Does God speak to His people? If so, in what way does He speak? Is it in an audible voice, where words can be heard and understood clearly? Does He speak frequently in this way, or even all the time? Does He only speak to a priviledged few?
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Answers will vary greatly depending on who you ask and from which end of the theological spectrum they come. Far be it from me to assume that God speaks to everyone in the way He speaks to me, but, having been a professing Christian for forty-three years, and having mixed with other Christians across the spectrum of denominations and theologies, I think I have a bit of a handle on the answer.
God speaks to us and even to unbelievers in a multitude of ways. His message often goes unnoticed because we aren’t listening, or we aren’t attributing that message to God but to other things such as nature, as though nature were alive. There would be no nature without God. He also speaks through music, the conversation of others, the course of events, and more. The question for us today is more to do with the question of how God speaks to us direcly about our individual lives.
IS IT ME OR GOD?
As a new Christian, I was convinced that the Lord was speaking to me almost audibly, several or many times a day. Over time, I came to realize that what I had been hearing was my own thoughts. However, before you think I’ve dismissed the idea that God speaks directly to Christians in their daily lives, hear me out.
ALL BELIEVERS HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT LIVING IN THEM
I believe in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our guide and our Comforter. He is with us forever, once we take that step of faith and give ourselves to God. We receive Him when we commit ourselves to the belief that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true: that the only Son of God died to take away our sins, and then rose from the dead on the third day. When Christ had ascended, He sent the Spirit to indwell all true believers. I mention that because there are some among us who are convinced that you only get the Holy Spirit when you receive a second blessing at some time after that saving faith I spoke of. But here’s the truth from Scripture: all Christian believers have the Spirit, and if you don’t have the Spirit, you aren’t a true child of God at all. It is true, however, that not all Christians are walking in step with the Spirit.
Salvation is the result of accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ, and changing the way we live to conform to the ways of God. It’s not the result of some “second blessing” or “baptism of the Spirit” at some time later. I’ve discussed this before in my posts on tongues and the Holy Spirit, but I will here give some relevant evidence from Scripture:
You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ (Romans 8:9).
The gospel is that salvation comes only by faith in Jesus Christ, but it is also true that you cannot be a Christian without having the Holy Spirit in you. Here’s another example:
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children (Romans 8:14-16).
Here’s a third example:
For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink (1 Corinthians 12:13).
f you’re a believer in Jesus Christ as the savior of your soul, you have the Holy Spirit of God inside you, guiding your spirit and soul into righteousness and ultimately an eternity with Him.
IS IT HIM OR ME?
Getting back to the point of this post, How does the Spirit guide us? Some people are convinced that the Lord clearly tells them in an audible voice what to do and what to say throughout the day. As I said, that was my conviction for the first year of my Christian life-until, that is, one or two things started to go wrong. When the things that the Lord supposedly told me led me into sticky situations, frustration, sin, and even disaster, I began to question if that little voice inside me really was always the Spirit of God speaking.
WATCH OUT FOR SELF-APPOINTED PROPHETS
I’ve had people tell me that the Lord was telling them something about my life, even to the point of what was going to happen to me the next week. I’ve had prophecies given to me with very specific details-none of which actually came to pass. Either the Lord-the omniscient God of all Creation, who knows the end from the beginning- had it wrong, or my acquintances did.
My Bible tells me that God knows all things and doesn’t make mistakes. Therefore, these claimed prophets were, in fact, getting prophecies from their own imaginations. They were either getting words from their own minds which they interpreted as the Holy Spirit speaking, or at the very worst, from demons whispering in their ears.
There are also those who perhaps don’t insist that they hear a voice all the time, but instead get a “feeling”. They may say something like, “I feel the Lord is telling us….” Now this is slightly nearer the mark of the way God speaks to us, but it’s still infused with potential error or even blunders. We may indeed get a “feeling”, but feelings are extremely subjective. Feelings can lead us astray. Feelings are unreliable. Feelings can be our own minds, emotions or even bodies, getting it terribly wrong. We cannot trust ourselves, and we certainly cannot trust others either, especially in this age of deceit. So who or what can we trust?
THE WORD OF GOD
The answer is in Scripture. The Bible claims to be the inspired Word of God. We can know what is right or wrong; what is true or false; what is good or bad, by reading the pages of Scripture. But what then of our daily lives? How do we know which way to go, what decision to make, or how to act in any given situation? Surely God will speak to us in difficult times?
Sometimes God speaks to us as we read Scripture, via the words, into our hearts. Those words which can seem distant and somehow irrelevant at other times can almost jump out of the page at us, as though the Lord is telling us something today in those very words written down thousands of years ago, and sometimes He is. This is part of the value of our Bible. Not for nothing is it called the “living word”, because it applies to people of all ages and all times, and sometimes applies to us in specific circumstances.
“For the word of God is alive and active…” (Hebrews 4:12).
The first time I had to make a really important decision as a Christian, I was waiting for audible words to tell me what to do, because I really didn’t know. I was begging for them. I was even begging for just a feeling-a clear sense of what to do. It didn’t come. If the decision had involved whether to sin or not, Scripture could have given me a clear answer. On this occasion the decision involved a choice which would not have been sinful either way I went. I could have, therefore (and inadvertantly did) decided based on certain wisdom I had found in Scripture and which was stored in my heart. That’s why David wrote this:
I have hidden your word in my heart… (Psalm 119:11).
The regular, personal reading of Scripture is vitally important to the Christan life, because by it God’s wisdom is stored in our hearts. I made that difficult decision based on what seemed like the wisest thing for my life. and for others involved.
TRUST THAT GOD IS SPEAKING AND ACTING, EVEN IF YOU DON’T HEAR HIS VOICE
However, at no point in that process did God speak to me audibly, even though I begged Him to. He was leaving the decision to me. Or was He? Isn’t the Holy Spirit our guide? Doesn’t He care about us or our prayers? Of course, He does. And looking back on that time, I can see that I made the right decision. I had prayed for guidance, and He had given it, though I heard nothing of His voice. Why? Because God is faithful, and when we pray ernestly, and then act in faith and according to the inspired Word of God, God is in our decision. But there’s more.
AN INTERFACE
God not only works all things together for good for those who love Him, but He also guides our minds, when we are looking to Him for guidance. I see our minds as an “interface” between our spirit where God dwells, and the world we live in. He can “speak”-though not necessarily in words- in our own thoughts and thought processes.
A WARNING
The important thing is to weigh up those thoughts, because our fleshly nature is still at work. Not all, and perhaps very little of our thinking is influenced by God. Was it the Lord guiding me that way, or was it my own thinking and preference? Is my thinking submitted to the will of God, and to His written Word? Don’t just assume that God is telling you what to do in endless detail, such as where to park and which cereal to buy at the store: this is presumption and sin. It’s much more likely to be your own thinking. God has given us a mind and a free will: do not put your words into the Lord’s mouth.
AN AUDIBLE VOICE
Does God speak audibly today? I cannot rule that out. I have heard a voice a few times in my life which probably was not my own. As an example, I had written a long post on my blog which took a lot of time to write, and found days later that only one person had read it. I felt offended and that perhaps I had wasted my time. I said, as though the Lord had somehow let me down, “Lord, one view only? Really!” I immediately heard this inside me: “Doesn’t that one person matter?” Of course, that one person was of enormous importance to God.
I think it’s extremely rare to hear the voice of God and not the norm. Much more commonly, our own thoughts may be inspired-shaped- by the guidance of the Spirit of God within us, if we are walking with Him. And the voice we hear on those rare occassions, when it isn’t our own mind speaking, may not be His but Him speaking in our own “thought” voice.
THE LORD TOLD ME CROWD
Beware, because I can tell you from personal experence that most of what is spoken with the prefix “The Lord told me” was not God at all. I’ve known a number of people who have said often that God had told them to do something, and then a week or two later was “telling” them something completely different, as though God can’t make up His mind. If you sense God speaking to you in any way at all, test the message. Does it align with Scripture? Is it wise? Does it bring glory to God or is it really coming from your own or someone else’s self-serving mind? A few Christians are power mad, seeing themselves as modern-day Peters and Pauls.
Being sensitive to these questions is Godly and very important. If God “told” you or someone else somthing, and it turns our to be wrong, it definitely wasn’t the Lord speaking. Be aware when that happens, and then be wary of future words claiming to be from God, and wary of those who presume to speak them.
Fuel for Faith 