from the Lord

4.   Renewing of the Mind and Hearing from the Lord

5.   Ways to Hear from the Lord

6.   Hearing and Obeying the Lord: The Need of the Hour

7.   Fear of the Lord and Hearing from the Lord

8.   Christian Character

9.   The Role of the Holy Spirit in Developing Christian Character

10.   Christian Character: The Criteria for Blessedness

Welcome to a sweet new walk with Jesus Christ

To Bro. Wilfred Ugwuonu and Mr. Obed N. Etobe and to all who are committed to hearing and obeying the Lord

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I cannot stop thanking You, the Holy Spirit, my best friend, strengthener, standby, teacher, helper, intercessor, counselor, senior partner, and my all in all, for who You are to me and for Your ministry in me.

To Chuka, my sweet husband, Bro. Chuks Okezie and Sis. Oby Obi, my elder brother and sister in the Lord, I say many thanks for assisting in reducing the human errors in this work. May the Lord bless you really well.

To Pastor Ogbonna Kalu, Mr. Uzor Kalu, Ms. Irene Navarro and Ms. Mary Lopez for going extra miles to ensure that this book is published.

To Mr. Emeka Nwabueze, Rev. Oyidiya Alfred, Dr. David Ogbueli and all the Lord has used to impacted on me in one way or the other. May the Lord uphold you all in His will.

INTRODUCTION

Hearing from the Lord is not as mysterious as some people think. The Lord does speak to His children just like the earthly father does to his children. Many believers are of the opinion that the Lord does not speak to them. They believe that He speaks only to the super believers. This erroneous belief has caused many believers to resign themselves to hearing from the Lord from others. People have been deceived and swindled of their hard-earned resources by agents of darkness who masquerade as agents of light. Many have ended up being initiated into a demonic cult by those who purport to hear from the Lord on their behalf.

Many ministries have hit the rock or are on the verge of collapsing because ministers did not hear correctly from the Lord before setting out. Males and females who are not meant to be together in marriage have been joined in matrimony because they failed to hear correctly from the Lord. These days, many believers run from pillar to post in search of the Lord’s voice about issues in their lives. Some have visited unimaginable places and done unbelievable things because they want to hear from the Lord! Some have been brainwashed to believe that the Lord spoke only in the Bible days and does not speak in our own time.

The truth, however, remains that from the time of Adam and Eve till now, the Lord has continued to speak to His children. He speaks to you, and when He speaks, He speaks on purpose. He does not speak for the sake of speaking. He speaks because He has a purpose; He wants to communicate what He has in mind to His children. He speaks because He wants to communicate His will to His children. The Lord wants His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. He speaks to you because He wants His will to be done in your life. The Lord speaks because He wants His work to be done!

Prayer is communication with the Lord. God does have His answers to the prayers of His children. Feedback is an integral part of effective communication and hearing from the Lord is feedback to prayer. How then will the feedback become beneficial if His children cannot hear from Him or recognize His voice? Each time we say the Lord’s Prayer, we ask that the will of the Lord be done on earth as it is in heaven. The earth is an extension of the Lord’s kingdom, but the will and work of the Lord get frustrated if He speaks and His children and ministers do not hear or understand what they heard! The will of the Lord will be done on earth as it is in heaven if the Lord speaks, His children understand and obey! Hearing from the Lord is useless and may pose danger if you hear from the Lord and fail to obey Him. Hearing from the Lord and failing to obey His voice amounts to rebellion. The Lord frowns at the rebellious!

Hearing from the Lord is your effective guide to hearing from the Lord correctly, knowing the Holy Spirit and enjoying His ministry, obeying the Lord and developing reverent fear for Him, developing Christian character and becoming like Jesus Christ. This book is a closed door to the exploitative, deceitful, and destructive manipulation of disguised agents of darkness in Christendom. This book is written for a time like this! A time when multitudes of believers call on, follow, and fill the house of the Lord, whom they neither can hear from nor can recognize His voice!

Hearing from the Lord is critical in the present day Christendom; it is indeed the need of the hour as we are in the era of the fulfillment of God’s words: Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’ (Isaiah 30:21). It is a time that the Lord says, As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him (1 John 2:27) and a time when the Lord says, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, nor a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,’ declares the Lord (Jeremiah 31:31–34).

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CHAPTER 1

Hearing from the Lord

Text: John 10:1–21

Chapter Objectives

This discourse is aimed at achieving the following:

• Learning to hear from the Lord

• Knowing different ways to hear from the Lord

• Comprehending the criteria necessary in hearing from the Lord

• Understanding and avoiding obstacles that hinder hearing from the Lord

• Developing the ability to hear from the Lord.

Chapter 1

Hearing from the Lord

Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve—designating them apostles—that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. (Mark 3:13–15)

The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice. (John 10:2–5)

The Lord’s purpose for creating man is love, companionship, and fellowship. His purpose is intimacy and relationship, not merely for tending the earth. The Lord God was never in need of gardeners, but sons and daughters. He created man in His own image and after His likeness. The Lord replicated Himself in man; He gave man the ability to increase and multiply and exercise dominion—see Genesis 1:26–30. That man God created in His own image and likeness and gave power to live in dominion is you. You are the object of God’s love! He loved you from the beginning of the world and has blessed you exceedingly:

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.

And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of