In the 1st post in this series on Hearing from God we saw that we can 'hear' from 1 of 3 places: Satan, ourselves or God. In the 2nd post we looked at how to discern between weather what we are hearing is from God or ourselves.
In this post we will look at how to actually hear from God.
Let me start with a favorite verse of mine:
Psalm 139:17-18a
17 How precious to [b] me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
God is speaking to us all the time... the question is are we listening! Here are 3 main ways that God speaks to us:
1) Hearing
2) Seeing
3) Feelings
HEARING:
For the 99% of us we will not hear an audible voice from God. So how do we hear from God? We hear via a flow of spontaneous thought.
Do me a favor... I want you to think the word 'car for me. Just like that thought was in your head... so God's thoughts stream into our heads. Usually we are so preoccupied that we don't even notice.
By the way, Satan speaks to us in the same manner... thoughts. Those condemning thoughts... very well could find their source from the devil.
SEEING:
Some people tend to get mental pictures or faint impressions that get stronger and stronger. Check out this interesting verse:
Habakkuk 2: 1
1 I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. [a]
FEELINGS:
Getting an impression or sensing a feeling.
(In case your wondering... I usually 'hear' and my wife usually 'sees'.)
Let me just add here that the quickest way to quench hearing from God is to evaluate it as its coming to you.
Rather one should write it down while suspending all judgment. Then once you've stopped hearing / seeing / feeling you can go back and 'judge' it (see the 1st and 2nd posts for more on this).
I hope this was helpful.
If you would like further posts on this subject, let me know what you'd like me to focus on by leaving a comment.
Till next time...
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5 comments:
I'm more of a 'feeler' and intuition and discernment are two of my giftings. I do think we have to be VERY careful of running with feelings however. At times, i.e. a particular powerful musical worship time, emotions can run high and it can be easy to decide that what we are feeling is God. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Then again, when I 'feel' something it does tend to be very spot on. We do need to be careful to test feelings against scripture. Sometimes feelings can simply give way to a passion we would like to develop - not necessarily a bad thing and maybe a great ministry/move/etc but not necessarily a prompting from the Spirit either. While I can feel very strongly convicted by what I feel, I still need to run it by the test of scripture, prayer, discernment, maybe sharing it with a mature Christian. Same with seeing or hearing. The devil disguises himself as an angel of light according to scripture so even if something seems good, discernment is important. We should not be rash about anything but use caution and wisdom in all things. While my 'knowings' I've sensed were prompted by God have never been wrong, I tend to not count anything as confirmed until I see the fulfilment of it.
I couldn't have said it better AnonAsUsual!
Thanks for your comment. It's awesome to have conversation going!
The process is subjective... no argument there. That is why it is so important to test it.
You have to admit though... when a (specific)word of knowledge comes - for instance - that this should be proof that the 'subjective experience' is more than something that you could have cooked up.
I suppose that this is were faith comes into play. Its taking risks and learning along the way just what is from God and what is from your own thoughts.
While I believe that we are responsible for what we do with every thought that is in our head... I would disagree that we are responsible for every thought that occurs in our head.
Let me know what you think of the above...
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