God is Talking to You    

Hearing from God, Pt. 1

 

Open

• Do you believe that God talks to people today? Does He speak to everyone or just certain, special people?
• In the beginning, after God created man and woman, He spoke with them and walked around in the garden looking for them. There was fellowship there, because God knew His people whom He had created and they knew Him. There was intimacy there that has been lost through the fall.
• How does one regain that intimacy with God? How do we know if we’re hearing from Him? Let’s look at the following passage from John to see what Jesus said about hearing His voice.

 

John 10:1-6

"I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.

 

• Jesus said that those who know Him know His voice and recognize when He’s speaking to them. But they also recognize when someone else is speaking to them and will not follow that voice.
• Jesus is our One True Shepherd who looks out for us. He desires for us to know Him intimately, so He speaks to us continuously. In this and the following lessons, we will learn about the different ways God speaks to His children, what we can do to hear Him better, and what things we might be doing that will prevent us from hearing Him clearly.

GOD DELIGHTS IN HIS CHILDREN

 

He Crowns Us

For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation. Psalm 149:4

·         Who are the people of God? Anyone who loves God and obeys His commandments belongs to Him. We are His children if we receive the One whom He has sent, Jesus.

·         God delights in us His children, and He is not up in some distant galaxy waiting to point the finger of judgment at us whenever we slip. He is a kind, loving, and merciful God who delights in seeing us joyful, radiant, and strong.

·         When we humble ourselves before God and submit our lives to Him, He will grant us the crown of salvation, life everlasting with Him.

 

He Rejoices in Us

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17

·         This image of God is not one we might be used to: God rejoicing (which means to spin about joyfully) over us while singing about us His children.

·         Think about a mother or father here on earth who delights in her or his child. A loving parent gives her love unconditionally and is so delighted in her child, even if he has done nothing to deserve such love or delight except belong to her.

·         We belong to God and His delight in us, his love for us, and his rejoicing over us should encourage us to seek Him and His righteousness even more.

·         When we really like someone and are excited for them, we make the effort to communicate with them. In the same way, God desires to communicate with His children because He is so happy that we belong to Him.

 

He Loves Us

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Ephesians 5:1-2

• God loves us so much that He gave His Son to take on our sin and our punishment that we deserved for rebelling against Him. But even in our rebellion, God loved us, and Jesus gave Himself up for us because of love.
• When we love someone, we long to be with them. Jesus loves us more than we can fathom, and He desires for us to know Him more and more.
• The more we spend time listening to Him, the more able we are to live a life of love as He did. We imitate that which we place before us. Jesus should be foremost in our thoughts, so that we can be imitators of Him.

 

He Fathers Us

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! 1 John 3:1

• We expect our Dads here on earth to love us and care for us, but sometimes this is not always the case. Even so, God is the ultimate Father, ready to lavish His love upon us liberally.
• We are His children who belong to Him. He is our protector and provider through everything we go through in this life. Let us look to Him as a Father and listen to His voice, knowing that He instructs us out of love for us.

DEEP CALLS UNTO DEEP

 

God Hears Us

In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. Psalm 18:6

• When we feel most alone and at our weakest point, that is when God draws closest to us, carrying us through the difficult times.
• We must cry out to Him for help, and He will be quick to hear and come to our rescue. Although God knows our thoughts, we must lift them up to Him in prayer, and ask for His intervention. He will hear when we speak our prayers to Him.
• This verse says that our cries come before God, even into His ears. Our prayers do not just float up and around randomly and reach God at some point in the distant future; they come directly to His temple, the place where He dwells and go into His ears where He hears our needs.

 

God Calls to Us

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20

·         Our relationship with God is two-way: we speak to Him and He speaks back to us. Just as we expect God to hear our prayers and answer, God expects us to listen for His voice and obey what He speaks to us.

·         In this passage from Revelation, Jesus is calling out to a church that has grown lukewarm towards Him. Rather than just letting them slide further and further away from Him and His ways, He comes and calls to them and knocks at their door in order to get their attention.

·         God is calling to each of us to draw nearer to Him, to be on fire for Him and not lukewarm in our faith. When we answer Gods call by opening the doors of our hearts to Him, He will come in and we will enjoy His presence. There is so much He wants to say to us, but we must be willing to let Him speak.

 

God Reveals Things to Us

He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him. Daniel 2:22

·         The bible says that the Holy Spirit searches the deep things of God and makes them known to those who have the Spirit in them.

·         When we spend time waiting in God’s presence, His Holy Spirit will reveal deep things about God to us so that we can know Him and His ways more clearly.

·         God’s Spirit searches our own hearts, too, and reveals things inside of us that we might not have known. God can shed light on all our hurts, trials, struggles, joys, and doubts and, if we let Him move in us, He can heal us and reveal truth to us.

·         We must belong to God in order to have His Spirit in us and to have Him reveal His heart to us. How do we know if we belong to God?

 

WE MUST WANT TO HEAR HIM

 

Seeking Him

My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely. Songs 2:14

• Song of Solomon is a beautiful book about the type of love that occurs between a husband and a wife, but we can draw many great parallels from it to illustrate the love between God and those who belong to Him.
• In this verse we see the young woman searching for the one she loves. He is her delight, for his voice and face are pleasing and comforting to her. In the same way, we seek God with all our hearts; He is our greatest love in life, our comfort and delight.
• The woman says here, “show me your face, let me hear your voice.” When we pray, we can ask God to show us His face (Moses, too, sought God’s face in the wilderness) and to let us hear His voice. He is a good God who will not disappoint us or deny us these requests.

 

Submitted to Him

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Psalm 95:7-8

·         When God does speak to us, we must be willing to listen to Him and do whatever He commands. Sometimes He will tell us to do things that we may not be very excited about—like giving up sin or ministering to people we may not like—but our hearts need to remain softened to His voice.

·         What does it mean to harden our hearts? How can we keep them soft? When we are in rebellion against God, doing our own thing rather than seeking to do His will in all things, then our hearts become hardened.

 

Secure in Him

The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was. Exodus 20:21

• In this story, Moses goes up on the mountain to hear God and receive His instructions for His people to share with the Israelites. When God spoke the Israelites were very afraid and begged Moses to speak to them for God, because they were too scared to hear God’s voice themselves.
• It is right to keep a fear of God in your hearts, but if you are walking in purity and holiness, you have no reason to be scared of God or of His voice.
• Like Moses, who feared God but not His voice of authority, we can be confident to approach Him in order to hear what He is speaking to us. We must want to hear God and believe that He desires to speak to us out of love.

Close

 

Exodus 33:7-11

Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the "tent of meeting." Anyone inquiring of the LORD would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the LORD spoke with Moses. Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to his tent. The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.

 

·         Moses took time to seek God and listen to what God was speaking for him and for His people. God is always speaking to His children, but we must—like Moses—get away from the camp and quiet ourselves in His presence to hear what He’s saying.

·         Jesus said that we will recognize His voice and follow Him. As we seek God, we will easily recognize His voice and hear what He is speaking to us more and more.

·         God delights in us and desires to have intimacy with us as He did with His Son Jesus and with Moses, speaking to him as we would speak to a friend.

 

How to Hear His Voice   

Hearing from God, Pt. 2

 

Open

• Do you think it’s easy to hear God’s voice or does a person have to put some effort into hearing what God is speaking?
• In the last lesson we learned that God hears us and even speaks to us; this lesson will go over some helps and hindrances to hearing God’s voice in your own life.
• We will begin with Psalm 24, which talks about the type of person that is able to come before God to stand in His presence. To hear God, we must be in His presence, and only those who are holy are able to stand in it.

 

Psalm 24:3-7

Who may ascend the hill of the Lord?

            Who may stand in his holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart,

            who does not lift up his soul to an idol

            or swear by what is false.

He will receive blessing from the Lord

            and vindication from God his Savior.

Such is the generation of those who seek him,

            who seek your face, O God of Jacob.

 

• This Psalm indicates that not everyone will be able to stand in the presence of God, but only those who are pure and cleansed of their sins, which means those who know Jesus. Those who worship some other entity or stake their life on any other belief will not be able to stand in His presence.
• But the idea that we can meet with God is not just for some distant future after we die, but it is for right now, too. We can come before God in His holy place, the place of His presence, any time we choose. We can speak to God and He will speak back to us.
• While God wants to speak to us and have us hear what He is saying, there are some things we can do or not do to help us hear Him more clearly.

DEVOTED OR DISTRACTED?

 

Be Still

“Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

·         What does it mean to “be still” before God? Does it mean to just stop moving, or is there some deeper stillness implied?

·         When we quiet our minds and bodies by removing all distractions that draw us away from Jesus, this is being still. It means we rest in God and stop working so hard to do everything all on our own; we stop and focus on Jesus and know that He is God and has everything under control.

·         When we are still in His presence, it is easier to hear Him speak to us than if we are constantly on the go and not listening for His voice.

 

Be Wholehearted

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13

·         Do you think God is pleased with half-hearted attempts at prayer or worship? When we read our Bibles or pray or attend church but let our thoughts drift elsewhere, do you think God says, “Well, at least he showed up. That’s good enough for Me?”

·         Instead, God searches our hearts, knows our meditations and motivations, and sees every thought, attitude, and desire. He wants followers who have abandoned everything for Him, who are completely devoted to Him above all else. Lukewarm Christianity does not cut it with God, He is seeking to reveal Himself to wholehearted worshippers who seek Him with everything they’ve got.

 

Be Close

“I will bring him near and he will come close to me, for who is he who will devote himself to be close to me?” Jeremiah 30:21

• God wants to speak to us, but we must draw near to Him. We must allow Him to draw us into His presence so that we might encounter Him in a real way. But He requires our hearts to be devoted to Him; He is seeking those who set their hearts on being close to God to wait on Him and hear what He is saying.
• Though God is the One who pulls us into a closer walk with Him, we must respond by setting our hearts to know Him and listen to His voice.

 

Don’t be Fake

“With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain.” Ezekiel 33:21

• God is not pleased with those who have an outward appearance of religiosity and piety, but whose hearts are far from God.
• We cannot please God and draw nearer to Him by just mouthing prayers, singing worship songs, attending religious services, or praising His name in words, but these things must bubble up from a heart fully and sincerely devoted to seeking Him and doing His will.
• If we really want to hear God and know Him, we must surrender all of our desires for selfish gain and seek to know and follow His ways. Our hearts must be submitted to Him.

 

Don’t be Deceived

But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 2 Corinthians 11:3

• There are many things in this world competing for our attention, but we must give Jesus first place in everything and reject anything that draws us away from Him.
• If we are not focused on Jesus, then we can be easily deceived into believing that many things are from God when they really are not.
• For this reason, we must renew our minds daily by reading the word and praying in truth and understanding for more knowledge of God and His ways.
• We must use discernment when we listen for God, so that we can distinguish His voice from all the other voices in the world.

HOLINESS OR HARDNESS OF HEART?

 

Holy Hearts Hear God and Obey

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. Deuteronomy 29:29

• When our hearts are committed to walking in holiness, we will walk in the ways of righteousness, truth, and mercy and not in the ways of sin. As we seek holiness in our lives and live out the life God intended for us, then we can hear God clearly and more easily, since our lives are lined up with His ways.
• God reveals things to us so that we can continue to walk in His ways and follow Him more closely and so that we can teach others to do the same. When we hear Him, we must obey what He tells us and not harden our hearts to His instruction.

 

Holy Hearts See God

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Matthew 5:8

·         We cannot get to God or see Him by any other way than holiness, and we become holy because of Jesus. It is up to us who know Him to continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, though, by walking in purity in our lives.

·         How can we continue to ensure that our hearts remain pure?

·         Jesus is the way to the Father, and He is the One who shows us who the Father really is. We can only see God because of Jesus, so we must know Him to know God. If we miss this part, we miss the whole big picture.

 

Hardened Hearts Won’t Hear God

“…I will send a famine through the land…a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.” Amos 8:11

·         If our hearts are hardened, then it is nearly impossible to hear God speaking to us. If we are in sin, then it is likely that God is telling us to repent of our ways and return to Him, but our consciences could be so seared that we don’t even acknowledge His voice.

·         Rebellion and pride are sins that can keep us from hearing God, as they keep us from being humble enough to know that we need Him and need to know what He’s saying to us.

·         If we are in sin and are having trouble hearing God’s voice, then we can simply repent and return to Jesus and trust that He will point us back in the right way. We must be softened and open to hearing Him guide our ways.

 

MIND OF THE SPIRIT OR OF THE FLESH?

 

Controlled by Your Flesh?

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires… Romans 8:5

• What does it mean to be controlled by our flesh? If our thoughts are consumed with satisfying all of our own needs and desires rather than with thoughts of God and pleasing Him, then we are controlled by our flesh and not living in the freedom of the Spirit.
• If our minds are set on serving ourselves, then of course we will not hear God, because He will tell us to do things that conflict with our desire to please our flesh.
• If our flesh controls us, we probably either have not yet known Jesus and died to ourselves or we might be Christians who have fallen into worldly patterns of living. Either way, we can just repent and start living for God.

 

Or Controlled by the Spirit?

…but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. Romans 8:5

·         When we love God, we want to do the things that please Him, so we set our hearts and minds on seeking to know Him more so that we can know what is pleasing to Him. This is having our minds set on the Spirit.

·         Those who know Jesus have the Spirit of God living inside of them and can live in accordance with His Spirit, and where the Holy Spirit is there is freedom.

·         It is much easier to hear God when we have set our minds on listening for Him.

 

You Can’t Have Both

For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not know what you want. Galatians 5:17

• We can’t take the easy route, however, and tell ourselves that we will seek God most of the time but leave room for doing whatever we want on occasion. With God it is either all or nothing; we cannot serve both our selves and God.
• If we have our minds set on worldly things, we will not want to have anything to do with the things of God, because the world is hostile towards God. And if we have our minds focused on pleasing God, then we will want nothing to do with the things of this world.
• If we try to have it both ways, then we may not always be hearing from God, but we may also hear from our flesh or from demonic forces at work in the world.

PRAY IN THE SPIRIT

 

Practice Praying in the Spirit

…build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Jude 20

·         Jude encourages us to pray in the Spirit. Sometimes when we come before God, we don’t know what to pray, but we feel like we just want to say something to Him. This is where the gift of praying in tongues, or praying in the Spirit, comes in handy.

• As we pray in the Spirit, our spirit becomes more in tune with God’s Holy Spirit, and we’ll have an easier time hearing from Him and understanding what He’s speaking to us.

 

Don’t Practice Witchcraft

Let no one be found among you who…practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Deuteronomy 18:10-11

·         One thing to keep in mind while we’re praying in the Spirit, waiting on God, and listening for His voice is to keep our thoughts focused on Jesus and on following His ways.

• We must ask God for discernment to know when it is Him speaking to us and when it is from other source (such as from our flesh or from the devil). We need to seek wisdom and knowledge from God alone and not through any occult or New Age practices that claim to bring us more in touch with God.
• Praying in the Spirit will build up our faith in God and align our spirits with God’s.

Close

 

Luke 19:38-42

     As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her house to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

     “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

 

·         It is easy to let all of life’s “obligations” and distractions keep us from taking time to slow down and rest in the presence of Jesus and listen to Him speak. It is important and necessary to take time away and leave the distractions behind to listen for His voice.

·         We must take time to be still before God with holy hearts focused on Him and the things of His Spirit to hear what God is speaking to us right now.

·         Practice listening to God and waiting on Him. Pray often and in the Spirit to get your spirit in tune with His.