Other forms of prayer are important but listening prayer has been neglected by the church for so long. Transformation takes place when we sit silently before God. What is most important is us take the posture before Him of simply sitting there and listening. Even if you have to wait a long time without Him saying anything to you, keep on doing it. What we are doing is surrendering our hearts, turning our hearts towards Him and turned towards the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 55:1-3

“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you who have no ^[a]money come, buy and eat.
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
² “Why do you ^[b]spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And delight yourself in abundance.
³ “Incline your ear and come to Me.
Listen, that ^[c]you may live;
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
According to the faithful mercies ^[d]shown to David.

Buy = life in God

Come = to Jesus Christ

Wine= wine of the Holy Spirit

Milk = sustenance, word of God to us.

How do we buy something without money? What are we spending then?

It must cost us something, so what does it cost us? Somehow we must spend something, but not money. Somehow we must spend.

Verse 2 and 3 – Listen to Me, give ear, hear Me. God is asking us to listen. If we listen we will eat what is good. Hear me that your soul may live. All through the bible God is asking us to listen to Him.

We have to buy them to get them, so what do we spend?

We don’t pay with money but pay ATTENTION and this takes TIME.

Pay attention to the voice of the Spirit. We are prepared to spend time waiting upon Him in silence paying attention to Him.

HEAR ME THAT YOUR SOUL MAY LIVE.

How did Jesus end all of his parables? He who has ears to hear, let him hear. HEAR – in our hearts what God is saying.

Revelation 2:7

⁷ He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.’

In the air are many waves from radio stations, some music some words, if we use a TV set or a radio we can catch those words.

God is also talking and His Words come through the atmosphere by the Holy Spirit. We need to tune our ears to hear what He is saying to us.

In the letters to the seven churches in the book of Revelations, each letter begins with the same phrase, “These are the words of Him…..”

He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. There is a great need to know what is in God’s heart.

Yes we do have the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but even if we flow in these gifts it doesn’t mean we are mature. There is much more that God wants to say to us, and we won’t hear these things from Him unless we learn to become still and quiet before Him.

Lord I am here to listen to you. Most of us don’t like silence. Most of us are too busy to get silent before Him for a long period of time. Our minds are so easily distracted. It takes a discipline to be quiet and still before God to listen to Him.

So we make a choice to give Him this time. Just sit there and start to listen. God will help us to overcome distractions and day dreaming. We are paying the price to wait upon Him.  Allow our hearts to be quieted before Him.

Put some time aside every day to simply come before Him in silent listening prayer. When God does speak to you, power is released to you.

Heart must grow quiet – takes time

Psalm 131:1-2

131 O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes ^[a]haughty;
Nor do I ^[b]involve myself in great matters,
Or in things too ^[c]difficult for me.
² Surely I have composed and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child rests ^[d]against his mother,
My soul is like a weaned child ^[e]within me.

Two kinds of babies. (1) Still being breast fed – looking for the best, always wanting to be fed. Just wanting more and more and more. (2) More mature baby – finished weaning, now on other food. No longer striving, resting quietly. Our soul must come into this relationship before God. A soul that has learned to be still and quiet before Him. This is actually a position of humility before Him.

Heart becomes humble – humility is an important place to be.

Making ourselves completely dependent on God.

I will sit here until you speak.

Overcome our flesh.

Choose this time above other time.

God gives grace to the humble.

More humility more grace will be given.

God gives grace that releases understanding

It is to people of understanding that God gives favor. A people who are truly seeking understanding. Through sitting in absolute silence, understanding will start to come to us.

What listening silent prayer will release:

• Understanding
• Discernment
• Prophetic
• Spiritual eyes see more

Circumcision of the heart

As we wait upon Him, and often much time passes by but we still haven’t heard His voice, don’t give up, because a huge work is taking place in your heart. He might speak to you later on in the day or in the evening while you are working or doing something else. He may even speak to you while you sleep at night.

Dreams, visions, inner still voice. If He wants to speak to us, He will speak to us.

We have to overcome our heart condition.

Waiting upon Him is about changing us not about changing God.

We all face all kinds of problems in life, and as we wait upon God and He speaks to us and gives us understanding, these problems get solved.

How to listen – how to sit before Him

As you sit before him in silent listening prayer, begin to adore Him from your heart and commune with Him silently as you reach out for Him from your heart. Come before Him with an attitude of faith, believing that God will sometimes speak to you.

As you wait your conscience may reveal some sin, and quickly confess that sin and repent and then go on with listening prayer. A scripture may come to you, go and look it up and allow God to speak to you through that scripture. Revealing something of Gods heart to you.

You will become mature, sensitive to His presence around you.

You will become a lot more sensitive to God. Life becomes more enjoyable because you are walking closer to God.

If you stop doing this waiting silently before Him, you will lose that sensitivity. So get back to listening prayer.

All of Gods people need to be a listening people.

Do not harden your heart

Sometimes when success comes to us we can get satisfied with life, pride enters in and the love for God grows cold. Therefore we need to keep our hearts tender before Him. We can do this by continually coming before Him and waiting upon Him in silence.