Day 126: What is the Spiritual Exercise of Hearing And Seeing? (Receiving)
1 Timothy 4:7-8
…train yourself for godliness. For ‘physical exercise has some value, but godliness is valuable in every way. It holds promise for the present life and for the life to come.
Learning to Hear and See the Father working in Christ through the Spirit and responding in Prayer and self-sacrificial Service are three foundational exercises that enable us to resist being conformed to the World and transformed by the renewing of our minds. This week, we will be considering 3 foundational exercises that help us live like Jesus.
We want to understand the our 3 foundational exercises are simple ways to get “unshackled” from the World in order to focus on the beauty of the One True God. These exercises train us to work in the World as “salt” and “light.” These exercises also enable us to loosen the grip our Flesh has on us so that we can be “overflowing” with the Holy Spirit.
If you have been working through MilktoMeat, many of the ideas we are talking about are not new to you. In fact, we have built aspects of the exercises into everything you have been doing up to this point. Phase 1 introduced these ideas. You may remember us introducing the Spiritual Exercises in Session 5 of Discovering The Way: Recovering the Master Story. Take a look at that section again for a little refresher. Now that you have already been doing some of these things, we can focus on the “why” for bit.
The first of the exercises that we use to develop our ability to simply receive from the Lord is learning to hear from the Lord and see His glory. Father God is always the initiator—His work and action always comes first. We simply respond to His work that began all things, sustains all things and moves all things toward their conclusions. Hearing goes together with seeing. These are the two primary ways that the Lord’s instruction and guidance get into us.
How Do We Hear The Lord?
Jesus is the Living Word of God. The Bible is the Written Word. Our first exercise is concerned with learning to hear from the Lord in and through His Word. Some people call this study. Studying the Bible is important, but we don’t want only to know the Written Word “intellectually” or “academically.” We want to hear the Scriptures in such a way that the Living Word—The Lord Jesus—becomes alive, present in all our inner workings: our thoughts, our desires, our emotions.
Jesus warned the Pharisees that they could not “hear” Him because they had not heard the Scriptures properly:
John 5:39
You study the Scriptures thoroughly because you think in them you possess eternal life, and it is these same Scriptures that testify about me,…
As we already know, the Spirit of God is working within us so that we can understand what He has given to us. The Spirit is also leading us to live in a way that is worthy of our calling as Beloved Children of God. As we go to the Scriptures we read, read, read. We read, not just to get new information, but to be transformed by hearing the Lord speaking to us there. As we learn to hear from Him in His Written Word, we will learn to discern His voice as He leads us by His Spirit in all of life:
John 10:27
My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
We need a whole study in and of itself to deal with this large topic. However, you already have the basic “tools” you need. Simply begin by reading and meditating on the Written Word. Memorize portions of Scripture. Hear the voice of the Lord in all these things. As you come to recognize His Voice, you will be able to hear Him more clearly in all things as He leads you.
Consider this passage that we have seen several times now:
2 Timothy 3:14-17
You, however, must continue in the things you have learned and are confident about. You know who taught you 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Writings (The Scriptures), which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 Every Scripture is breathed out by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the person dedicated to God may be capable and equipped for every good work.
Notice several key points from this passage:
Confidence | We should be convinced and confident that the Scriptures are leading us to The Truth.
Wisdom for Salvation | The Scriptures make us wise for salvation through faith/trust in Jesus Christ (You should be able to explain the importance of every word in that sentence by now.)
The Scriptures are “God-breathed” | The Bible has been given to us by the One True God so that we may know what is really real.
The Scriptures are useful | The Word teaches us the True Way (The Way of Jesus), shows us when we have gotten off The Way (reproof), shows us how to get back on The Way (correction), and trains us to continue on in The Way (trains us for righteousness).
The Scriptures make us Capable and Equipped | If we hear the Lord guiding us, directing us, leading us in His Word and we follow Him, we will be capable and equipped for all the good works and actions and activities that He leads us into.
How Do We See The Lord?
2 Corinthians 3:17-18
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (ESV)
When we hear (generally speaking), images are formed in our “minds-eye.” This is called our imagination. Imagination is not just making up stuff that is untrue or unreal; Imagination is the ability to form inward images that give shape to our thoughts. The imagination is the most powerful “mental muscle” that the Lord has given us.
As we read the Word and Hear the Lord, our imaginations should be taking the words and realizing them through our imaginations. Pay close attention to what Paul says in the passage above: our transformation takes place as we behold, see, gaze upon the glory (incomprehensibly radiant beauty) of the Lord Jesus. We cannot now see Jesus face to face. We are called however to think about, imagine His glory.
We can think of other passages that call for us to think about and “look” upon the Lord: “Keep thinking about things above, not things on the earth…” (Colossians 3:2), “[Let us] run with endurance the race set out for us, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1–2).
So how do we do this, hear in order to see the Lord? We can begin by getting to know Jesus from the Gospels. These books have been given to us so that we can see His glory. We read them imaginatively. We put ourselves in the stories. We hear Him talk and teach. We see Him heal the sick. We see Him act graciously toward sinners and shrewdly toward the self-righteous. We take up those God-Breathed Jesus Stories and make them our own. As we do so, we become more aware of the Lord’s presence with us.
There are two key principles we can suggest about this exercise of Hearing and Seeing:
1) Develop a daily reading plan that will take you through the whole Bible that moves at a pace that is right for you.
2) As you read, Pray, asking, “Father, what do you want me to hear? Father, what do you want me to see?”
*You can find a complete list of all the MilktoMeat readings here.
