Knowing God Intimately # 7a
We’ve been teaching on getting to know our Lord and heavenly Father in the more personal, intimate way. As we find ourselves in the presence of God we’ll experience the Fullness of Joy, Peace of God, Power of God, and the Blessings of God.
I) Let’s pick up where we left off last time. If you have your Bibles turn with me to Hosea 10:12.
A) In this verse here we have two types of Christians represented.
1) The Christian that represents the FALLOW GROUND, and the Christian that represents the PLOWED AND CULTIVATED GROUND.
2) FALLOW GROUND is uncultivated, unused, idle, dormant, and inactive.
a) It’s possible that the ground was plowed at one time, but because it remained unattended to, because of natural things, it hardened and became crusted until finally it needed to be broken up again in order to receive seed.
3) The fallow life Christian is content with the fruit that he produced in the past, but NOW is unmotivated and dormant.
a) He always complains, but does nothing to make things better.
b) This person is someone that has lost their 1st love.
(i) They have become more focused on RITUALS AND TRADITIONS, then the move of God.
(ii) They’ve lost their passion for the presence of God in their lives.
(iii) He no longer presses in to the things of God, no longer seeking God’s face and many times they are CRITICAL to the true MOVE OF THE SPIRIT.
(iv) They’ve become hardened and bitterness begins to creep in.
(v) They want things their way and not God’s way, but they’ll never admit it.
B) The PLOWED LIFE is the life that has remained prepared for fresh activity of the Holy Spirit.
1) They’re not content with inactivity; they want to continue going on in the things of God.
a) The plowed life Christian is the Christian that yearns to be cultivated and developed in order to receive seed again and again.
b) He sees that he is to be a HABITATION OF SEEDS.
(i) Without the proper environment, seed cannot grow. The miracle of growth can only happen in cultivated ground.
2) God’s Word is seed. And with the Holy Spirit cultivating our lives, that cultivation produces the proper environment for that seed to grow.
a) All of God’s words contain the power necessary to cause them to bear fruit in your life.
b) But they need to proper environment and cultivation to grow, which is brought by the Holy Spirit.
3) (Hosea 10:12) from the Living Bible says, “PLOW THE HARD GROUND OF YOUR HEARTS.” Only the life that is plowed and cultivated with the HOLY SPIRIT and the PRESENCE OF GOD is eligible to see the miraculous growth of God’s seed. (In other words the manifestation of the promises found in God’s Word.)
a) Diligently seeking Him is the open door to breaking up the hardened, unusable ground in your life.
b) Listen to what the MOFFATT’S TRANSLATION says of (Hosea 10:12), “Break up your fallow ground, by seeking knowledge of the eternal.”
(i) The way you break up that fallow, uncultivated, unproductive ground is by getting to know the Father.
4) The word “SEEK” in (Hosea 10:12) when it says, “Seek the Lord,” literally means, “TO WORSHIP.”
a) If you want a breakup that unproductive ground in your life, you need to spend time in God’s presence, communicating to Him and ESPECIALLY WORSHIPPING HIM.
II) Turn with me to Psalms 42:1-2.
A) There is a longing and a yearning in your inner man to know God and his ways more intimately.
1) According to the Hebrew, the word “PANTETH” means “TO LONG FOR.”
a) In other words he’s saying, “My soul longs for the Lord.”
b) The word “SOUL” here usually means, “MIND,” but the Strong’s concordance says that can also mean, “My LIFE longs for the Lord, PERSON, MIND, HEART, BODY, WILL, DESIRE, and APPETITE.”
B) (Psalms 63:1-2 says from the Amplified), “Oh God, you are my God; earnestly will I seek you, my inner self thirsts for you, my flesh longs and is faint for you, in a dry and weary land, where no water is; (2) So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory.”
1) How far are you willing to go to quench the thirst that is within you?
2) Some people are just not determined enough to seek Him, but according to (Hosea 10:12) Those who are willing to seek God till He comes and rains righteousness upon them will experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a new dimension.
a) The more deeply you yearn for God to pour Himself through you, the more deeply he will cultivate you.
(i) Fruitfulness is always preceded by cultivation. Seek Him until you experience the rain.
III) Turn with me to 2 CHRON 16:9.
A) A “HEART PERFECT TOWARD GOD” is a PERSON who has DEVOTED himself TO GOD’S WAYS.
1) It’s someone that has forsaken his own ways when they conflict with God’s ways.
2) It’s someone who is pure in motives, dedicated, sincere, and committed to Him.
3) God is ready to show Himself strong in this person’s life and to anyone who will open his heart with unqualified devotion to Him.
B) But When God is allowed only limited influence in your life; He is limited in what He can do.
1) Many times people seem to be doing the right things, but have very little success.
2) They’re confessing the Word of God, they’re giving, they seem to be standing in faith, but they seem to have very little fruit.
C) The prophet Haggai received some insight from the Lord on this subject.
1) Turn to HAGGAI 1:6-7.
a) When your ways are not in line or corresponding to God’s ways you will not experience His power.
b) God is always trying to reveal His ways to you. He’s reaching out to guide your ways and bring stability into your life.
c) Some people want God’s presence and power in their lives, but are not willing to press in to get to know Him.
(i) That means commitment in prayer, commitment in reading the Word, commitment to worship, and commitment to fellowship with the Lord.
2) But the flesh wants to put a stop to commitment.
a) Commitment is hard on the flesh. The flesh does not want to commit.
b) In (GEN 6:12) God stated, “For all flesh had corrupted his (God’s) way upon the earth.”
c) On a personal level, yielding to the flesh corrupts God’s ways in you life.
(i) When we fellowship with the world, we’ll begin to accept the flesh dominating in our lives. We become accustomed to it.
(ii) The world feeds the flesh with immorality, sexual sin, dishonesty, back biting.
(iii) Your flesh will follow after what it is surrounded with the most.
3) That’s why we need to fellowship with the Lord and with the HS, as we do we will discover how to yield to our inner man, our spirit man.
a) Turn to ROM 8:12-13.
(i) The 20th Century Translation says, “Put an end to the evil habits of the body.”
(ii) How are we to do that?
b) Romans 8:26a.
(i) The word “INFIRMITIES” means “OUR WEAKNESSES.”
(ii) Our weaknesses could be the things of the flesh.
c) The word “HELPETH” from this same verse means, “TO TAKE HOLD TOGETHER WITH SOMEONE AGAINST SOMETHING.”
(i) The Holy Spirit is going to take hold with us against our weaknesses.
D) The more you fellowship with God, the more your flesh (bad habits) will fall off and your ways will line up with God’s ways.
1) As you pray in the spirit, listen to the Lord, wait on Him, worship Him and Praise Him, the power of God will be released in your life.
a) You’ll begin to walk in the Spirit and you’ll begin to walk in God’s ways.
IV) In the Book of Galatians we have a description of what will flow in a person’s life who is walking in the spirit.
A) Galatians 5:22-25.
1) This fruit is a revelation of the nature of God. He is all of these things.
a) And He has deposited His nature in us through the new birth.
b) Through our fellowship with the Lord, our inner man (the spirit man) begins to take control in our lives.
c) We begin to take on our Father’s nature, crucifying the flesh, walking in the power of the Spirit and following after God’s ways.
2) God wants to use you. He wants to flow through you. And He wants to bless you, but it’s going to take that commitment on our part to press in to know Him. That’s when we’ll begin to trust Him and rely on Him like never before.
WOLCC SUN 11/26/95 the 1st ½ of this message was taken from a message called Knowing God Intimately # 3. This is also the second half of the message called “Knowing God Intimately # 7.” Also this is from the book by Dennis Burke called Knowing God Intimately pg. 37-47