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Basic Conditions to Hear from Jesus

derek-princeby Derek Prince

Editor’s Note: The following statements were made by Derek Prince in his program about the Headship of Jesus in Acts. I felt these points were important enough to stand alone. Please refer to Open Ended Worship for more.]

Basic Conditions to meet for us to hear from Jesus, the Head of the Church.

  1. Recognize your need to hear from Him.
  2. Present your body as a living sacrifice and you will be renewed in your mind to find the will of God. He further states that our body must be presented on the altar. [Romans 12:1,2]
  3. Align ourselves with God’s purpose–His Kingdom. At the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, Jesus said, “Pray this way.” Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed by Thy Name. In otherwords, we worship You!
  4. Submit your will to God’s will. Remember, it’s not our plan, but His plan, His Kingdom. We can’t get our prayers answered without aligning with His will: THY will be done!
  5. Make friends with the Holy Spirit. As many as are led by the Spirit are God’s mature sons. The Holy Spirit is a person. Be sensitive. “He’s not a dictator. He’s a dove. He’s easily frightened. You can scare Him away.” [Romans 8:14]
  6. Check against Scripture. The revelation and leading we receive should line up with the Scriptures He wrote!

What are some common hindrances to hearing from Jesus?

Human Arrogance

Derek believes this is the greatest problem we have. Mr. Prince told a story about his own early ministry, where he got himself into some trouble thinking he’d heard from God. He now believes the root cause of his difficulty was his own arrogance. “All deception has one lever to get in and that is pride.” Therefore, if we aren’t proud, we’ll never be deceived. To Derek, the “pride of life” is a desire to be independent of God. That’s why the enemy tempted Jesus in this area when He was in the wilderness. Jesus refused to show His power independent of God, the Father.

Habit or Tradition

Derek calls tradition a “collective habit.” If we simply follow tradition, we’ll more than likely miss God. We get used to the way we’ve always been doing a thing. He stated that in studying the Church, he found that it takes about 5 years to lose the Spirit after a move of God.

Fear

Derek finds that this is a very powerful hindrance and categorizes three areas:

  1. fear of man: What will people say? “Too many Christians are more fearful of man’s opinion than God’s.”
  2. fear of the unfamiliar: We’ve never done it this way before. How do we know what to do?
  3. fear of being dependent: “This is perhaps the strongest as we don’t want to depend on God. “The essence of sin is the desire to be independent of God and was the original motivation in the Garden of Eden.” The key here is to be free of sin and temptation.
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