61 - Hearing God - Receiving Power

Let's reflect for a moment on our walk with God. When was the last time that you or I did something because we felt God told us to do it, and then He showed up and did some sort of miracle or we would have failed? If the answer is never, or it was so long ago we can't remember, what we're going to talk about today may be challenging to understand, but we have to try, because according to Jesus hearing from God and depending on His power is the normal way every believer is supposed to function. The spiritual world is very real, and we are all capable of functioning at that dimension, but if we haven't been taught how things work, we may be hesitant to act or doubt that what we are sensing is accurate. In our lesson today we will hear Jesus tell us how He walked with God, and then we will hear Him pray that you and I will do the same. And then we'll examine four ways God speaks to us, and nine ways His power helps us. 

Three terms, one meaning
On a winter day in Jerusalem, surrounded by members of Israel's highest religious court, Jesus described His walk with the Father using three terms He repeats on several occasions in the gospel of John. He spoke of the “works that I do in the Father's name” (v25); He spoke of being “one” with the Father (v30); and He said the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (v38). I believe these three terms are three ways of saying the same thing. All three describe His relationship with God the Father. Everything He did, He did in the Father's name; He and the Father worked together as one; and this was possible because the Father was “in Jesus” guiding, revealing and empowering Him, and Jesus was “in the Father” representing Him, expressing His character, submitting to His will, and depending on His power. By observing Jesus people could see what the Father was doing or saying in that particular situation. Like a glove over a hand, He perfectly expressed the Father's will. The Son submitted to and obeyed the Father's guidance so completely that to see one was to see the other.