God’s words to us are like food – they’re life-giving nourishment to our hearts. When a child of God has recently heard from the Father, there’s a sense of being “seen” and loved by God that brings fresh energy, faith and peace. Hearing Him is like eating life, and God invites “those who have no money…come and eat” (Isaiah 55). We need to eat healthy food daily to sustain our bodies, and also we need to hear the Father regularly and clearly to strengthen our spiritual lives. So how do we do this?
Proverbs 21:20 gives wisdom about eating spiritual food: “In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil”. We need to have big storage in our lives of two things – food and oil. What does this mean spiritually?
Firstly we need to store away food if we are to hear God’s voice to us, and we do that by filling ourselves with His eternal Word, the Bible. Filling our minds and hearts with the Bible through frequent reading, is “raw material” for the Father to speak specifically in a personal way to each child. Everything He says to us specifically and personally flows from His Word, and its His daily words are always consistent with His eternal truth revealed in the Bible. We fill our food storehouses by reading the Bible and meditating, taking time in His Word. Then, the Holy Spirit has the “provisions” needed to “cook us a meal” regularly, making His living Word alive in our hearts. The more you fill your heart with the Bible, the more clearly and regularly you will hear God’s voice to you. But when you read, you should apply the Word to yourself, and accept it as God speaking to you. You’re not filling your stores effectively if you’re studying to debate with others.
Secondly we need to fill our stores with oil, meaning that we experience the oil of God’s Holy Spirit flowing more deeply and richly over our hearts. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to speak God’s words into our lives, to guide, to encourage, to strengthen, to bring perspective, to spark faith. And so the more we invite the Holy Spirit into our lives, the more we pursue His presence, the more we learn to “host” His companionship through sensitivity and yielding to Him, so we will hear His living personal voice speaking to us more clearly and frequently. We “increase our stores of oil” in prayer and worship, not as mechanical religious activities that we feel obliged to do, but when we use those opportunities to attach our hearts to God. Particularly praying in the Holy Spirit (private tongues) deepens our spiritual sensitivity and enables us to hear God’s voice more clearly. Ian Andrews, a man used in amazing healing miracles and the word of knowledge, tells of how he gained a significant level of clarity in hearing God’s voice when he started praying in tongue for 40 minutes a day! I don’t do 40 mins a day, but praying in tongues certainly helps me to connect with God. Apostle Paul said, ‘I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you’.
Food and oil are combined into wonderful meals. The Holy Spirit ignites the deposits of God’s Word stored in our hearts into a living conversation, creating a dynamic living fellowship between the Father and his children.
Keep your stores full of food and oil so that He can speak to you!
Read the other instalments in our series about hearing God’s voice here and here.
Rob Gerhard 
Ayanda – well the Bible says simply to ask the Father and know He gives good gifts to His children. If you ask you will receive. Its linked to the baptism of the Holy Spirit and we must trust Jesus as the baptizer of the Holy Spirit.
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Thank you. Godbless
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