Priscilla Shirer: YOU Can Practically Hear God
Priscilla Shirer: YOU Can Practically Hear God
Priscilla Shirer empowers you to read God’s word with the lens of knowing Him better, rather than out of obligation.
God’s Messages 💌
Today…….I am asking all my prayer warriors to say a prayer that may help others. So many people are hurting right now. Many are struggling with finances and need jobs. Some are facing foreclosure and don’t even know how they are going to make it from week to week..
Many are lonely. . Many are heartbroken. . Many are facing sickness and health is fading. . Some are dealing with difficult family members. Many have lost HOPE.. Tonight, let us put our prayers and faith together decree and declare breakthrough over our families. Financial miracles WILL take place. Jobs WILL be found. Our Bodies WILL be made whole & sickness WILL flee. Marriages and relationships WILL be restored. Family members WILL find Jesus. Heartbreaks WILL be healed. JOY WILL be restored and HOPE WILL be found. In Jesus Name. Amen!!!!!! Keep God First…….
I can’t be more interested in quantity than I am with just quality time with god.
Remember, it’s not about finishing This is about you having a friendship with God so that you can be in sustained and encouraged and since the presence of God in a practical way Not in theory, but know a friendship with God where you feel and know that he is speaking to you through his word.
Sometimes, you know, we can look at people’s Instagram feeds and, man, their quiet time looks so perfect.
Don’t it? They’ve got their little white couch and their little white coffee cup and everything is so beautiful and amazing and immaculate.
It looks like the most beautiful photo shoot you have ever seen in your life.
That can be discouraging to regular folk who have, you know, like dinner dishes sitting over there from last night that we didn’t get to.
Or we’ve got all the toys from all of our toddlers sitting around it or all the homework papers from our teenagers that are still scattered across the kitchen table from all the online schooling or We got the laundry sitting over there.
Every single load that, you know, we washed and dried, but we dumped it out on the floor hoping that somebody was gonna come fold it at some point, but there it still sits, still waiting on us.
And we look at the chaos of our life, and we think, can I really have quiet time in here Can I really expect god to speak to me in a space like this?
The answer is yes. The enemy always wants you to think and me to think we’ve got have something different about our space or different about our lives in order to actually meet with God intimately and personally ourselves.
But Listen if the bathroom is the only place where you can find some silence and some solitude.
I gotta be honest with you and tell you.
that for many years when my children were younger, I would sit on the edge of the bathtub.
I would close the bathroom door. I would lock that door, and I would sit there.
and that’s where I would have time with the Lord. I have a friend when her children were young.
She used to tell me that she would go into her closet.
Like, she made her actual closet, her prayer closet. And she said, listen.
I would sit right under the blouses where the blouses were with a flashlight.
That’s the only space that I could find to have a little silence and a little solitude.
For many of you, it’s it’s in your car. I mean, you’re in your car anyway.
Why not make that car a sanctuary?
A place where you can meet with God because you’re in that car anyway and you’re by yourself there Why not make that an opportunity where you can make that space a sacred space to meet with God?
You’ve seen people who are doing that. You know?
They’re driving down the freeway, and you just see them worshiping God, and you’ve seen their hands out stretched, and you see they’re having a whole prayer meeting, a whole church service by themselves in the car.
They have made their car a place that can be a watch tower where they can meet with God around his word.
Position yourself. oh, more now than ever brothers and sisters, we’re gonna have to prioritize positioning ourselves.
We’re getting a word from everybody else from the newscasters, from the media, from the politicians, from our friends, from opinion makers.
We’re getting news from everybody else We’ve gotta position ourselves not just to hear them, but we’ve gotta prioritize positioning ourselves to hear a word from God.
So once you position yourself and you’ve got your bible or, you know, you’ve got your electronic bible in front of you.
And you’re looking at a particular passage of scripture.
I wanna encourage you to choose a passage, not just, you know, one verse here, one verse there, here a verse.
They’re a verse. Everywhere a verse. Mm-mm.
It taking little verses out of context like that can be incredibly dangerous, but what you can do is take a whole book of the bible started verse 1 and go all the way through.
It took me about 2 years to go through the book of John like this.
I would take one verse or 2 verses a day, and I would make sure that I read right through so as to not take anything out of the context not only of the chapter that it’s in, but the book that it is in because the story that god is telling is linear, meaning not only is every word and every verse God breathed, but the way it is located in the scriptures is also God breathed.
So take a whole book of the bible.
Maybe one that stood out to you recently that your pastor preached from, and it was from the book of Ephesians or the book of John.
or the book of Habakkuk. And just decide you’re gonna start right at the beginning.
And the second p actually has 2 p’s in it.
I want you to pour over the passage and paraphrase the major principles.
Pour over the passage and paraphrase the major principles.
When I say poor over the passage, I mean that real specifically.
I mean that as in opposition to scan the passage.
When I say poor, I mean to meditate on it.
To read it not just once, but to read it twice.
To read it in 2 or 3 different translations so that you can see different nuances of words that maybe need to stand out to you in a different way.
I mean, that you open up opportunity for you to have space and time to think through what would be like if you were the woman that was caught in adultery in that passage that you just read.
See how it would feel to have god speak over you. Jesus, say you go and sit no more.
It means you mow over it for just a little while.
Now what this means, at least what it means for me, is that if I’m really gonna pour over a passage, not just scan it, but meditate on it and think about it and wait for the lord to speak to me through it.
That means that I can’t do that with a chapter or 2 at a time.
It means I can’t be more interested in quantity than I am with just quality time with God.
Remember, it’s not about finishing. This is about you having friendship with god so that you can be in sustained and encouraged and sense the presence of god in a practical way Not in theory, but know a friendship with God where you feel and know that he is speaking to you through his word.
So most of the time, that means one verse or 2 verses.
And I read those 2 verses, and then I read them again.
And then I might underline whatever words seem to leap up off the page.
Then I might look those words up, and I might think through the scenario that is surrounding them, the context around them, for example, in Joshua chapter 1 when Moses has just died, and the children of Israel are now being led by Josh into the promised land.
God says to Joshua, over and over again, be strong and courageous. He says, be strong and courageous.
Be strong and courageous. And then he says, be careful not to let the word Leave your mouth, but keep it close to your heart and close to your mind and meditate on it day and night.
Meditate means to ponder it.
Meditate actually means to press your mind upon it, to think through it, to evaluate it.
Do whatever you have to do.
To spend a little time not just saying, well, I read a verse a day, and, you know, a verse a day keeps the devil away.
Mm-mm. This ain’t a checklist. This is you developing a friendship with god who is longing to speak to you.
Once I pour over a passage, a verse or 2, then I’ll paraphrase the major principles.
I usually just have a notebook that’s sitting nearby or I’ve got the notes app on my phone or whatever you wanna do it.
And I just, for each verse, write down a sentence or 2 that paraphrases exactly what that verse said.
Now I want you to resist the urge to try to be deep or to try to make it rhyme or sound clever.
You’re not trying to be clever.
You are literally just taking the words right out of the verse and writing down a paraphrase of what that verse says.
Usually, when I get to this point in the 5 piece, I will close my bible and I’ll put it aside.
And now I’m just sitting, and I’m looking at the paraphrase rendition of what the verse actually says.
That takes me to the 3rd p. Pull out the spiritual principles.
This is where I prayerfully look at those paraphrases, and I look to see what spiritual principles are hidden in the paraphrase.
I ask god to show me, is there something he’s revealing about his character?
Is there a promise here that I’m supposed to heed Is there a directive I’m supposed to follow?
Is there insight that I’m supposed to uncover? What is it that the verse says? That’s the paraphrase.
But now I’m asking, what does this verse mean?
You will often find that there is spiritual principles that are hidden, you would not have uncovered.
This is the way God begins to speak. You won’t uncover it until you ask yourself what does this mean?
Is there a direction that I’m being given?
Is there something about god’s character that I’m supposed to believe and that I’m supposed trusted prayerfully, pray and ask the holy spirit.
This is what the old preachers used to call, alumin the word, ask the holy spirit.
to illuminate, and you will find that there are spiritual principles tucked there that begin to direct you.
