HEARING GOD’S SPOKEN WORD IN YOUR HEART IS NOT THE SAME AS HEARING WITH YOUR EARS OR READING WITH YOUR EYES
Whatever God says should be considered a law or a commandment. God’s words are not meant to give us encouragement or comfort or direction, God is a  consuming fire and a refining fire, and so his words will have a consuming, refining effect on us. If they do not have this effect, we have not really heard God’s voice in our hearts. We may have heard the words with our natural ears or we may have read the written words of the Bible in our natural eyes and acknowledged them in our natural, intellectual minds, but we have not heard his voice in our hearts. There is a big difference between hearing with our ears and hearing with our hearts. There is a big difference between knowing in our intellectual minds and knowing in our hearts. Old/First Covenant religious people hear and know with their natural ears and minds, but New Covenant disciples hear with their hearts.

Accordingly, when God says “listen to my  voice,” we should consider listening to and hearing the words of his voice be a commandment — not an option.

When we read the words “listen to my voice,’ but do not consider what we read to be a commandment, we have not actually heard his voice. We have heard and/or read and acknowledged the written words of the Bible in our intellectual minds, but we have not heard God’s voice in our hearts.

Something very unique and special happens when we actually hear God’s voice in our hearts. The Biblical term for what happens is called being “lifted up.” The term religious Christians use to describe “lifted up” is “rapture.” They use the term, but they have no idea of what it means to be lifted up by the voice of God in the moment that God’s voice is heard. They have no idea because they have never heard God’s voice.

STUDY TIP: See End Times, Rapture and Tribulation for understanding of the rapture. Also see The Gospel and this link for understanding of what God’s voice sounds like.

Hearing religious leaders say “hear the word of the Lord” when they read from the Bible at a religious meeting is not the same thing as hearing the word of the lord when you listen to God’s voice while reading the Bible. It is not the same as hearing God’s voice in your heart. You are only hearing with your natural ears.

Scriptures that say “hear the word of the lord,” should be regarded as commandments, not options. Hearing and obeying God’s spoken voice is the responsibility of New Covenant disciples. If we fail to hear with our hearts and fail to obey what we have heard, we break the covenant. Breaking the covenant is sin.

Religious people are led into sin by religious leaders who claim that they speak for God. In effect they say that weekly pilgrimages to church or synagogue to hear words of the Bible spoken by the religious leader (e.g. pastor, rabbit, imam, etc.) satisfies God’s commandments to hear his voice. They are totally wrong. They do not speak for God. They speak out of the evil imaginations of their own minds — not for God. They are false prophets who inflate their religious pride and earn their living as leaders of commercial religious enterprises while putting on religious show for anyone who will follow them.