ABC's Of Learning To Hear God's Voice (Apr 2, 1997)

I received this email on April 2, 1997:

Date: Wed, 2 Apr 1997 06:49:14 -0800 (PST)

Subject: Re: Intercessionary Prayer/Free Will

Hi Teresa,

I have never 'heard' God 'speak' to me the way He does to some of His children. Maybe it's because I'm not sensitive enough to His Spirit. But I know He guides me along in my daily walk.

God Bless!

Here is my reply ...

Hi. Thanks for your note. May the Lord continue to bless you richly as you begin to walk out His Lordship in more and more areas of your life!

Learning to discern God's voice takes time and is born out of a deep and intimate relationship with Him. It has very little to with being "sensitive" and has everything to do with being in relationship with Him ... He is the one who will teach you. One of the indwelling Holy Spirit's job is to teach us all things... including how to discern God's voice from NOT His voice.

Please do not be discouraged that you can't do this yet... it really is a process and is born out of a close and intimate walk with Him.

There are a few things you can do to help the process along... the first is to purpose in your heart that if God speaks clearly to you about something, you will obey Him, regardless of the "cost" of what He is asking you to do.

The next is to ask Him to being to teach you His voice and to reveal more of His character and His nature to you... realize that there is a cost in doing this... if you want more of God in your life, He will want a greater lordship in your life... i.e., God will want to become "boss" of more areas of your life and when He moves in as boss, sometimes that really steps on our toes. For instance, as He moves into Lordship of your leisure time, He may tell you to stop watching certain TV shows and movies, or He may tell you to stop watching TV all together. As He moves into Lordship of your Finances, He may tell you to give money to Him above and beyond your regular tithe... in fact, He probably will tell you something along those lines. So, before you invite Him to teach you His voice, you better make sure you really want to do this.

And finally you can help the process by getting to know His Word (the Bible). One of the first things God ever said to me was "Teresa, if you want to hear My voice more clearly, you must give Me a vocabulary to speak to you. You must memorize scripture." Then He reminded me of that verse "your word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you." In short, God is a consistent God and will not go against what He has already said in His word. So we need to pour over His word to become familiar with His character and nature and with His viewpoint on things. It is helpful to memorize scripture as well as to read it.

I hope you will find the above advice useful. Many Blessings!

- teresa