What We Believe About God Determines How We Hear His Voice
What we believe about God affects everything. If my revelation of Him is that He is not good or that He is not the perfect example of love, I am hindered in my approach to Him and my understanding and interpretation when He speaks. The lenses of our hearts need to be continually cleansed by the Holy Spirit and the revelation of Jesus—the God-Man, the perfect representation of the Father (see John 14:9). It is imperative to be continually growing in the revelation of His nature.It is vital that I understand His heart and know that when I approach Him I will be celebrated and not condemned. I need to know that He doesn’t point out all my flaws, but He calls me higher by calling out how He sees me and my destiny.
Even in the place of conviction, it’s imperative that we see His heart—a good Father who is bringing us to the greater place of walking in the manifestation of the abundant life.
He Changes How You See
In the midst of one of those seasons when the Lord was really challenging my “lenses,” He began to show me just how much my level of revelation of His goodness and kindness affected how I approached Him and how I heard His voice. It affected my level of faith. It determined whether I drew close or pulled away—even what I expected Him to say.
I remember this one occasion when the Lord really taught me, again, that valuable lesson that one word from Him, one vision, one revelation changes everything. I am to live off revelation and not what’s going on around me. On this particular day, I was being bombarded with lies of the enemy. There was such a battle of the mind against my identity. Such accusation coming against me about who I was or mistakes I had made in the past.I was sitting with the Lord and giving Him permission to come in and deal with the root of these lies and mindsets. They were tormenting me, and the enemy was using them as a landing pad to really steal my peace. “Lord, please set me free. Help me. Save me. Free me,” flowed from my heart and out of my mouth. Suddenly, I had this vision, so clearly, right before my eyes.I saw Jesus, my beautiful Jesus, and He was kneeling against what looked like a tree stump—battered, broken, bruised, beaten, bloody. I saw the enemy on one side accusing me, and on the other side I saw a man with a whip. The enemy would look at me and throw his accusation at me. Then Jesus, my beautiful Jesus, would receive a lashing of the whip across His back. He would cry out and then decree the truth about who I was.For every accusation of the enemy against me, Jesus took it upon Himself and decreed truth over me—the truth of who I was in Him. I watched as this went on, over and over and over again. His blood, His precious blood was being shed for me as He declared truth over me.
Followed closely by that vision, I had another vision where He showed me accusations and lies that others and the enemy had spoken over my life. These were the lies I had believed—line after line after line of lies about who I was and His goodness.
I saw His blood spill over those pages. All those lies I believed about Him and His nature, all the lies I believed about me and who I am were covered, completely covered in His blood. In the middle of the pages a beautiful rose appeared, and He whispered to me, “You are the rose of My heart. I am rewriting the story!”
Over the next few months, His voice rebuilt my heart. Over the next few months, His truth rebuilt my story. His goodness and love healed the broken places and began to show me more of His unconditional love and His kindness toward me. This brought me to a whole new level of His delight in me, not because of what I do but because I am His.His voice exposed the foxes in my life, and we removed them together. His voice exposes the lies of the enemy. His voice empowers and invites us to come up higher. His voice heals, awakens, restores, refreshes, and redeems.
Rooted in Love
“As your roots go down deep into My love, then your decree will be Ephesians 3:20.” For years I have been decreeing and prophesying the beautiful promise of Ephesians 3:20:
Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you.I love that verse! Don’t you?
I remember a beautiful vision I had where the Lord took me into a “blueprints and planning room” in heaven and He was unravelling scrolls. The plans that He had for His people were written on these scrolls. I looked at these scrolls and noticed at the bottom were the “greatest dreams and desires” of His people. I remember wondering why they were at the bottom, and the Lord knew my thoughts. He looked at me and smiled and said, “Your greatest request, that’s where I begin.” I was blown away!
The point wasn’t that He would fulfill everything I asked for. I have certainly asked for things in my life that, if He had of given them to me at the time, it wouldn’t have worked out well. He knows perfectly what to give me and especially when. The point was that His plans are so much bigger than I can imagine. What I can “dream up” is often so small compared to what He has planned. He wanted to show me just what a wonderful, big, amazing God He is and His extravagant goodness in the plans He has for our lives (see Jer. 29:11).
At times, as I have slept in the night, I have heard the Lord speaking in my dreams over and over all night long saying, “I really am the God of Ephesians 3:20. I really am the God of Ephesians 3:20.”He really is the God of Ephesians 3:20!So for years I have been decreeing that verse over my own life and prophesying it for myself and others, and then the Lord said to me one day out of the blue, “Look at the verses before that, Lana.”
So off I go, back to verses 17-19:
Then, by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you, and the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life Then you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences—the great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions. How deeply intimate and far-reaching is his love! How enduring and inclusive it is! Endless love beyond measurement that transcends our understanding—this extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God!
Then it goes on to verse 20 that we looked at: “Never doubt God’s mighty power.” So by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you.So we use our faith, we believe what He says, we trust in His Word, we align with His truth, we renew our mind—then we see His life released deeper inside us. And the resting place of His love will become the very source and root of our life, providing us with a secure foundation that grows and grows.
Love Changes Everything
Anything else that is our source or root is removed as we come into a deeper place of rest in His love. Our foundation becomes more and more secure. We grow in Jesus as our source, our life, our root system. We see our strength increased in our life in Him, and we are empowered to see what? His love!
We move deeper into a place of the revelation of His love. We see His unconditional love for us, not based upon works but based upon whose we are. Out of the place where I am “in over my head” in the most glorious way, seeing His love in a way that I cannot even comprehend because it is so huge and magnificent, I am undone by this revelation that He loves me. Out of that place, the decree of faith bubbles up inside me: “Now to Him who is able to do….”“Never doubt God’s mighty power at work in you to accomplish all of this.”
In seeing His love, my lenses get cleaned. My faith increases. The foxes are removed from my life as I partner with Him. Everything changes in the revelation of His love. In the revelation of seeing that He is love and He is perfect love, I then believe that He accomplishes by His mighty power greater things than I could ever imagine in my life and through my life. I move from the place of being bound in lies of who He is and my identity in Him, to awake in His love, and I decree with faith and belief:
“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love hi (1 Corinthians 2:9 NIV).
I move into a greater place of freedom to dream big, to enlarge my faith, to raise my hopes.