GM Scott. Welcome to the board. Want to add to what Rick gave you from Bonnie Ricks.............
Q. How did David hear the voice of God in answer to his prayers? How do we hear Him today? How do I distinguish between my voice and the voice of the Lord?
The “short” answer to your first question is that David could “hear” God because he had a one-on-one intimate relationship with God. In Acts 13:22, speaking of what God had done concerning Israel, Paul said, “After removing Saul, he made David their king. He testified concerning him: 'I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.” Think about that for a moment… in order for David to be the man whom God Almighty referred to as “a man after mine own heart,” David had to be something special, right? Nope. David was no different from you or me – or at least, no different than you and I CAN be…
Jesus wants us to have a close, intimate, personal relationship with Him. If we have that close, intimate, personal relationship with Him, then we won’t have any trouble at all “hearing” Him when He speaks to us – no matter how He chooses to do so. We will recognize His “voice” no matter what is happening in our lives. And we will be able to distinguish HIS voice from our own thoughts and/or the cacophony of things the world is telling us.
The Lord speaks to us in a number of different ways… Three of those ways are:
Through His Word
Through His Holy Spirit
Through other people
Each of these ways of speaking to us is made more effective by how closely we are walking with the Lord each day. In other words, the better you know Him and the closer you are to Him, the easier it is for you to “hear” His voice.
How do you develop that close, intimate, personal relationship with Jesus? The same way you develop a close, intimate, personal relationship with another person… by spending TIME with Him, every single day, getting to know Him on every possible level and opening yourself up to Him, sharing the innermost parts of yourself with Him. Now, it’s true, that Jesus already knows you and me much better than we know ourselves, so why should we have to “open ourselves up to Him?” Because in doing so, we become closer to Him just as we do when we open up to another person. We have to be willing to let Him see us – warts and all – for who we are, because by doing so, we are admitting to ourselves who and what we are. And it’s through that sharing back and forth that we grow closer to Him each and every day.
How do you get to know Him, inside and out? First, by reading – and really studying – your Bible. For instance, pick out a subject – “love” or “fear” or “loneliness” or “anger” – and using a good concordance (like Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance with a Greek and Hebrew lexicon in the back), look up everything God has to say on that subject. Create a notebook and take notes. Or just use a highlighter and write in the margins of your Bible – whatever method you use, make sure that it’s a method that will work for you. And then stick to it, every single day. The more time you spend studying God’s Word, the more you’ll find Him “speaking” to you through that very Word. You will begin to be amazed at how often the answer to some question that’s been bothering you will be found in the “random” scripture you landed on to study on a given day. And you’ll soon come to realize that your “random” selection isn’t so random after all – that the Lord directed you to that particular passage so you would find the answer to the question you’d asked Him several times in the recent past.
At the same time you’re studying, spend time in prayer. And remember, prayer does not have to be “formal” or use an “outline” or big, flowery words. Prayer is just you talking to Jesus – pouring your heart out to Him and opening up yourself to Him completely, surrendering your heart and your will to Him to do with as He sees fit. And also, you should be interceding for your friends, for your family, for your nation’s leaders, and for others that you know are in need – like the tsunami victims and the victims of Katrina and Rita.
One thing… after you make a commitment to spend time with Jesus every day, if a day comes along and for some reason you “miss your appointment” – do NOT beat yourself up for it, or walk around feeling guilty all day because you forgot or overslept or for whatever reason didn’t get your Bible study and praying done. If you do that, you’ve placed yourself under “the Law of Daily Bible Study and Prayer”. As a Christian, you live under God’s GRACE, not the Law – neither the Law in the Bible or another man-made (or self-made) law. If you miss a day, don’t worry about it. Just tell Jesus you’re sorry and that you miss Him, and you’ll be there tomorrow.
Okay, now you’ve made a commitment to spend time with Jesus every day, and you’re getting to know Him on a deep, personal level. But you still aren’t sure how to know when He is speaking to you. First of all, remember what Jesus said in John 10:27 - “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” The closer you are to Him, the better able you will be to recognize His voice. Does this mean you should listen for an audible voice? No, not at all. While I know that God has and does speak audibly to people on occasion, that is very rare. He does, however, speak to our hearts. And one sure way to distinguish whether it’s Him speaking or yourself is, “Does what I’m thinking agree with God’s Word?” Quite often, that can be the deciding factor immediately, because our own thoughts will be much more likely to be a little “askew” when it comes to God’s Word. At other times, there is no way to compare the “message” to the Bible, because what you’re asking doesn’t have a specific reference within God’s word.
For instance, some years ago, J.R. and I were in a situation where we had to move, and we had less than a week to do so. The house we were renting had been sold, and the new owners wanted to take possession. It was the Sunday after Christmas. We had thought about staying home because there was supposed to be a snowstorm moving in and our church was 20 miles away. I told J.R. that we had to change our plans and go to church that evening. When he asked why, I told him that someone was going to be at church that had y because of the snow that was supposed to be heading our way. But there was a couple sitting behind us to my right – a couple whose name I didn’t know, but whom we had seen at church before. While waiting for the service to start, I heard the woman speak to her husband, saying, “Remind me tomorrow to call the paper and put an ad in for Mama and Daddy’s house.” My head spun around so fast, I made myself dizzy! I leaned back toward the woman and whispered, “Do you have a house for rent?” Her eyes got wide, and she said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, we do… my parents’ house.” I said, “We need a house to rent and would like to move this weekend. Is the house vacant?” It was, and we not only rented it, but they charged us no deposit and even helped us move in!
How did I know that someone would be at church that night who had a house to rent? The Holy Spirit told me. And, because I’d spent so much time with Jesus over the years, I could recognize the Holy Spirit’s “voice,” even though it was not an audible voice. Instead, it was that “gentle whisper” that is talked about in 1 Kings 19:11-13…
The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by."
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" (NIV)
The King James version says “a still small voice” in verse 12. In the NIV, quoted above, the phrase is translated as “a gentle whisper.” Either one is an excellent description of the “voice” people hear when the Lord speaks to them.
So, the Lord speaks to us through His Word, and He speaks to us in a “gentle whisper.” There is another way that He speaks to us… through other people. Let me qualify this statement a bit, because you have to be cautious about this particular type of “communication”… Let me give you a for instance…
Some years ago, a young woman I knew was about to get married, and she just didn’t seem to be as happy about the upcoming nuptials as I thought someone should be. Finally, about two weeks before the wedding, she dropped by my house to chat, and about halfway into the conversation, she burst into tears! After she got control of herself enough to talk, she told me that she didn’t want to marry this man! I asked her, “If you don’t want to marry him, why are you doing it?” “Because God wants me to marry him!” she said, then began to sob even harder. As we continued to talk, I learned that two women at her church had told her that God had told THEM that she should marry this man! The problem was, she didn’t love him. In fact, she was terrified of him. Within about 3 months after they started dating, he had begun emotionally and mentally abusing her, and from all evidence, he was only a few steps away from moving into full blown physical abuse. Finally, I said, “If God wanted you to marry this man, don’t you think He would have told YOU about it Himself?” She looked stunned for a moment, and then said, “Well, I guess so.” I laughed and said, “Well, I KNOW so! If God has something He wants you to do, He’s not going to tell Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Jones; He’s going to tell YOU! Obviously, He hasn’t done that. In fact, from the way you’re behaving, I’d say He’s telling you just the opposite.” After what became several hours of talking and crying and praying with me, she called the wedding off. A year later, she met the man that God had planned for her, and the “message” she received at that point was from God directly to her.
So, when considering any “message” you receive from someone who claims the message is from God, make sure the Lord is confirming that same message to you. For instance, back in the early part of 1992, I had been through the roughest time of my life for nearly three years. I had come to a point where I was beginning to think that my life would be nothing but one trial after another for the rest of my time on earth. Then I received a “message” from God that not only would my time of trial soon end, but also, like Job, He would restore to me everything I had lost during that time – and then some! How did I receive this message? In the period of one day, three different women, totally unrelated to each other in any way, told me that God had told them that I needed to read a particular scripture. The scripture was so obscure it could not possibly have been a “coincidence”. The scripture was Joel 2:25-27:
"I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
the great locust and the young locust,
the other locusts and the locust swarm —
my great army that I sent among you.
You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
and you will praise the name of the LORD your God,
who has worked wonders for you;
never again will my people be shamed.
Then you will know that I am in Israel,
that I am the LORD your God,
and that there is no other;
never again will my people be shamed.”
A few months later, God began to “repay” me “for the y ears the locusts have eaten,” and restore to me everything I had lost, and then some! Obviously, God HAD been speaking to me through those three women that day, and He confirmed that message by following through with His promise.
I hope that this will help you understand how you can “hear” God speaking to you, and that it will begin your walk toward that close, intimate, personal relationship with Jesus wherein you will always recognize His voice, no matter how He chooses to speak to you.
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