THREE WAYS YOU CAN HEAR THE VOICE OF GOD BY JOHN BROWN

How does God speak to us (Hearing the Voice of God)

   Is hearing the voice of God sort of like tuning in to a certain radio frequency so you can listen to your favourite program? Or is it just a shot in the dark, a hit-and-miss thing?  

 People have always been fascinated by the idea of hearing the voice of God. And many people have heard God's voice.  

 Abraham heard the voice of God telling him to leave his own country and go to a place that God would show him (Genesis 12:1). 

  Joshua heard the voice of God telling him to lead His people into the Promised Land (Joshua 1:2, 3).

    Gideon heard the voice of God through an angel, calling him a mighty man of valour (Judges 6:11, 12).

    Samuel heard the voice of God, when he was a child, calling his name (I Samuel 3:10).   

Mary, the mother of Jesus, heard the voice of God through an angel, telling her that she was going to give birth to the Son of God (Luke 1:31). 

  John heard the voice of God through the sound of a trumpet, saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last (Revelation 1:10, 11).  

 Many people have heard the voice of God in many different ways—through the sound of a trumpet, through angels, through His still small voice and once He even spoke to a man named Balaam through a donkey! (Numbers 22:28-31). 

  God is not limited in how He can speak to us. And if He spoke to the people that I've just told you about, then He's still speaking to men and women today. Why do I say that? Because Hebrews 13:8 says He's the same yesterday, today, and forever!

   Let me give you some examples of the ways God can speak to us.  

 Three ways you can hear the voice of God.  

1.    You can hear the still, small voice of God speaking in your spirit.   

In I Kings 19 Elijah was being hunted down by Queen Jezebel, the wicked queen of Israel. She had put a bounty on his head, and she was going to have him executed. Elijah desperately needed to hear the voice of God, telling him how to get out of that mess.    Now Elijah was expecting to hear from God in some big, dramatic way, and God gave him some pretty dramatic special effects, all right. First, a tornado came roaring by, but the Lord wasn't in the wind. Then an earthquake shook the ground under his feet, but God wasn't in the earthquake. Next there was a roaring fire, but God wasn't in the fire either.    Then Elijah heard a little, quiet voice speaking in his spirit. It was God speaking to him, telling him which way to go. It didn't happen exactly the way Elijah thought it would, but he heard the voice of God.  

 How I heard the still, small voice of God.    

I remember some years ago when I heard the still, small voice of God speaking to me in the midst of my confusion. I was a Muslim at that time and I followed some Christians to a field where they were going to have a prayer meeting and in the midst of their meeting the Holy Ghost fell on me mightily and I began to speak in tongues. I was not born again at that time. I went home in a state of confusion not knowing what had happened to me, so I decided to visit them again for them to explain to me why am speaking in this  funny language i don’t understand. And in that meeting I heard the still, small voice of God saying to me "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”. And all of a sudden, the confusion was settled within me, and that was the turning point of my life.

And I have learnt an important lesson from the Lord. I learnt that you can hear the voice of God speaking quietly in your spirit, even when everything around you seems to be shaking to pieces!   

2.    You can hear the voice of God through a dream or a vision.   

And your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.    —Acts 2:17 KJV   

In Genesis 37 God spoke to a teenager named Joseph through a dream. Actually, the Lord gave him two dreams, and both of them revealed God's plan for his future.    In the dreams God used symbols to tell Joseph that someday his brothers, and also his mother and father, were going to bow down to him. Then Joseph learned the hard way that sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut than it is to tell everybody else what God has said to you!  

 When his brothers heard about his dreams, they were furious. They sold him into slavery in Egypt, and it began to look like Joseph's dreams were really just hallucinations.  

 But if Joseph hadn't told his brothers about his dreams, he might not have wound up in Egypt at all. And that's where he needed to be so his dreams could be fulfilled.   

That tells me that. God can even use our mistakes to get us into the position He needs us to be in so our dreams can be fulfilled. So don't grieve over you r mistakes. Trust God to turn them into miracles. And remember, God can still speak to you and me today through dreams and visions!   

3.    You can hear the voice of God through His Word

I believe the most important way we can hear God's voice is through His Word. And if you're asking yourself, how can I know if this is really God speaking to me? You can pick up your Bible and begin to read His Word. You see, God speaks like He writes and He writes like He speaks. His voice and His written Word will always line up.

    The disciples heard the voice of God speaking through the words of Jesus. One day they were getting ready to take a little boat ride, and Jesus told them, Let us go over to the other side [of the lake] (Mark 4:35 amp). But apparently they didn't hear Him, or they forgot what He said, or they didn't really believe Him in the first place.    Why do I say that? When the disciples got into a little turbulence out in the middle of the lake— when they got into a holding pattern due to the weather—they panicked! 

  It was just a storm. It was just an attack of the devil. Didn't they know that Satan likes to send storms and obstacles and roadblocks when we set out on a journey for Jesus?  

 As soon as the trouble struck, they forgot all about what God had said to them through the words of Jesus. They forgot that the Lord had told them, "We're going over to the other side."

   And isn't that the way it happens to us? Trouble strikes and we forget what God said to us in His Word. We've heard the voice of God saying to us, "You're not going under. You're going over!" 

  But the trouble looks so bad. The news is so awful. We're still in a state of shock from it.  

 Thank God, we don't have to wait for a voice to thunder out from heaven to tell us what to do. We don't have to wait for a still, small voice to speak in our spirits. We don't have to wait for God to give us a dream or a vision.    Those are wonderful things, and God may speak to us that way. But we always have His Word, and His Word never fails.

Blessings

 John Brown