It's important to understand that much of your Bible is set up like a courtroom. So you need a defense attorney. Jesus is most definitely our defense, but there may come a time when you need to defend yourself with your own mouth. You need to plead your case between you and God. I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Put Me in remembrance, let us argue our case together. State your cause, that you may be proved right. Isaiah 43:25-26. Can we argue our case with God and be proved right? God is our Promiser, and our Guarannteer. Don't argue based on your own merit. Argue your case based on the promise and character of who God is.

People say, "I'll believe it when I see it," but in God's Kingdom, you don't see until you believe. Receiving comes from believing and speaking. Believing is what you are doing now, in the present, to receive from God later, in the future. Jesus isn't asking you to learn to live with the problems in your life. He said to speak to the mountain to be removed. Miracles start in the unseen realm. They start in a heart that is believing God. Believing always precedes receiving.

If we hear God's voice and then let reasoning talk us out of it, what good is it? We must remember the enemy tempts us with reasoning. When reasoning speaks, there is a motive and a thought against the character of God intertwined with his words. When your mind demands control, it is difficult to hear God's voice. We have to be sure we want God's voice more than our own opinions. Christianity is not a mental religion. It is a deep connection to God with your heart. Hungering for God means you are searching for what He has to say more than what the world and the experts have to say. Even facts can lead you astray. God considered facts evil when the children of Israel refused to confront the giants in the Promised Land. They believed in the reality of the giants more than the reality of their God. Facts without faith are dead works. God is not impressed with the facts of our current reality. He is wanting His Voice to create a new reality in our lives. 

The expert's voice is rarely God's voice. In John 10, Jesus speaks of the stranger's voice and God's voice. The stranger's voice can sound very reasonable and logical, even "smarter" than what God is speaking. But remember, God uses the foolish things to confound the wise. Often, there is a level of foolishness in what God is asking you to do, but when you obey, the results are better than those of the experts. Reasoning and fear demand to be heard, but God's voice is waiting for us to listen. 

God is speaking to us—for a reason. We can doubt or reason away God's voice. Some Christians believe God no longer speaks, but John 10 reassures us, "My sheep hear My voice." As a believer, it is not a matter of whether God is speaking but a question of whether we are listening. Can you tell the difference between God's voice and the enemy's? Between God's voice and your own? God's voice is a gift. We are to seek, listen, and train ourselves to hear His voice.

Rebellion is disobedience with an attitude. Our culture is full of rebellion because we have forgotten that God is truly working for our good and to remove destruction from our lives. Is God's Word your final authority? God's Word gives us general commands, and good leadership is the blessing of specific commands for your life. God speaks through prophets, good leadership, and His voice to give you the exact direction and correction you need. Give God your willingness, your joyful obedience. His commands are for your good. Obedience is truly better than sacrifice because sacrifice is what you have to give up when you don't obey God the first time. It is the willing and the obedient who will eat the good of the land. - Isaiah 1:19-20. Complete obedience to God is the greatest adventure in life. 

God desperately wants us to obey so He can bless us. He is working to lead us away from traps and rebellion because He cares for us more than we currently see. We must get rid of overt and covert rebellion in our lives. Drive out the generational curses and the demonic spirits in your life so it becomes easy to obey God. His ways are truly higher than our ways, and His blessings are on the other side of obedience. 

What we do affects the next generation. Family curses are an inversion, a perversion of what God intended to be family blessing. We want the ability to be blessed as a group but don't really want to consider that our actions create consequences for the next generation. God's blessings go for 1000 generations. The curse lasts for 3 or 4 generations...unless we act. If sin in your bloodline has brought about a curse, your repentance can bring about redemption and a blessing through the blood of Jesus.

Are you serving the purposes God has for you in your generation? Every generation has a judgment, and past generations will judge us. Jesus thinks in terms of generations and groups and the responsibility of each. Do we? We are meant to make a generational impact like William Tyndale, C.S. Lewis, Smith Wigglesworth, and the ones who have gone before us. But the crowd rarely gets it right. It takes those who are willing to stand and serve the purposes of God who have the power to turn a generation to the right path. 

There are mindsets that cause us to win or lose in life. Fools never win because they don't learn from pain or from success. Most people learn from pain because we are open to relearning everything when there is a big enough failure. God wants us to come up higher. You can continue learning even while winning. There is still something higher: hearing and learning the voice of God.