The Rhema Treatise, 6 Butters Lane, Burlington, MA (2026)

09/06/2026

God Still Speaks: Hearing That Produces Obedience

👂“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” — James 1:22

The purpose of hearing God is transformation. God does not speak merely to satisfy curiosity, confirm our preferences, or give us spiritual experiences to discuss. He speaks to reveal Jesus, form character, direct our steps, and release obedience.

Spiritual maturity is not measured only by how often we say, “God told me.” It is revealed by whether the fruit of our lives reflects the God we claim to hear.

💬 A Story of Divine Speech

In Acts 9, Saul of Tarsus traveled toward Damascus with authority and a mission to persecute believers. On the road, a light from heaven flashed around him, and he heard Jesus say, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” Saul asked, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” (Acts 9:1–6).

That encounter changed everything. Saul did not merely receive information; he surrendered his direction, reputation, and future. The persecutor became Paul, an apostle who carried the gospel across the Roman world.

God’s voice interrupted Saul’s path, but Saul’s obedience established his new one. The encounter mattered because he responded. He turned and went on a new path that has had one of the most profound impact on Christianity to this day!

🧘Positioning Ourselves to Hear

Approach God with a willing heart, not a pre-decided conclusion.
Ask for confirmation when direction involves major relationships, finances, calling, or transition.
Test every impression by Scripture, prayer, godly counsel, and the fruit it produces.
Distinguish conviction from condemnation: conviction draws you toward repentance; condemnation drives you into despair.
Respond promptly to clear, biblical instruction.

God may not reveal every detail at once. Often He asks for trust before explanation. Obedience in small matters - apologizing, forgiving, serving, giving, resting, speaking truth - builds the spiritual sensitivity needed for larger assignments.

🙏Life Application

Identify one area where God has already made His will clear through Scripture. Perhaps it is forgiving someone, reconciling a relationship, abandoning a hidden compromise, serving faithfully, or releasing anxiety to Him in prayer.

Write one concrete act of obedience you will take within the next 48 hours. Then pray: “Lord, make me not only a hearer of Your voice, but a faithful responder to Your Word.”

A rhema word is confirmed not merely by emotional impact, but by Christlike fruit. When God speaks, obedience becomes the evidence that we truly heard.

08/31/2026

God Speaks in the Quiet

👂And after the fire a still small voice.” — 1 Kings 19:12, NKJV

We mostly expect God to speak through the spectacular: a miracle, a prophecy, an unmistakable sign, or an open heaven.

God certainly can speak that way. But often, His voice comes as a quiet, steady, holy impression that draws the heart back to Him.

God’s whisper is not weak. It is intimate. A whisper requires closeness.

💬A Story of Divine Speech

Elijah had just witnessed God answer by fire on Mount Carmel, yet shortly afterward he fled in fear from Jezebel. Exhausted, discouraged, and isolated, he sat beneath a broom tree and asked God to take his life.

The Lord did not shame Elijah. He fed him, gave him rest, and led him to Mount Horeb.

There, Elijah encountered wind, an earthquake, and fire; but the Lord was not in them. Afterward came “a still small voice” (1 Kings 19:11–13).

God spoke to the weary prophet, restored his perspective, gave him instruction, and reminded him that he was not alone.

The God who revealed Himself in fire also ministered through gentleness. Elijah needed more than a public victory; he needed a private encounter.

🧘Positioning Ourselves to Hear

Come honestly. God is not intimidated by exhaustion, grief, fear, or disappointment. Just look at the way God related to Elijah!

Rest your body and soul; fatigue can distort how we interpret circumstances.

Reduce competing voices. Endless scrolling, anxiety, urgency, and unhealthy counsel can blunt the still small voice.

Bring your questions to God rather than rehearsing them only within yourself.

Wait without demanding that God speak according to your preferred method.

Silence is not necessarily God’s absence. Sometimes silence is the environment in which our hearts become receptive again. The Lord may first restore us before He redirects us.

🙏Life Application

When you feel overwhelmed, resist the urge to make a major decision in haste.

Create a “Horeb moment”: step away, worship, read 1 Kings 19, and speak honestly to God about what has depleted you.

Then ask, “Lord, what is Your next faithful instruction?” Do not demand the entire roadmap.

Elijah received enough direction for the next assignment.

Often, God’s voice gives us light for the next step, not control over every future step.

08/23/2026

God Still Speaks!

👂My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” - John 10:27

God is not silent. He is a personal Father who desires a relationship with His children, not mere religious activity.

Throughout Scripture, He speaks through His written Word, the Holy Spirit’s inner witness, wise counsel, circumstances, dreams, and conviction. Yet His voice never contradicts His character or His Word.

A Rhema word is not a replacement for Scripture; it is the Holy Spirit making God’s already-revealed truth alive, personal, and timely in a particular moment. It is the Word moving from information in the mind to illumination in the heart.

💬 A Story of Divine Speech

Samuel was a young servant in the house of God when he heard a voice call his name: “Samuel!” At first, he assumed Eli the priest was calling him.

After this happened three times, Eli discerned that the Lord was speaking and instructed Samuel to answer, “Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears” (1 Samuel 3:1–10).

The passage begins by noting that “the word of the Lord was rare in those days.” Yet even in a spiritually dim season, God found a listening servant.

Samuel did not initially recognize God’s voice, but recognition grew through response. God spoke, Samuel listened, and a prophet was formed.

🧘 Positioning Ourselves to Hear

- Begin with surrender: “Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears.”

- Make space for stillness; constant noise can bury spiritual attentiveness.

- Read Scripture consistently, because God’s voice is always aligned with His Word. Store enough scripture in your heart so that the Holy Spirit can have storehouse of his Word to illuminate.

- Obey the last clear instruction God gave you; obedience sharpens discernment.

- Invite mature believers to help you test what you believe you have heard.

Hearing God is not about chasing dramatic experiences. It is about cultivating communion. God may speak in a clear prompting, a scripture that grips your heart, or a gentle correction that redirects your choices.

🙏Life Application

This week, reserve ten undistracted minutes each day. Read a short passage from the Gospels, then pray: “Lord, what are You showing me about Yourself, about me, and about my next step?”

Write down what comes to mind, then test it:

⁉️ Does it agree with Scripture?

⁉️ Does it reflect Christ’s character?

⁉️ Does it lead toward faith, holiness, love, humility, and obedience?

God is speaking. The deeper question is whether we are becoming still enough, and yielded enough, to recognize His voice.

08/16/2026

Beauty for Ashes; The Divine Exchange

Isaiah 61:3 reveals the ministry of Jesus toward the broken:

“To give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”

This is not God minimizing pain; it is God promising that pain will not have the final word!

Ashes were the visible language of grief, loss, repentance, and devastation.

But the Lord does not ask you to pretend the ashes are not real. He meets you there.

Then, by His mercy, He makes an exchange: a crown of beauty in place of ashes; anointing oil in place of mourning; and a garment of praise in place of heaviness.

The image is not merely cosmetic. The Lord transforms identity, restores dignity, and establishes His people in righteousness!

There are ashes you did not choose: disappointment, betrayal, delayed promises, doors that closed, and prayers that seemed to fall silent.

Bring them to Jesus. Do not build a home in what burned down. What looks like an ending may become the ground where God plants a testimony.

The Scripture says they “shall be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

God is not only lifting you from the ashes; He is rooting you deeply so you will stand strong and display His glory.

Beloved, the ashes are not your name. Mourning is not your permanent garment.

Christ has come to bind the brokenhearted and to announce the Lord’s favor.

Put on praise, not as denial, but as faith. Declare: “Lord, I surrender every ash to You.

What I cannot restore, You can redeem.

What wounded me will not define me.

You are giving me beauty for ashes.”

08/10/2026

God Names the Ashes, Then Gives Beauty!

“To grant to those who mourn in Zion, to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit…” Isaiah 61:3

God does not deny the reality of grief; He enters it with redeeming purpose.

In Isaiah 61, the Lord does not command mourners to pretend their ashes are beautiful. He promises an exchange:

Beauty instead of ashes,

Gladness instead of mourning,

Praise instead of despair.

Rhema is often received at the site of loss.

It is not sentimental optimism or a denial of pain.

It is the Spirit bringing the unchanging promise of God into the present wound: “Your ashes are not the end of your story.”

God’s restoration may not erase every memory or immediately reverse every circumstance, but He refuses to let devastation have the final word over His people.

The book of Ruth tells the story of beauty for ashes so vividly.

Naomi returned to Bethlehem empty, grieving the deaths of her husband and sons. She said, “Call me Mara,” meaning bitter, because her life had been deeply afflicted (Ruth 1:20).

Yet God quietly worked through Ruth’s covenant faithfulness, Boaz’s redemption, and a child born into Naomi’s family line.

Naomi’s story did not begin with a sudden emotional breakthrough.

It began with a return.

In time, the woman who believed she had come home empty became a grandmother in the lineage of David, and ultimately of Christ.

God was working even while Naomi could not see the whole design.

Here is my question for you this week. Where have you concluded that loss, disappointment, or delay defines your future more than God’s restoring character?

Here is a task I’d like you to do this week. Write down one “ash” you have been carrying: a grief, failure, broken expectation, or unanswered prayer.

Pray honestly over it, then write Isaiah 61:3 beside it.

Do not force yourself to feel better. Instead, ask God for the grace to return to Him faithfully and to notice one evidence of His care this week.

08/02/2026

Praise does what prayer alone cannot.

Psalm 103 refuses half‑hearted worship:

“All that is within me, bless his holy name.”

This kind of total praise doesn’t ignore pain, but it refuses to let pain define God.

It remembers that He forgives, heals, redeems, crowns, satisfies, and separates us from our sins with covenant faithfulness.

Praise gathers scattered thoughts and fastens them to the character of God.

We all know of a song that puts so much into a few lines of melody in a way prayers cannot quite articulate.

A song that brings God’s awesome power into such a clear focus!

Praise frames God as bigger than anything we could ever face.

The melody and music serve to heighten our sensitivity to the awesomeness of God and his sovereign power of his creation.

In 2 Chronicles 20, Judah has already prayed. They have already confessed their inability:

“We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You.” Yet the turning point comes “as they began to sing and to praise”;

Then the Lord sets ambushes and the enemy is defeated.
Prayer brought their weakness before God;

Praise released God’s power into their weakness.

Praise does what prayer alone often cannot.

It recalibrates focus,

Breaks fear, and

Invites God’s rule into the emotional climate of your heart.
Where prayer may stay locked on the problem, praise turns the gaze to the Person:

“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”

So in every situation, when armies surround you, when guilt haunts you, when confusion silences you…

Let prayer start the conversation, but let praise carry it into victory.

Lift your voice, bless the Lord with all that is within you, and watch praise do what only praise can do.

BLESS THE LORD, O MY SOUL, AND ALL THAT IS WITHIN ME!

07/26/2026

Praise that marches ahead of the battle.

2 Chronicles 20 gives us a strange battle strategy.

Jehoshaphat appoints singers to go in front of the army, praising “the beauty of holiness” and declaring,
“Give thanks to the Lord, for His faithful love endures forever.”

As they began to sing and praise, the Lord Himself set ambushes against their enemies. The sound of praise became the signal for God’s intervention.

Notice the order:

The song starts before the ambush springs.

The worship team moves before the warriors.

This is more than emotion; it is spiritual warfare.

Praise is audible agreement with God’s character in the face of contradiction.

Psalm 103 carries the same logic. After calling his soul to bless the Lord, David lists covenant benefits, then declares that God works righteousness and justice for the oppressed, is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and removes our sins “as far as the east is from the west.”

Praise is the believer’s way of marching into conflict wrapped in revealed truth.

Prayer can describe the problem;

praise declares God’s answer.

Prayer can voice weakness; praise proclaims His strength.

Acts 16 shows Paul and Silas praying and singing hymns at midnight, and God shakes the prison.

There are moments when you must let praise walk ahead of your petitions, so that your heart enters battle already convinced of God’s goodness.

If all you've been doing is praying, now may be a good time to supercharge with praise!

Let praise march you into battle and warch the Lord deliver the enemy into your hands!

07/19/2026

Command your soul to praise!

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”

Psalm 103 opens with a prophetic command, not to demons, not to circumstances, but to the psalmist’s own soul!

Real praise often begins with self‑exhortation: “Soul, we are going to bless God anyway.” “We are going to bless God regardless and in spite of the situation!”

David doesn’t start with requests; Psalm 103 is pure, unadulterated worship.

No petitions, only remembrance of what God has done. He rehearses the benefits: God forgives all iniquity, heals diseases, redeems from the pit, crowns with lovingkindness, satisfies with good, renews youth like the eagle.

Praise pulls these truths from the pages of Scripture into the present tension of your life.

In 2 Chronicles 20, Jehoshaphat stands before a vast army and does something similar.

He gathers Judah, lifts his voice, and praises God’s power, covenant, and faithfulness before any victory is seen.

Praise is how faith talks when the odds are against you.

Prayer asks; praise agrees.

Prayer lays burdens down; praise lifts eyes up.

Praise doesn’t replace prayer, but it does something prayer alone often can’t: it shifts the atmosphere of the heart and aligns the soul with who God already is.

When you feel overwhelmed, start where David starts. Command your soul to bless the Lord and refuse to forget His benefits.

07/12/2026

Our Great High Priest is actively representing, sacrificing and interceding for us having himself experienced the human condition in his own body.

Having 'walked’ in our shoes, he knows where it ‘pinches’ and He is ever ready and available to help.

Old Testament high priests entered the holy of holies with blood that spoke for the people, but they had to offer sacrifices for themselves first, and then again and again for Israel.

Their ministry was a yearly reminder that sin still stood, and that another, greater Priest must come.

Jesus comes as that Priest, offering not the blood of bulls and sheep that last for a time, but His own once‑for‑all sacrifice, securing eternal redemption permanently and forever.

Having died and risen, He now “always lives to intercede,” applying the finished work of the cross to our unfinished lives.

So when Hebrews calls us to “draw near” for mercy and grace in time of need, it is inviting us into a living, ongoing conversation with a Priest who represents us perfectly and prays for us continually.

07/05/2026

Our Great High Priest – Appointed From Among the People

Every high priest “chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.”

Hebrews 5:1 reminds us that priesthood is never self‑chosen; it is a divine appointment for human representatives.

Aaron did not volunteer; God called him, clothed him, and sent him in with blood on his hands for a people who could not cleanse themselves.

Jesus steps into that pattern, yet in a greater way. Though eternally God, He becomes man, sharing our flesh and blood, entering our story, and walking our dusty roads, feeling our feelings, and being tempted like we all are.

He is appointed by the Father as High Priest “forever,” echoing Psalm 110, not after the line of Aaron but in the order of Melchizedek:

Royal,

Righteous, and

Eternal.

Because He is one of us, we are never unknown at the throne of God; our Priest carries real human names, real human burdens, and real human tears into the holy place.

We have a true representative at the throne of God who knows what it means to be human, who identifies with our weaknesses and who speaks for us before the throne of God.

Now we can come boldly to the throne of God that we may obtain mercy and find grace in time of need.

The Rhema Treatise

09/06/2026

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