Notes from a Journeyer's Journal: Hearing the Voice of God

Pastor, teacher, equipper, trainer, exhorter, mentor, and pioneer of ministries, Jono Turner is our guest today. He is from New Zealand and was first on our show back in August of 2023.

 In this episode, I talk with Jono about hearing the voice of God. From his years of experience, he brings a wealth of personal insight as well as biblical understanding. 

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Episode Transcript

Mark Banyard (00:10):
Welcome to Kingdom Talk, the podcast where we talk
all about things Kingdom.
I'm your host, mark Banyard,and I'll be interviewing a
variety of people who, throughtheir lives and ministries, have
been committed to advancing theKingdom of God.
Their lives and ministries havebeen committed to advancing the
Kingdom of God Church planters,church leaders, pioneers of
missions and ministries, both athome as well as abroad.

(00:31):
So let's go straight to today'sepisode of Kingdom Talk.
Today on the show is my friend,jono Turner.

(00:51):
Jono is from New Zealand and wasfirst on our show back in
August of 2023.
In this episode, I ask himabout hearing the voice of God.
From his years of experience,he brings a wealth of personal
insight as well as biblicalunderstanding.
Well, I'm here today inPalmerston North, new Zealand,

(01:14):
with Jono Turner.
Jono has been a guest on ourpodcast before, but since I'm
actually in New Zealand, it's agreat opportunity for me to
actually meet up with Jono andsit with him this afternoon in
his lovely home in Fernlea Ave.

(01:34):
So, Jono, we've been talkingtoday about hearing the voice of
God and how difficult thatseems for a lot of Christians,
and I'm just wondering this issomething you have a lot of
insight to, in fact, arevelation, maybe, perhaps you
could share a little bit aboutthat, right?

Jono Turner (02:03):
I think I should start with my own experience as
a new Christian.
I was after I surrendered mylife to Jesus, from that moment
I had a very real experience ofGod speaking to me, speaking
into my mind, speaking in myheart, a real awareness of close

(02:23):
connection and communication inmy heart, a real awareness of
close connection andcommunication.
And as time went on, thediscipleship process that I was
invited into and encouraged inwas very much a Bible study
discipleship process,emphasizing, memorizing the
written word of God and havingthe renewed mind based on what

(02:50):
the word of God said.
And when I talked about thesubjective experience of hearing
God speaking to me andexperiencing that connection, it
was very much devalued.
Well, perhaps not devalued,maybe the best way of putting it
is it was considered as verymuch secondary to memorizing

(03:13):
scripture and beingintellectually informed with the
right information.
And so in my pursuit my desireto really be a Christian in the

(03:34):
eyes of my peers, I pursued thatfor a long time, but then I
realized it wasn't feeding myspirit.
There was a measure in which Iwas fed, my brain was stimulated
, but I felt like I kind of lostsomething.

(03:54):
And many years later, about 10years later, when I was already
a pastor, I realized that I'dlost something that was really
precious and I determined in myheart I need to get back to
connecting with God in the waythat I did as a new Christian
before I actually knew all thisinformation, and that sent me on

(04:16):
a bit of a quest.
So that's another part of thestory.
As I have journeyed in thewhole process of trying to help
other people with theirconnection to God, I've realized

(04:38):
that many people have a viewthat is very derogatory or
detrimental towards themselves.
So they're trying to relate toGod but they think of themselves
as sinners, unworthy, they'renot holy enough, they're not
righteous enough.
Therefore, they disqualifythemselves from that
communication because until Iget more holy, until I become
more righteous, until I am whatI should be, I'm not really

(05:01):
going to have the connectionwith God that I want.

Mark Banyard (05:04):
Right, and if you feel that way, it just lends
itself to performance andworking harder and striving
harder and improving yourselfconstantly to earn that kind of
communication with God.

Jono Turner (05:41):
And you know, it seemed to me as I reviewed my
own experience of discipleshipas a new Christian that it
emphasized how bad I was and howsinful I was and how I owed God
a transformative you know Ihave what I put that the feeling
I had was that I kind of owedGod so much that who am I to
come into his presence andactually talk to him as a man
would speak to his friend.
And so in my personal journey Icame to this revival, really in

(06:06):
my own life, of reconnectingwith God on this very organic
and personal level where I couldhear God speak, I could talk to
Him without going to someformal kind of format of prayer,

(06:29):
and I started to really comealive within my own heart and
spirit.
And, of course, at the same timeI was measuring everything that
I was experiencing or goingthrough against what the Word of
God says.
The Word of God is always yourplumb line for what's going on,

(06:49):
but in that journey I wasteaching a lot on the relational
side of Christianity theFatherhood of God, releasing the
Holy Spirit and gettingactivated in your gifts, hearing
the voice of God, lots of verypractical day-to-day how you

(07:13):
live with God kind of messages.
And in that process I becamereally aware again and again and
again, and especially in YWAM,youth With A Mission school
settings that people who'd grownup in the church all their life
they could quote scripture,they had opinions about all

(07:34):
kinds of issues and what thescripture had to say about those
issues, but they couldn't tellyou what God was speaking to
their heart, they couldn'tdefine it, they couldn't say you
know, they generalize, they'requite a scripture actually, and
that obviously got yourattention.

Mark Banyard (07:52):
Yeah, totally.

Jono Turner (07:54):
And you see, and of course, when I started to share
my experience of aconversational relationship with
God, I got a lot of pushback,not only just from students but
from other ministers.
Oh, that's very subjective,that's very.

(08:16):
You know you can't trust voices, all this kind of stuff, very
kind of with scriptural weight.
You know you test everything,trust nothing kind of thing.

Mark Banyard (08:32):
Very considerate.
It wasn't just about you know.
Imagine that God's speaking toyou and fill in the blanks for
God.
It wasn't that.

Jono Turner (08:39):
No, not at all, and I just continued to do it in my
personal journey because that'swhat gave me life.
But I I held back from bringingthis forth as a um, as a
credible connectivity betweenthe individual and method,

(09:03):
method or yeah.
And then God started reallyspeaking to me about the issue
of personhood that we are madein God's image.
He's not made in ours.
So our personality, our desirefor fellowship, our desire for
connection with other humans isall part of the image of God in

(09:23):
us.
We are made for relationships.
And God started speaking to meabout how my people talk at me
not with me and they talk to mebut they don't listen to me
because it's not a two-wayconversation, it's very one-way.

(09:45):
And over a period of time God'ssaid phrases like this to me,
even to the point of saying manyof my people treat me like an
idol, they don't expect me tospeak back.
And you know, I was sort ofhaving this dialogue with the
Lord which was very personal andit was revolutionizing my way

(10:07):
of relating to God and thinkingabout looking at scripture again
and thinking you know what thisis actually in the scripture,
just depends what perspective,from what perspective, you look
at the scripture and then theLord showed me so one time.
It's a funny story, but one timeI'm standing in the shower and

(10:31):
the Lord said to me, I waslistening on my phone playing
Psalm 119, and the Lord said tome so Jonah, who wrote Psalm 119
.
And the Lord said to me soJonah, who wrote Psalm 119?
And I said, well, david did.
And he said to me so why is itin Scripture as my word?

(10:53):
And I said it felt like a bitof a trick question.
And while I was hesitating Ifelt like a bit of a trick
question, sure, and while I washesitating I felt the Holy
Spirit say to me it's becauseDavid wrote down a conversation
that we were having.
And I began to look at Scripture.
And then, of course, you readRevelation and the angel says to

(11:15):
David write this down, Writethis down, you know.
So the Lord started to show methat just about all the Bible
was the record of conversationsthat humans had had with God,
momentous conversations, theprophets, and.
But I started to realize thatall this that is written down,

(11:37):
that we call the word of God, isactually a record of someone's
experience of hearing God speak.
It all started off with a voice, not with a pen and paper.

Mark Banyard (11:46):
And, even more than speaking, an experience of
God himself.

Jono Turner (11:50):
Yeah, of God, absolutely of God himself.
And Sinai is the classicexample.
You know, at the bottom of themountain the Lord says to Moses
tell the people to get ready tocome up onto the mountain
because I want to speak to them.
So Moses goes to the elders andsays tomorrow, I want you to
get yourself ready, sanctifyyourselves, because tomorrow

(12:10):
we're going to go up and God'sgoing to speak to us.
And all the elders said oh no,no, no, no, we don't want to do
that.
Maybe when we hear his voicewe'll die.
You go up, moses, and you talkto God and then come back and
tell us what he says, and that'sbecome the model for church.
The man of God hears from Godand he tells us what God says.
A man of God takes thescripture and reads it and

(12:37):
interprets it and tells us whatGod is saying, was saying.
So anyway, this, this set me onthis whole journey of a trying
to find the scriptural roots ofmy own experience, with a
conversation with god and thenreally encouraging other people
to develop that that awareness.

Mark Banyard (12:54):
That's very good.
Uh, there's two things I wantto pick up on here.
And it's going back to, in fact, fact, the conversation before
we started recording, and thatis very early in your Christian
experience.
You had a sense of yourself asa son of God.
You had an experience ofsonship, let's put it that way.

(13:16):
But the context back then or,for lack of better terms, the
language of the church back then, that was not an acceptable way
of anybody talking aboutthemselves and it took you some

(13:42):
time before later down the roadwhere you almost had to go back
and reclaim that?

Jono Turner (13:44):
yeah, can you talk about that for a minute.
Yeah, well, I I probably to behonest with you at the time when
I gave my life to the lord,because it happened very early
in the morning, um, on a on awork day, a monday morning, I
think it was yeah, it was a mondMonday morning, because I'd
gone home the night before andI'd knelt down beside my bed and
I'd said, god, if you're there,I want you to come into my life

(14:07):
and change it and I want toknow you kind of thing.
And so I went to bed and wokeup in the very early hours of
the morning and I had thisexperience of God, a definite
supernatural experience of God.
He was in the room andsomething had changed and I
looked out the window and thesky was bluer and the trees were

(14:27):
greener and that whole thingthat you've heard other people
say.
I'd had this and I thought tomyself maybe that born again
thing's happened to me.
So when I, you know it was 5o'clock in the morning and the
navigator's apartment, where thenavigator girls were just down
from my apartment, you know theyweren't going to be awake at 5

(14:50):
o'clock in the morning, so Iwaited till about 7.
I went and knocked on the doorand they sort of came to the
door rubbing their eyes and youknow what do you want?
Sort of thing.
I said I think that born-againthing's happened to me.
And they and you know what doyou want?
Sort of thing.
I said I think that born againthings happened to me, and they
and they asked me what hadhappened.
I told them the story and theysaid we think the born again
thing has happened for you.
So anyway, this was such a realexperience, I couldn't deny it.
But I didn't realize it exactlyat the time.

(15:14):
But what I knew was a level ofcloseness from God in that time
that I had with my own father,and my mum and dad were a very
good mum and dad and we were,you know, I could honestly say
my parents were my friends aswell as my parents, you know.
And so what I felt from God wasthis level of closeness.

(15:38):
It was later that I realized tomyself that I felt the sense of
adoption and sonship into thefamily of God.
I wouldn't have said it at thattime.
I would have said I think theborn again things happened to me
, which is what I did say.
But when I look back later,trying to recapture that reality

(15:58):
, I realized that I'd had arevelation of being adopted in
the family of God at that point.
But the body of Christ was nottalking like that in those days.
You know, what I got told wasyou're a sinner, you need to
repent of your sin, andgenerally the inference of how I

(16:19):
was discipled was you're not aprayer, so you need to learn to
pray.
And you don't know thescripture, so you need to study
the scripture.
So all the inputs I got focusedon what I was not rather than
who I was.
And as time has gone on, Irealise many, many Christians
are in that boat.

(16:40):
They don't actually reallyrealise who God's made them to
be, so they're still almostrelating to God from a
pre-Christian perspective ratherthan a post-resurrection
perspective.
So then I started developingthis whole methodology.

(17:02):
So how do I help people?
First of all to understand thetruth about their true identity,
and then to help them andsupport them to start walking in
that by faith, rather thanwaiting until they feel they're
righteous or holy enough or thatthey've memorized enough
scripture to be acceptable.

Mark Banyard (17:29):
The other thing I wanted to ask you is if you
could just talk a little bitabout perhaps those who would
take license with hearing thevoice of God directly and end up
feeling as if, somehow, thatthere's no need for a witness, a

(17:53):
confirmation, evenaccountability and all of that
is just isn't required becausethey hear directly from God.

Jono Turner (18:03):
Well, I think as a pastor, I've had so many come
into my office and say God toldme, God told me to leave the
church, God told me to marrythis person.
God told me this, God told methat and you know, I would just
honestly say to people well, ifGod told me this, God told me
that and you know I would justhonestly say to people, well, if

(18:24):
God's told you this, there'snothing I can say.
Closed story.
Closed book.
End of story.
So End of story.
Yeah, I think if you truly arehearing the voice of God, It'll
stand the scrutiny.
It'll stand the scrutiny ofscripture, It'll stand the
scrutiny of your fellowbelievers who love you.

(18:46):
Don't cast your pearl beforeswine.
You know, if you tell somebodywho's you know somebody who's
contentious and you know in thechurch they're not particularly
a fan of who you are and youtell them about what God's been
saying to you and they attackyou, that's not helpful, but you
do.
I really believe inaccountability and I believe if

(19:11):
God's speaking, it'll stand thetest and it may have to be
tested.
It may be that some say, oh,I'm not sure about that, and
that's fine.
It's fine for people to beunsure or to doubt.
But when God really speaks, um,eventually there's fruit or a
confirmation of some sort thatproves that that was really the

(19:34):
Lord, you know so.
So that's where I'm quite a fannow.
I never used to be, but I'm I'ma big fan now of recording what
you think God's saying, ofjournaling what you think God is
saying to you so that you'vegot that point of reference, a
date, what scriptures you werearound that, so you can review
that.

(19:56):
I think it's very easy toassume that the communication
that you're receiving, either inyour mind or in your heart, in
your spirit, in your soul,wherever you're registering a
communication, to assume thatit's all God.
But of course it's not so.

(20:18):
And the scripture tells us totest, test the spirit, test the
voices.
So, and I'm just a greatbeliever that if God's speaking,
it'll be proven through thetest.

Mark Banyard (20:32):
Yeah, I am too, and I think that you know the
challenge really is is for a lotof people is there might be a
fear factor, they're going toget it wrong, so they just say
I'm not going to go there.
Yeah, and we kind of have toget past that fear that we might

(20:53):
make a mistake or we mightimagine God saying something to
us.
Yeah, so that we can actuallyget into that place of trust and
faith and say, lord, I'm hereand I want to hear your voice.
Further to my question, just asa follow up.
Of course, there are differentthings that God says to us.

(21:14):
Like, if you put it intocategories, some are very
edifying encouragement whodoesn't want to hear God say I
love you?
Magnifying encouragement whodoesn't want to hear God say I
love you?
And when that comes with arevelation, an encounter, that's
very, very powerful.
I don't think you have to turnto anybody and say is this

(21:34):
really God?
But certainly and there'sdifferent categories the one I
just asked you about really isdirective, isn't it?
You get a word from the Lordthat you have to act upon.
It's very directive and couldaffect other people.
That's right.

Jono Turner (21:51):
Yeah, I think the other thing is too that I've
learned, that I try to teachpeople, is that often we are
suffering from what I callstatic, you know, noise, chatter
In our lives that prevent usfrom discerning the voice of God
, either in our minds or ourhearts, or however we register

(22:13):
that.
And so this whole process oflearning to be still and to
embrace quietness and mostly thequietness is the quietness of
your heart and spirit where you,you know, it's not just
physical stillness, it'sactually be able to get all the
analysis of your mind just to,I'd say, be quiet.

(22:33):
In my case, I don't think Iever got my mind to completely
be quiet, um, because it'sactive all the time, but quiet
enough that, the same as whenyou're in a room with a bunch of
people and you're trying tohave a conversation with just
one, you have to concentrate andbe quiet and listen carefully

(22:57):
to discern what somebody issaying.
When there's a whole lot ofchatter in the room, but some
people get really distracted,especially us extroverts by all
the other chatter, and sometimesyou can be talking to someone
here, but you're actually,you're being listening this
person over here.
Some of the things they'resaying are interrupting you and
you're not really concentrating.
So that learning to be focusedand at rest, not striving I

(23:24):
think the striving thing is abig thing people get panicked
about.
I've got to hear from God.
I've got to hear from God andthe biggest thing to do is to
exercise trust and faith thatGod will communicate with you.
That's his heart and if yougive him space, that's the first
thing that God said to me.
I want more room in your life,I want more space.

(23:45):
I said why do you want morespace?
And he said so I can fill it.
And I think people don't givemake enough space.
They they blat off a prayer togod but then they don't give him
all themselves space.
Because sometimes god's readyto speak right back at you but
you're not in a place where youcan hear it.
Because you there's all thisnoise in your life, there's all

(24:08):
this turmoil, pressure or stressor whatever it is that is
creating internal noise and umand learning to be still enough
so that God can say a profoundthing to you or even a really
strong corrective thing to you.
But when God does that andyou're in that place of rest and

(24:29):
peace, it never comes as ajudgment or a rejection, it
always comes as.
I want you to make this judgment, this adjustment, so that you
can benefit.
I'm not just want to takethings away from you, I actually
want to add to you.
But for me to be able to add,you know, it's Ephesians 4.
You've got to put off the old,corrupted stuff and put on

(24:53):
something new.
But it's not just put off theold, just keep repenting of your
sin.
Keep repenting of your sin.
Actually, the victory over sincomes from walking in a new way
and you've got to put on the newin order to completely defeat
the old.

Mark Banyard (25:10):
Yeah, that's very good, Very good.
My last question is just apractical one.
You've kind of touched on italready, but hearing the voice
of God is a discipline.
Yeah, that's what I'm hearing.
You say what are some practical?

(25:31):
You talked about journaling.
Are there some other practicalthings that come to mind to
practice the discipline?

Jono Turner (25:39):
I think you've got to.
You've got to find a place ofrest and for me, you know I,
like you, mean physically, yeah,both it starts with a physical
thing or for me it does I've gotto find a place where I can

(26:03):
relax and not feel like I've gota list of things I've got to
talk to God about.
You know, I think some peoplethey rush into prayer with a
list of prayer requests andthey've got limited time so they
want to get all their prayerrequests done before they have
to go to work.
You know, and for me, I had togive God more space.

(26:25):
It took me much longer to getto a place of real, what I call
real rest and stillnessinternally so that I could hear
God clearly.
And now, you know, I can sit ina cafe and go into that space
with all the buzz around me andhear God speak to me.
But when I started I couldn't.

(26:46):
I had to find a physical placeof stillness, quiet and rest,
and usually looking for me,looking out at the trees, waving
in the breeze, something thatdistracted my mind from over
analysis.
For some people it's music.
You know we talked about, youknow, soaking music.

(27:07):
For other people it's Justbeing in creation.
It's being outside rather thaninside, yeah, all those things.
So finding the place where youare most relaxed in yourself, I
think, is quite important.
The second thing is it's quitea discipline to embrace silence

(27:27):
and not be afraid of it Now asan extrovert, or feel that you
have to feel the silence Exactlyso as an extrovert and a
sanguine personality.
You know, mary always jokedthat I could go into a room full
of deaf mutes and talk for 45minutes before I noticed.
And I don't think I'm like thatnow, but I definitely was the

(27:51):
consummate extrovert as ayounger person Didn't need other
people to talk, I filled allthe space with my talking.
I used to do that with God and Ican remember right early on,
even before this consciousjourney back into a meaningful

(28:12):
connectivity with God, I wasdoing a lot of prayer.
So I'd go and I'd walk up anddown the river for praying and
just praying about everything inthe church and praying about
everything and anything that Icould think of.
And one day I did about fourhours of prayer just walking up
and down by the river and I wasexhausted at the end of it.
I prayed everything.

(28:34):
I felt really good about myself.
I prayed out, I called it,prayed out and I sat down on the
log and it was like the HolySpirit spoke to me very quietly
and said John, you know I couldnever use you.
It was a shock because it wasso opposite to how I felt.
You know, I could have beentempted to think it wasn't God,

(28:54):
but I was so prayed out I knewit wasn't me and I said God,
what do you mean?
I could never, you could neveruse me.
He said you never shut up andlisten.
That's what he actually said.
But it didn't feel like a rebuke.
It felt like God embracing me,drawing me in and saying I have
things to say to you, but youdon't listen.
You do all the talking.

(29:16):
So I think, finding a placewhere you can still all your
thoughts because even if you'renot talking out of your mouth,
sometimes you're still superanalyzing and evaluating in your
mind and we've got to be ableto let that go to a large extent
and say God, whatever you wantto say to me, even if it's not
about anything that I've beenasking you, I just want to hear

(29:39):
you speak to say to me, even ifit's not about anything that
I've been asking you.
I just want to hear you speakto me.
I think, clean, give God thespace to talk about whatever he
wants, and my initial experienceof that was that God would not
talk about anything that I wasasking him.
Very true, he would start totalk about all sorts of other
stuff and then sometimes andoften at the end of our time,

(30:02):
he'd just say and by the waysort of thing, he didn't say
that, but it was sort of like bythe way, you asked about this
one.
So yeah, I think that's beenreally one of the critical
things.
Obviously, writing down, Ithink, is helpful because none
of us have the kind of memoriesthat can remember clearly enough
not only God speaking but howhe spoke.

(30:26):
And my experience is that Godchooses his words very carefully
and he'll even say to mesometimes I suppose you want a
scripture for this, because youknow I say God.
I can remember say to mesometimes I suppose you want a
scripture for this, because youknow I say God.
I can remember saying to himonce God, if I talked to anybody
about this, they'd think I wasa heretic.

(30:46):
He said well, don't talk tothem about it, it's just between
you and me.
But I think, as you progress inyour journey with God, listening
to him and how he speaks to you, because it's very personal, it
is very subjective, but it'sreal.
He did it to Moses, he did itto King David, he did it to

(31:07):
Moses.
You go through all thepatriarchs.
They all heard the voice of God.
They all were able to interpretthrough their own human filters
, long before it ever gotwritten down.
And the amazing thing, becausethey all grew up in an oral
environment where significanthistorical things were memorized

(31:32):
and passed on through thegenerations.
But then, of course, moses'experience in Egypt, learning
writing, he started to writethings down and thank God he did
for us, because just oraltraditions do get kind of
subverted.
They tend to get subverted byjust gentle diversions of

(31:57):
interpretation.
But I think writing it down isanother really important thing.
And I didn't journal at all, Iwasn't interested in writing
stuff down.
But what happened for me is Istarted feeling God was saying
such profound things to me.
I had to write them down.
I knew I couldn't remember.

(32:17):
How could I remember to tellMary exactly how he said that?
So I to write them down?
I couldn't.
I knew I couldn't remember.
How could I remember to tellmary exactly how he said that?

Mark Banyard (32:21):
so I'd write it down it's also being in the
moment.
It's a bit like jacob waking upfrom his dream and having to
respond in the moment ratherthan you know.
When I get around to it, I'llwrite it down.
Yeah, yes, have you found that?
Perhaps from when you startedto where you are now, that it
quickly went from being kind ofdirectional, informational,

(32:45):
asking God questions, to beingmore intimate relationship, just
wanting to be with him?

Jono Turner (32:53):
Yeah, I'm not trying to put words in your
mouth, no, I definitelyjourneyed that way.
But now I kind of feel likethat whole process of walking
with God in this is now it'sdirectional.
Now it's not just sitting andbeing in his presence, it's

(33:16):
actually we're walking.
We're walking in his, what Icall his, what he has told me
and he says it to me many times,I'm walking in his loving
purpose.
And because I'm walking in hisloving purpose, he's always
sharing things with me, tellingme things, fine-tuning what I'm
doing and guiding me.

(33:37):
So, for instance, I told youabout doing a series on the
second coming.
Well, years ago, that wouldhave intimidated me because I
would have thought it involveslots of study, lots of study,
and where do you even begin?
But the first thing I did was Icame into God's presence and

(34:00):
said God, you know, I've beenasked to do this series on
second coming.
What do you want to show me?
And I just sat quietly in hispresence and he highlighted to
me the key, the central approach, emphasis that he wanted me to
bring, which for that particular, those two Sundays.
And it was just.

(34:21):
It was such a journey of whoa.
I've never seen that before.
Whoa, you know, like Lord, thisis really exciting and you'll
see all through my journeyjournal.
If you read my journal, you'llsee all through my journal.
It's wow, father.
Thank you so much.
This is so encouraging, this isso enlightening.
This I this is so.
You know um, and I feel likeI'm in that I'm.

(34:43):
I'm always in this sort of modeof discovering more and more
about who he is.
But it's not just um arrestingin his presence, it's actually
more of a.
It's got momentum, it's got,it's got direction and journey
in it.
But he's leading the way.
I love that scripture in John10 where Jesus says my sheep

(35:05):
hear my voice and they don'trecognize the voice of another.
And then he says I call themout of the fold and after I call
them out, I go on ahead of them.
And I always have this viewthat we're on this journey.
We're not just I'm not justsitting at his feet hearing what
he's got to say, but we'reactually in the we're in the

(35:28):
kingdom journey of his kingdompurpose and I'm following him,
learning as I go.
But we're not just, we're notjust sitting in a school.
It's a very western thing.
You go and sit on the top of amountain and learn all the
wisdom, but I just feel like forme it's this journey and I'm
following.

Mark Banyard (35:46):
And so it's not so much that we stop resting, but
we continue to rest in Him as wefollow Him, as we walk with Him
.

Jono Turner (35:54):
Yeah, we're not striving, you see, we're just
following, and that is adefinition?

Mark Banyard (36:01):
Yeah, perhaps the definition of God's rest is when
we lay down our works and trustin His work through us and all
striving ceases.
Yeah, but it doesn't mean wejust lie down on the couch and
watch.

Jono Turner (36:14):
Netflix all weekend , yeah, or wait for.
You know, the other thing thatI think I've learned from it is
that many times in my earlierChristian life, the first 20
years of my Christian life, Iwas always waiting for the big
event, you know, the big thingthat was going to push us into
the next move of God, the big,you know dramatic thing.

(36:36):
And what I've learned here isthat we're actually journeying.
We're journeying towards theultimate fulfillment of his
kingdom on earth, where he rulesand reigns on earth, and we're
on that journey towards that andit's not a static thing and I
think, learning to rest in that,without knowing everything,

(36:57):
because you know typical, Ithink men particularly, we want
to know where we everything,because you know the typical, I
think men particularly, we wantto know where we're going and
you know we're wanting to knowdetails about how we're going to
get there and how we're goingto pay for it and how we're
going to survive this and howwe're going to achieve that.
And I think the thing oflearning just to really trust
that tomorrow, when I talk tohim, the next steps or more

(37:23):
steps, because it's not alwayslinear more steps will be
revealed, more you know wefollow in his footsteps kind of
thing.
And to me it's just become thisgreat adventure now where it
could go anywhere.
You know, I don't feellimitation anymore on my life
like I used to, because I usedto feel it's so dependent on me

(37:45):
to become qualified and haveunderstanding.
But now I, I realize I justfollow his voice, just do what I
said.
And you know it's interesting,I I did the study recently and I
haven't done it in great depth,but it's something I want to
develop.
But you know, there's not verymany places through the history

(38:06):
of the Old Testament,particularly where the Lord is
telling His people to read HisWord.
He says today, if you hear myvoice, today, if you hearken to
my voice, it's always about thevoice, the voice, the voice, the
voice.
And you know, I believe inbeing scripturally aligned and,

(38:28):
you know, accurate as best youcan.
But actually it's the voicethat we follow.
When we can't hear the voicefor any reason, then we default
to principles.
But many people want to live byprinciple and occasionally hear
the voice.
I believe we should live by thevoice and make sure that it
aligns with principle and then,when we really don't know what

(38:50):
to do and we have to make adecision.
Well, we default to theprinciple.
But I think the joy of thisjourney for me is knowing that
as long as I keep cultivatingthat stillness and attentiveness
to listen, then his voice willguide me through.

Mark Banyard (39:11):
Very good, very good.
Well, thank you John.
Yeah, keep listening.
We're all on the journey,aren't we?

Jono Turner (39:17):
Yeah, yeah, keep listening.
We're all on the journey,aren't we?

Mark Banyard (39:23):
Thanks for listening.
We hope you enjoyed thisepisode of Kingdom Talk.
You can find all the notes andlinks for today's show at our
website,wwwkingdomadvancedministriescom.
Forward slash podcast and, onceagain, if you enjoyed our show,
be sure to subscribe so thatyou won't miss any of our

(39:46):
upcoming episodes.
Bye for now, and may God bless.
Thank you.