Question:

I would like to know how to pray or know what book to read to know God intimately and how to know His voice. 

In Norman Grubb’s book God Unlimited he describes prayer as "the product of our union with Christ." I have a back issue of our magazine The Intercessor that focuses largely on the issue of prayer. I would like to send you a copy as a gift if you would care to give me your mailing address?

Answer:

I would like to know how to pray or know what book to read to know God intimately and how to know His voice. 

The above question was sent to the Intercessor staff in August of 2012. The staff sent back the following answer: 

In Norman Grubb’s book God Unlimited he describes prayer as "the product of our union with Christ." I have a back issue of our magazine The Intercessor that focuses largely on the issue of prayer. I would like to send you a copy as a gift if you would care to give me your mailing address?

Because the editors wanted to put this question and an answer to it in the magazine they have asked me to expand the answer and to put it in words a bit less scholarly than Norman Grubb has used. Hopefully this will make it easier for the average reader, like myself for example, to understand and will simplify its wording a bit in an effort to give a clearer understanding to each reader–Page Prewitt.

The answer here is a derived from ideas and quotes from Norman Grubb’s fabulous book Who Am I? (pages 74-75) where Norman makes clear to his readers that it is an all vital fact that we are in union with Jesus Christ, which means that we are HE in our human forms: not we living but He living our lives (whoever is united with the Lord is one spirit with him–1 Cor. 6:17). If we can dare to take this spirit truth for ourselves we will move to a third level of consciousness that is quite different from our thinking of ourselves as being in a relationship with Him, as wonderful as that sounds. By faith we eliminate our "gap consciousness" where we are here and God is there. This is where a relationship puts us. With this leap of faith (and it is a leap) we accept our final union-consciousness–that is that we are HE in our human forms: not we living but He living our lives. Note that Jesus called us the light of the world NOT us having the light, but being the light. We know that in reality He is the light but, in our union with Him He expresses Himself–"The Light"–through our human selves. All we must do is recognize this glorious truth and respond to it with unwavering faith and as we do this we will learn to rest here and the truth spoken that it is He living in and through us will become our truth. As we trust Him to live we become spontaneous in our everyday lives, knowing by faith He is fulfilling His promise made in Phil. 2:13 that "It is He who works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure." 

If, or when, we lose sight of this truth and move back to trusting ourselves and living from self-effort we have dipped into sin. Hopefully when we do this we quickly see what we have done and we correct ourselves by confessing our lack of faith, ask God’s forgiveness and move back into faith in Him living. "Quick sinning–quick cleansing," to quote Norman Grubb.

 

For the question "How do we know God’s voice?" the Bible tells us we have His mind. From this spirit wonder we can trust that He will lead us and enlighten us as to the way we should go. It may be by a thought, a spoken outer word or something we read etc. When it is something important I check my prompting with another believer I know I can trust. Norman told me once I could trust that my desires were His desires as long as I did not desire a sin thing. 

 

As for the question as to what book to read to learn to know God–the secret to the Christian life is to know, as the Bible calls it "the mystery hidden from the ages which is CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY" Col.1:27. Any of Norman Grubbs books will help lead you to find this life-revolutionizing truth. I would recommend that you begin by reading Who Am I?. If you have already read it then read it again.