“Today, If You Will Hear His Voice”–The Time Portal to His Presence

An opening in time–a portal to enter into God’s presence, to be near Him, enough to hear His voice.

So, we ask again, What if God, earnestly desiring to commune with us, has provided a way for us to get into a spiritual place where He would speak audibly to us? What if we could get all of our spiritual ducks in a row and thereby position ourselves to enter His time portal so that we could literally have a conversation with the Creator? He did say that all things are possible to him that believes.

What if, among His many promises to us, there is the possibility that we could get very close to Him, that we could hear His voice and even share a meal together, as we see in Rev. 3.  What if He has already created a window of time that opens on a regular basis, a timeframe where, if we can believe it, He will meet us there, after we have met certain criteria that He has set for our holiness?

God has provided this time portal, and it swings open every seven days. It is called the Sabbath.  And we are commanded to “keep it holy.” But the true Sabbath is like an island surrounded by the treacherous waters of man’s traditions. Every sect in the earth has their own take as to which day is the Sabbath and how to “keep it holy.”

Keeping It Holy

First, there is nothing we can do that makes the Sabbath holy. We cannot sanctify it through anything that we do or don’t do. We must realize that the Sabbath already is holy. God has already set it apart and hallowed it (Ex. 20: 11).

God created it and sanctified it for man, as Christ said, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” The seventh day is not something to be served as if it were this holy thing that needs to be reverently observed–or else. The Sabbath is instead a 24 hour space in time that occurs every seven days in which the Great Spirit Creator makes His presence known with more power and clarity to those who walk with Him in truth.

God has set aside a 24 hour period each week for His people to seek Him. “Seek the LORD while He may be found” takes on more meaning in light of this. “May be found…” God gives permission to find Him during this weekly 24 hour period.

The Pharisees “kept” the Sabbath, but they did not keep it holy, for they injected ruinous teachings, traditions, and concepts about it. The actual Sabbath day of God, on which they assembled and concocted various restrictions as to what can and cannot be done, cannot be sanctified by us and our actions.

It is already made holy by its Creator. And He has set it apart from the other days of the week that we humans, “the apple of His eye,” could have a lifeline to help us get back into His presence. He made it as a space/time connector, a bridge joining us in our bodies to the spiritual dimension that He dwells in. It is His gift to us–a time to peer into spiritual truths, a time for His Spirit to come down and try out His house, which is us–a time for God and us to rest in each other, after we have ceased from working for our self and rest from the sensation of it being us that is still in the picture.

For it is belief in the death of self, our dying with Christ on the cross (Rom. 6: 1-6), and the belief that He now lives within us in a new heart, that enables us to finally “enter into His rest.” “For he that is entered into His rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from His.” Our own works were the acts of sinning, breaking God’s law. When we die with Christ, be buried with Him, and then through faith in the operation of God that raised Him from the dead, we too cease from our old works done by our old selves. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts,” (Gal. 5: 24, the “flesh” here being the old sinful carnal nature of man we are born into).

The final crucifixion, the once and for all putting to death of our old sinful nature–that is what we must believe. That is the first step in getting right, in getting our spiritual ducks in a row, that we may enter into His rest, having stopped the insanity of the sin we were bound with.”

For God limits a certain day for special things to happen between Him and His people. That space in time, that portal still is there for some to enter into (Heb. 4: 1-11).  “To day if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” That day is the Sabbath. And if we will soften our hearts with belief in the crucifixion of sin and faith that He has given us a new heart and spirit, then we will enter into His rest, ceasing from our old sins.

For it was the sin of His people that He was grieved with in the wilderness. And they could not enter into His rest because of it. But now, if we do not harden our hearts toward Him and just believe Him that the sin is gone, gone, gone–then we can enter into His rest. For “here remains a rest (a sabbatismos–a keeping of the Sabbath in the Greek) to the people of God” (Heb 4: 9).

So Which Day Is It?

Many traditions of men abound as to when is the Sabbath. Hundreds of millions of Moslems believe that the Sabbath takes place from sundown  Thursday to sundown Friday. The followers of Judaism and several Christian denominations believe that it starts at sundown Friday and ends on sundown Saturday. Then you have billions of Christians who believe that the Sabbath has been changed, replacing it with Sunday as the holy day of God.

Studying the scriptures will give you the answer as to which day is the true Sabbath. Finding this treasure of knowledge is left up to us all. Seek and you shall find; knock and the door shall be opened; ask, and it shall be given, says our Master Christ. We all must prove it out, taking His word and the common sense that He has given us, being prepared to receive the answer, having no pre-conceived imaginations.

To benefit from this communion with God on His Sabbath, we must have erroneous concepts about Him and His plan straightened out and corrected. To be counted as a vessel for Him to pour Himself into, especially on His Sabbath, we must be holy. We must “purge out the old leaven that the lump may be holy.”

But that opens up another can of worms.  What is the old leaven, and how do we purge it out?    Kenneth Wayne Hancock      {If you haven’t visited my website Immortality Road, please do. There you will find over 300 articles and books exploring the “unsearchable riches of Christ,” all written for you, the elect sons and daughters of God, the future rulers with Christ in His soon coming kingdom
https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com }

Hearing Audibly God’s Voice–He Has Provided the Way

What if God in His infinite love has already provided us a portal that opens up onto a bridge over which we peer into the eternal, and over which after listening with pure hearts, we actually hear the voice of the Eternal One?

What if God has already built into His plan an avenue over which we leave the cacophonous confusion that surrounds us and we traverse it into His pasture where we can see Him and cry out to Him and He sees us and waves and says in an audible voice, “Yes, I do love you so much. Just keep believing”?

What if this doorway is not material, not spatial, not three-dimensional like most doors, but rather an opening in time? What if God, who is infinite and is not bound by temporary earthly limitations—what if He has set aside a slot of time through which we may hear His voice?

Already Touched by Him

Those reading this have already had His spiritual hand tap you on the shoulder, calling you to walk with Him. We have all had wonderful experiences of His love and forgiveness of our sins and shortcomings. Of this we all are grateful.

And yet, we sense that there must be more—more of His presence, more of His Spirit, more of His love flowing through us. We feel the lack in our spiritual lives. It is difficult as we Christians walk around in these fragile shells, as we walk  among those of the world who do not really know who we are and what we think in silence away from their presence.

We long to have a closer relationship with God—not just the long distance spiritual arrangement that we now find ourselves in. But rather, we yearn to walk with Him as Abraham and Moses and Samuel and Isaiah and Daniel did. These prophets, along with many others, not only were led by God, but they also had literal conversations with Him.

These are the ones that literally heard His voice and saw his shape. These were and are God’s friends. That is why they are famous today, their stories still ringing down through halls of history. They did not have a long distance relationship with God like some of us; they heard His voice up close and personal. Even Paul of Tarsus was visited by the risen Savior during New Testament times. And are we not living in New Testament times?

What if we could hear the great Creator’s voice? There—I broached the question. What if we could hear, not just the “still small voice,” but His real, audible voice? Our hearts are small and have been trampled upon, but can we get them to enlarge with enough faith to believe that we could experience this as the prophets did?

Right now I am excited like my barely two year old grandson Matty, who dancing up and down, looking up so longingly into our faces as we did “Knock Knock” jokes with his four year old sister, so earnestly desiring to be like us, exclaimed, “Nah, Nah! Nah, Nah!” And I began to laugh uncontrollably, totally enthralled by his belief that he could get in on the fun, that he could be like us. Oh, let the little children lead us, who in their childlike faith believe that all things are possible.

And yet, some Christians will balk right here, their hearts seeping doubts about this radical concept. Us, in the 21^st century? Would? Could God do that for us?

What does He say about it in His word? Is it possible? The demon possessed boy’s father asks the Savior, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

“If you can?” What do you mean, If you can? “Everything is possible for him who believes,” He said (Mark 9: 22-23 NIV). It was possible for His disciples, too, for they had already driven “out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them” (Mark 6: 13 NIV). In fact, “All things, whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive” (Matt. 21: 22).

We, therefore, in Him are only limited by our unbelief.

So, we ask again, What if God, earnestly desiring to commune with us, has provided a way for us to get into a spiritual place where He would speak audibly to us? What if we could get all of our spiritual ducks in a row and thereby position ourselves to enter His time portal so that we could literally hear His audible voice?  [To be continued…]

Kenneth Wayne Hancock           {If you haven’t visited my website Immortality Road, please do. There you will find over 300 articles and books exploring the “unsearchable riches of Christ,” all written for you, the elect sons and daughters of God, the future rulers with Christ in His soon coming kingdom
https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com }