Do you know the key to hearing the voice of the Lord?

What is the key to hearing the voice of the Lord?

In an exclusive interview with Charisma Media, author Chris Garcia shared what he believes is the missing key for many believers in their walk with the Lord.

“What marked Jesus’ ministry as a powerful ministry was that he cast out all devils, healed the sick, and raised the dead. But there was such a connection between Jesus’ prayer life and the power of the Spirit and his activation that the disciples said, ‘Master, teach us to pray.’ They saw a connection between his time alone with the Father and his public ministry,” Garcia says.

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It is this private time alone with the Father that many people ignore. Although we all need fellowship with other people, especially other believers, we must not push aside our personal relationship with Heavenly Father. Instead, it must be the primary focus of our lives, the greatest task we have.

“The person of God, the man or woman of God, is called to be with the Lord,” Garcia says. “Unfortunately, we have degraded prayer to a list of things we have to do. Or we have degraded it to a chore… it’s more important that we have God’s attention and that He has our attention and that we are with Jesus, that we are with the Lord.”

Garcia says that one of the problems we have with prayer and its perception today is that in our Western society it is only about a formula, rather than engaging in a deep and meaningful time of dialogue with the Lord.

“True community is found first in communion with Christ,” says Garcia.

For many people, the relationship with the Lord is sometimes even a little uncomfortable because he is still a stranger to them.

“I think a lot of people feel uncomfortable when they’re with the Lord because they don’t fully know Him yet,” Garcia says. “The more you try to get to know Him, the less you feel the moments of discomfort.”

The best thing we can do to strengthen our relationship with the Lord and to know His voice better each day is simply to spend time in His presence. Just as it takes time to get to know a person by spending time in His presence, the same is true for our relationship with the Lord.

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“The more you learn to acknowledge God’s presence throughout your day, the more natural it will become to fall into a deeper state of prayer,” Garcia says.

God has a plan and a purpose for each of us, and one of the most important parts of that plan is that we truly know Him. The more we get to know the Lord, the more our lives will be shaped by His character and fruit. By spending more time with Him, we will see the kind of harvest He wants to produce in our lives.

“New wine is received and kept in a new wineskin,” Garcia says. “And that new wineskin is the renewing of the spirit, the renewing of your mind in the Spirit that enables you to maintain what God wants to do.”

By spending more time in communion with the Lord, we can better understand what He wants to do in our lives.

“Often God wants to bring something new and alive into our lives. But with an old mentality we can miss that. It kind of reminds me of Isaiah, where it says, ‘Behold, I am doing a new thing; you will not know it.’ And in order for us to receive the new and keep it and abide in the new, we must allow the new to renew us,” Garcia says.

If you want to hear from the Lord and know the direction He wants to lead you, the best thing you can do is spend time in prayer. Then you will see your life change as God leads you in His good, eternal way.

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Abby Trivett is a content development editor at Charisma Media.