≈≈Learning to hear God's voice≈≈
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27
Lately I have heard people saying, “God told me to do this and that”, “the Holy Spirit lead me to this place”, and I thought to myself, what are these people talking about? How do they hear God’s voice? Is it possible in our times? What kind of voice do they hear? Is it a spooky kind voice like the one’s our Sunday school teachers imitate? Is it harsh? Soft? I thought to myself, why is God not talking to me directly? What kind of people does God speak to? I also have the desire to hear God's voice! I thought that someday I will hear an audible voice speaking to me saying something like “ Cooooody, I am God, listen to meeee,i neee to talllkk to youuu” or something, but I didn’t. I was so disappointed thinking that maybe I don’t deserve to hear his voice, as I am not perfect. So I went on searching, I wanted to learn to hear God’s voice.
So how do we do this?
We need to understand that our natural mind does not dwell on or think about God’s word, or the things of God, unless we discipline it to do so. (1 Cor. 2:14) Therefore, the best way to learn to “hear” God’s voice is as follows:
#1 – Memorize scripture verses that uplift and glorify Jesus Christ.
The more scripture verses you memorize, the more the Holy Spirit will have to bring into your conscious thought. He is capable of overriding your busy mind to put a scripture verse into it. Demon spirits will not want to place a verse into your mind that uplifts and glorifies Jesus. Your natural mind won’t do it either, unless you stop and make the decision to think about the verse. This is the quickest way to learn to recognize when the Holy Spirit is speaking to you. As you do this, God will then bring other thoughts to your mind. Usually, it will be something corrective. God will bring to your attention something in your life that is not pleasing to Him. The quicker you obey to get rid of that thing, the quicker He will speak to you again. (now I understand the importance of memorising scriptures)
#2 – Ask the Holy Spirit to act.
Ask Him to bring those verses that you have memorized into your conscious thought during the day when you are busy thinking about something else, such as work.
After learning the above……..
#1 – God’s voice in your heart will often sounds like a flow of spontaneous thoughts, feelings, visions or expressions.
For example, if you are just relaxing, driving or whatever and a thought came to you to pray for a certain person? It was God telling you to pray.
#2 – we are advised to become still so we can sense God’s flow of thoughts and emotions within.
Psalm 46:10 encourages us to be still, and know that He is God. There is a deep inner knowing (spontaneous flow) in our spirits that each of us can experience when we quiet our flesh and our minds. If we are not still, we will sense only our own thoughts. To have a pure flow we must become still and carefully fix our eyes upon Jesus. If we do that, spontaneous thoughts will begin to flow from the throne of God to you, and you will actually be conversing with the King of Kings!
#3 – As you pray you should be able to fix the eyes of your heart upon Jesus, seeing in the Spirit the dreams and visions of Almighty God.
God has always spoken through dreams and visions, and He specifically said that they would come to those upon whom the Holy Spirit is poured out (Acts 2:1-4, 17).
What are some of the other ways God speaks to us?
Through His Word. God’s Word, the Bible, is described as being “living and active.” (Hebrews
4:12) Many times God will speak to someone through His word. How does He do that? As the person is reading and studying the Bible, a particular section or verse will suddenly jump out at him. He will become aware of the verse, and have a new understanding of it that he never had before. Many times, he will just “know” without any doubt that God is giving him that verse for instruction, or for a promise. This is the Holy Spirit giving that person the sudden awareness of the verse. The Holy Spirit works through our mind.
Through another person. However, this is rare. This is called exercising the gifts of “word of knowledge,” or “prophecy.” And in Hebrews, God Himself says:” For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbour, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.” Therefore, he makes it clear that God does not desire to speak to His people in this way on a regular basis. He prefers to speak to each one of us individually. IF God chooses to speak to you through someone else, usually it is to bring confirmation about something He has already been saying to you, or to bring to your attention something that you would not be able to hear directly from Him because it is not to your liking.
God speaks to us directly. The Holy Spirit will speak to your spirit, and then the words will be placed into your brain as a thought. This is the normal and most frequent way that God speaks to His people. That is why, in Hebrews, God said that He would write His laws on the minds and hearts of His people. God communicates directly to our minds and hearts.
Can I be deceived?
Unfortunately yes, not all thoughts, feelings, visions or advises are from God, some of them come from the devil or your own desires, therefore it is important to be able to distinguish were they come from, this is why it is so important to know God’s Word. God will never tell you anything that goes against His Word. How many times have we heard someone telling us that God “told them they were supposed to marry someone, when they were currently already married to someone else! God would NEVER say such a thing. They are simply accepting their own sinful desires as being from God.
Remember, God says, “’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.’” Isaiah 55:89.
How Can I Keep From Being Deceived?
We should continually be humble and dependant upon him. We must ask the Lord to keep us from being deceived and making mistakes. Every time we think God has spoken to us, we must measure it against His written Word.
So as I was putting all the things that I have learned together, I now know the importance of feeding my mind & spirit with the word of God and not junk in order to achieve this wonderful gift from our saviour, for whatever I feed my spirit that is what I will get out.