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The Wake-Up Call
Hearing God's Voice, Part 4: The Heart Is the Start
00:23:26
In this episode, Dan Wilt explores the theme of hearing God's voice and the role of the Holy Spirit in everyday life. He emphasizes that Jesus' ministry is meant to be continued through His church, encouraging believers to embody love and move in the world with the gifts of the Spirit. Dan discusses the importance of spiritual gifts and how they are intertwined with the fruits of the Spirit, all wrapped in love. He highlights that true transformation comes from within, urging listeners to live out their faith by being apprentices of Jesus, learning to hear His voice, and acting in love and humility. Dan also reflects on the challenges of discerning God's voice amidst the noise of life. He shares personal insights on how to cultivate a sensitive heart to God's whispers, emphasizing the need for emotional and spiritual maturity. By living a life of purity, humility, and love, believers can better discern God's guidance. Dan encourages listeners to engage in practices like confession ...
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Sower Nation Today is Saturday, June 27th in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm Dan Wilt and this is your wake up call. We continue our journey in all the things everyday ministry in the power of the Spirit as expectant people. People of Pentecost, where the Spirit was poured out and the church was born, began to move in the world and Jesus purpose began to be fulfilled through his church. His intent was never to do all the ministry and then for us to talk about it for the few millennia that followed. His intent was to do his ministry through his church, his ecclesia, the fellowship of the the saints. His intent is for you and I, filled with the Holy Spirit, to move in the world doing what he does with him with the diversity of our gifts, our uniquenesses, our natural gifts, our acquired gifts as we've talked about from the book Convergence, our spiritual gifts. He's using all of it together to advance his kingdom. And what is that kingdom? It's a kingdom of the heart. It's a kingdom that transforms someone from the inside out. And it's in our day today, on this Saturday, in all of eternity. The politicians won't be doing this, the celebrities won't be doing this, Wall street won't be doing this, national entities won't be doing this. Everyone around us who's not walking with Jesus, they're not going to be doing this with any intent. He intended and intends to move through you and through me, his church in the world. People who embody the way of love, who are learning how to be truly human at the feet of Jesus, who are learning by his spirit to hear his voice and then to be by love, motivated by love, shaped by love, formed by love, moving through love in the world into the lives of others. And he intends to touch people in myriad ways as we live out what it means to be his apprentices, his learners, those who are walking, as we've said, in the dust of our rabbi, we are the story as it goes forward. Jesus is planning, intending to love you today, transform you today, and then through you to love others in his name. We move forward in the gifts of the Spirit that are contextualized in the fruits of the Spirit, all of it wrapped up in love. First Corinthians 13. It's where it all comes back to the greatest and perhaps only power in the universe. And that love is what motivates us and enables us, enables us to be like Jesus, moving in gentleness and humility, moving with compassion in the world, revealing and showing all the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. As we then move in spiritual gifts, hearing God's voice and acting and moving in obedience. So wake up sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Let's pray our prayer of consecration as we begin this Saturday's today's meeting with Jesus. Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you and we're praying in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, today's entry is titled Hearing God's voice, part 4. The heart is the start and and our text for today is from two places, two texts. John 14, 16, 17 and then 1 Corinthians 2, verse 16 Hear the word of the Lord and I will ask the Father and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever. The Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. And then first Corinthians 2:16 for who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ. Consider this. I always struggled to believe that I could hear God's voice. It felt to me like if God was speaking, I needed to have some powerful, extra sensitive antenna to hear Him. But the reality seems to be just the opposite. Jesus is living within me. I am in union with Him. I abide in him and he abides in me. These are the kingdom facts. We are growing in intimacy and closeness and communion together. And that means he is with me at the grocery store. He's with me at the auto repair shop, at the bank, at the place where I get my hair cut. He's with me, with my spouse, with my children, if I have those, with my friends, with co workers, there is no place I am that he is not. If this is the case, then the Scripture is true that says we have the mind of Christ. First Corinthians 2:16 so his voice is coming from the inside, not the outside. Amid the many voices we hear in our heart and mind, the still, small voice of the Spirit is always whispering. So how over time do I begin to discern the voice of my Lord with whom I am in union? From those voices that tell me silly things, unhelpful things, random things, or good things? I believe the Answer lies in the whole life discipleship Witnesses are called to be in the New Testament. Let's turn to James 3, 13, 17 for a moment. Let's hear the word of the Lord who is wise and understanding among you. And I'm going to suggest who is discerning and hearing of God's voice. Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from heaven, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure, then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. In other words, if I want to receive God's wisdom and to hear him speak it into my spirit, and in my spirit I must have a good life going on with, quote, deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. I must be, quote, I must be resisting, quote, bitter envy and quote, selfish ambition, end quote. Not boasting about either or denying the truth of God's word. If I have envy and selfish ambition, my hearing of God's voice will be disordered. Spiritual noise will crowd out my ability to discern his voice in my heart. And that's why saying yes to ongoing transformation, growing in emotional Maturity As Peter Cesaro once said, we can't be spiritually mature and emotionally immature at the same time. We need to, as it said, put in the work. We need to do the work, to get healed up, to grow, to be transformed into the character of Jesus. That's the fruits of the Spirit living his way of life, even not just in our words, but in our actions, in our emotions, in the ways that we move and handle relationships. If, on the other hand, there is purity in my life, I'm living in, in, you know, confessional community with my band and with others. I'm opening myself up. I'm seeking to have my motives shaped by Jesus so that I move with love and elevating others in humility rather than trying to get attention on myself and make this about me. If there's purity, purity in my life and I'm learning to be peace loving, there's the scripture, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere, as the passage says, then I have a greater chance of being wise and understanding and ultimately hearing God's voice. In real time, our life is connected to our listening. Our living is connected to our hearing. Our loving is connected to our hearing and obeying. It all comes together. For the apprentice of Jesus to hear God's voice, our hearts must be right and and kept right through the practices of confession and repentance and faithfulness in public and in private. It all matters. As we learn to listen to Jesus, we minister from the hidden heart within us. So here's our all the things Everyday Ministry in the Power of the Spirit Prayer for Today Lord Jesus, you are always after truth in the inmost parts. I want to be someone who is both wise and understanding. Discerning your voice in the den of life. Teach me to listen well. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. And here are our journal prompts for today. How would you evaluate your ability to hear God's voice? Would you give yourself a 1 out of 10, a 5 out of 10, a 9 out of 10? He says, My sheep know my voice. What would you rate yourself at? And then just present that to the Lord? Why? Why would I put it this way then Journal about how you perceive your level of hearing and what areas of your life According to James 3:13 to 17 might be helping or hindering your ability to hear. It's a great filter and a lens. That passage, James 3:13 17, that we can perceive our hearing through this filter, that is that passage and then our activation for today. Today you are on a mission as am I, to discern God's voice from the others in your mind. So consecrate yourself with our consecration prayer as we did and maybe do it again before you walk out the door today and begin to turn your attention to hearing God speak to you. Throughout the day, act on what he invites you to act on. And as you come to rest at night, reflect on what you heard and then thank that you are one of his sheep and you are learning to hear his voice. So in this process we're in which it really is a process we are developing. It was Paul who said we have to see ourselves as athletes. We are in training. And in that training, hearing God's voice is essential for all followers of Jesus, no matter what our gifts are are One of the greatest joys I've had in my life is being in communities where the mother at home or the mother at work or the dad or the friend or the college student or even the younger person who's in junior high or someone you know who works at the local insurance company that all these people believed that they could hear God's voice. Because we trained people that you can hear God's voice. Let's learn to discern it. Let's learn to move in the way of Jesus. Let's learn to cultivate an inner life that makes us a sensitive radar to what God is whispering in the moment. I love that image that we get from the Scriptures where God is in. He's in the quiet, right? He's in the gentle breeze. He's in those slight movements. And it's like a radar. I'm going to be talking about a sail and a sailboat here soon. But it's like a radar. They have to be highly sensitive instruments, and they need to be kept sensitive because there's damage that comes with storms and all sorts of things. And, and the resensitizing, the reattenuating of those instruments matters incredibly for hearing and picking up signals all around. Now, I don't want to overstate it, make us feel like, oh, no, I can never do that. I. I just want to say to you, that's why we're doing this series. If you follow Jesus and you are in a process of transformation with him, you keep saying yes to him, moving in your life, changing you, making the fruits of the Spirit more evident in your lives, seeing sin and brokenness or ways you handle people or situations. You know, for me, fear was such a large part of my life. And the Lord had. Has been delivering me and transforming me over the years into a person of great courage, of great confidence in faith in what God can do. If you're in that posture and if you have people around you who can speak into your life, if you're teachable, if you've got healthy teachers around you, if you've got healthy voices who also love the word of God, who love Jesus, who are walking as I believe it's Micah that says, you know, do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God. If you've got these people around you, if you have people who are willing to pray for you, if you're moving in tenderness in the world, saying, jesus, how do you want to use me to love a person? If all these things are part of the. Of the story for you, then your instrument, like a radar, is becoming increasingly sensitive to what he's doing. Now it's going to be about taking the leap to trust some of those impressions. And that, as I've said over and over, we don't need to be weird about it. We don't need to be strange, we don't need to be someone different. We definitely don't need microphones and platforms. In fact, for me, I get it and I bless it all. But I just think it's gotten in the way of the modern Christian awareness that right now the world around us does not need simply to hear more words. They need to see people who embody the kingdom of God, who have the love of Jesus shining in their eyes, and who are willing just to say yes to the next thing that God's inviting them to do. Not to becoming some spiritual superhero, but just to saying yes for the next small thing where we can obey. And in that moment, here's the. Here's the cool thing. In those moments, we are changed. We become, as James says, we become more peace loving, more considerate, able to submit ourselves to God and humbly, in mutual submission, work with the body of Christ and those around us. We become full and more full of mercy and overflowing with good fruit. We become more impartial, becomes less about us. Our motives begin to be conformed to the motives of Jesus. We become more sincere and I believe we become more humble. In all Remember, humility is an accurate view of ourselves. Not too high or too low. We become more gentle. We become more like Jesus moving through the world. So let's take those things and let's recognize that the spirit of God is at work in us. And let's recognize that he has some. Some beautiful things to do through you and through me, who are learning to hear God's voice and recognizing our heart. Our interior life is the start of that sensitivity training to what the Lord is speaking and doing all around us, perceiving what the Father is doing so we can join him in it, join Jesus in undoing the works of the evil one, the accuser, the one who seeks to dehumanize people and destroy their lives. We come in as rehumanizers in Jesus name, restorers. Those who will be called restorers of broken streets, broken straight cisterns. I can't remember the passage at the moment, but you know, we become restoring agents. And who doesn't want to have people who are leaning into becoming that in their school, in their community, in their relationships, in their workplaces? Be the love of God to everyone you meet. Move in what you've learned about acting in forgiveness, acting in hope toward others. But for today's entry, keep your heart soft to Jesus and to others, to his people, even when hard things happen, say Jesus, keep my heart soft and tender toward this person, toward these people, so that I can pray so that I can hear your voice. So that I can move with you in your mission to bring hearts to yourself. All right, well, let's sing together. I'm going to lead us today in a song of worship and. And let's turn our hearts to a song that is a place we go to meet with God. Let's sing Here I am to worship. We'll just do the first verse and the chorus. This is not in your hymn book. Our great Redeemer's praise. Let's just draw near to God with this together.
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The light of the world you step down into darkness. Open my eyes let me see beauty that made this heart a toy hope of a life spent with you. And here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God. You're all together lovely all together worthy all together wonderful to me. Oh, here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God. God. You're all together lovely. All together worthy. All together wonderful to me. You're all together lovely all together words. All together wonderful to me. You're all together lovely all together worthy. All together wonderful to me.
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Amen. So let's remember together our kingdom prayer, our traveling prayer. Your kingdom come, your will be done. Just keep praying that quietly as you move into today. Come, Holy Spirit. Inviting the Spirit to move in you and through you in the lives of others. Let's continue to journal out these names and all that we're seeing God doing again. I welcome you to send in your Holy Spirit stories. Just the little steps you're taking or the big steps to whole to seedbed.com Holy Spirit stories. And I'd love to hear hear from you what God is doing. We'll be sharing those in a season coming up. All right, well, let's get our seeds together, friends. Today we head out into the fields and the Lord, Lord is in us and precedes us in it all. We're looking for what the Father is doing so we can join him in it for the awakening. I'm Dan Welt. I'll see you on the field.