GOD SPEAKS

(John 16:13, Romans 8:14,16, Psalms 85:8,  Amos 3:7, Acts 18:5, Num 12:6)

“But when he, the spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” John 16:13 NIV.

When one talks about hearing God or being inspired or led by the spirit of God to do or say certain things, some people seem to react weird or feel uncomfortable because they’ve never had such experience or encounter before.

We are in perilous times, where this subject has brought lots of controversies and disbelief. I was speaking with a friend and I shared with her some things God told me, she was taken aback and her response amused me. She told me, she couldn’t relate, and that it seems God doesn’t speak to her or maybe she doesn’t hear or know when He does speak. That’s the state many of us are in, we find it hard to believe that God speaks or God still speaks to His children. As a matter of fact, being led by God is what authenticates your sonship as a child of God. Being a Christian entails walking God’s path for your life, being directed by God.

The place of real fellowship with God is changing into a pool of activities, some churches end up running activities and teaching her congregation same, thus, some people no longer encounter God as He is but lives on the words of other believers.

It is becoming common to hear some preachers say ‘God is here’ meanwhile the congregation has not been led to seeing this God neither have they been shown how to access Him. It is because of these vexatious happenings that some ‘Christians’ find it hard to enjoy personal fellowship with God, thus, leading to the difficulty or disbelief in the fact that God actually speaks.

As a young man, my first supernatural experience that left a mark in my pursuit of God was when He spoke to me through a trance. That was some years ago, I just left a corporate prayer, where I interceded for direction from God, seeking to know His will for the people He had chosen me to lead.

I laid on my bed, alone in my room and was slowly dozing off to sleep, and then I realized I was caught up in two different dimensions. I felt I was asleep and at the same time awake, right before me was someone with a very bright banner and on it was shown souls with hands lifted high to God with an inscription on the banner saying PRAISE. Immediately, I snapped out of it and then realized God was telling His people to praise Him. Still, in that week, God confirmed His word when another of His servant shared to the church that God was seeking praise from His church.

Aside from this experience, I’ve been privileged to hear from God through other various means which have truly expounded my understanding and knowledge that God is limitless.

Have you ever thought about prayer as a time you get to relate with God, to talk to Him and hear Him talk and not just going to His presence to make noise and then return back to your routines? You should not see prayers as an activity but as an interaction, we should be deliberate and sincere in our prayers. Communication is a two-way thing, we commune with a living God when we pray, a God that listens and speaks. When you go to God, you’re meant to find peace. What some people do is synonymous to appearing before a King, echoing the normal praises and greetings, then they begin to shout and scream one request to another, after which they don’t wait to hear or listen to what he has to say but walk out immediately they’re done screaming.

When Jesus tells us in Matt 11:28, to come to Him, those who labour and are heavy laden and He will give us rest, He wasn’t telling us to come scream and leave, He was telling us to come and dwell. It’s in the dwelling that we’re refreshed, it’s in His presence we’re reassured. We get the solutions to our problems when we go to Him. The rest is a product of His presence, and His presence can only be made manifest when the heart truly seeks Him (Isaiah 29:13).

God wants a genuine relationship with man, His desire is to have real fellowship with you, not one predicated on or restricted to an activity that isn’t deliberate. He wants not just your words but also your heart. Understanding and faith are gotten and built when our ears are opened to listen and our hearts willing to receive from God.

The voice of God never went mute, it is you who stopped listening (Psalms 85:8, Romans 8:14,16, Amos 3:7, Acts 18:5, Num 12:6). God does speaks, and there are diverse means in which He communes with His Children.

Prior to the coming of Jesus, the prophets were the conduit pipe God used in communicating with man. Fortunately, Christ restored the relationship between man and God and therefore making it possible and easy to hear the voice of God and receive direction (Heb 1:1-2, Heb 10:19-20, John 14:6).

Before Jesus left, he made a promise of the comforter, the Holy Spirit  (John 14:15-18). The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God that is in every child of God, also referred to as the Spirit of truth that gives you guidance in life. The leading of God in your life is what confirms you as His Child, and the Holy Spirit (still the spirit of adoption) is the means in which He leads His Children (Romans 8:14-16).

Without the Spirit of God, we are like horses or donkeys which lack understanding and must be forced to do the will of their owner. Well, God isn’t interested in slaves, He can’t force you to have a relationship with you, He can’t direct you if your heart is not open to Him. You must be deliberate in seeking Him and walking His path.

Psalms 32:8-9 tells us “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye. Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.”

God is ever willing to walk with you and direct your path. The question is, are you are ready and willing to listen to Him, to be directed by Him?

There are numerous ways God speaks to His children and some of them are:

Inner Perception: This is the primary and the most basic way in which the Holy Spirit may lead most people most of the time. It is an internal witness, a supernatural knowing and understanding. In 1 Samuel 3:8, Eli did not hear the voice of God when God was calling Samuel, however, he perceived that it was the Lord who called Samuel. To perceive is to become aware of something by a supernatural understanding. Jesus at the course of His ministry on earth, perceived at so many times the state of the people’s heart and their comprehension of His teachings (Matt 16:6-8). Some Christians get led through this means but fail to realize it is a divine direction. For example, you hear people tell you after an examination that it was the specific place they read that came out. Ordinarily, they shouldn’t have known where the examiner would decide to examine them from, but the Spirit of God was able to guide them accordingly.

Inner Voice: This is divine communication by the voice of the spirit. (We most times refer to it as ‘still small voice’).  Peter was directed by the inner voice in Acts 10:19, when the Spirit ministered unto him, informing him of three men who sought him. Sometimes while engaged in deep thoughts, a voice so soft and calm might be heard. This voice guides us and teaches us the will of God, provides answers to questions and direct our paths. Due to the subtleness of the voice, people do miss it at-times or misconceive it for their thoughts. (Isaiah 30:21, Kings 19:11-12, Rev 2:7,17 and 29). I was studying the scriptures one evening, specifically Ephesians 3, when I heard the voice of the spirit telling me Jesus Christ is the reflection of the greatness of God. For you to hear the inner voice, your spiritual ear must be alert. The gauge to test the genuineness of the voice heard is the word of God. It must never contravene God’s word.

Audible Voice of God: In this situation, you hear a voice that appears so loud that it even seems to you that it was heard by the physical ear. However, it can be spiritual to the spiritual ears. It can also be physical to the physical ears but people won’t hear the content and it can also come in such a way everyone hears it just as it happened with Paul on his way to Damascus before his conversion (Acts 9:3-7). What Samuel heard in 1 Samuel 3:3-10 was the audible voice of God but Eli couldn’t hear it. The audible voice of God could come in different forms, all to the glory of God.

Revelations:  Revelations could come in different forms, it could be through night dreams, trance or vision.

Night Dream – That which we see when we are asleep, just like the angel of God revealed to Joseph, Herod’s future plan to seek to kill Jesus (Matt 2:13). Any dream that is contrary to the word or the will of God must be averted and resisted in the place of prayers. Sometimes the purpose of our dreams is for us to avert or resist them with prayers. I ever had a dream and in it, I saw my friend crying out to me for help, telling me I wasn’t caring. When I woke up, through the help of the spirit I was able to understand what it meant and so, I picked up my phone and called, I didn’t even bother greeting or asking any question, I just started off praying against sickness and declaring her whole, then I ended the call and later that day, she called to tell me, she woke up that morning feeling ill but after the prayers, she was well. Dreams could also come as a means of warning us, a friend of mine once shared a quite complicated dream of hers with me and some possible interpretations of it, but by the spirit of God, we were able to discern that God was warning her not to go off track or to be swayed away by the allurements of the world. As children of God, we shouldn’t disregard dreams except it is not in alignment with the word of God. Also, there are satanic orchestrated dreams just as there are divine dreams, so you are to be careful not to interpret any dream as divine direction because there are also times where our subconscious brings back at night that which our eyes or hearts were fixated on during the day. (Eccl 5:3)

Trance – Just as I shared in my experience earlier, trance is a state of insensibility to external surroundings, at that point you’re unconscious but your passion and ability to function remains and you’re still able to retain memories.

Most times it occurs after an intensive prayer session. When you retire to a serene environment, you unconsciously enter into a trance, where you seem to be half asleep and half awake at the same time (Acts 10:9-10).

Vision – The spiritual and mental pictures are seen with the person’s physical sense or senses intact. It could occur with your eyes closed and also with the eyes open, just as it happened with Daniel and Ezekiel (Daniel 7-8,10 and the book of Ezekiel). You may see mental pictures that are so vivid and easy to comprehend, other times, it may be unclear pictures that can be confused with imaginations. At different times, I have been able to confirm spiritual revelations by servants of God through such mental pictures that were revealed to me, displaying in a pictorial form their revelations or prophecies.

Tongues Interpretation: This is the ability to be able to interpret tongues (to be able to comprehend spiritual language), the source of praying in the spirit becomes the channel of understanding with the mind. Interpretation of tongues is a spiritual gift, not all have, the spirit of God gives us different gifts, all from God and to His glory. To some the spirit gave the word of wisdom; to others the word of knowledge; faith; the gift of healing; the working of miracles; prophecy; discerning of spirits and other different gifts. These gifts are given to man as God wills, they’re for edification, growth and benefit of the body of Christ. I was privileged to be in a prayer meeting one night and then playfully, we started rapping in tongues and the Holy Spirit took over the meeting and so many could not stop speaking in tongues, the understanding of a few were opened in that gathering and they began interpreting the tongues that were uttered and God’s words to us were communicated accordingly with confirmations. The gift of interpretation of tongues is a very important gift because it enlightens or interprets the words of the Spirit and also educates the believer on that which is being prayed for by the Spirit. (1 Cor 12:10, 14:2-17).

Through the Word: It is very possible to be led by the word of God (Scriptures). You could be directed to read a passage by the spirit of God, you could stumble on a random scripture that answers a pressing question, you could even be spoken directly to from the pulpit when the word of God is being expounded or discussed.  Sometimes you find yourself nodding or maybe orally reacting to scripture when you come in contact with it. It could even be a known scripture but at that very moment it answers your heart’s question, brings peace to you, brings light to your life or enlightens the eyes of your understanding (Psalms 119:130, Eph 1:18, Psalms 119:105, James 3:17).

Prophetic Direction: This is God’s direction or word through a man for you. This is when God speaks to His Prophet concerning you (1 Kings 13:11-25, 2 Kings 5:1-15). It could be a confirmation of God’s words for your life, it could be an instruction, a prophecy or anything. However, do not become so dependent on Prophetic directions that you fail to hear God for yourself, it endangers and can hinder your spiritual growth. Receiving prophetic direction is good but it shouldn’t be your primary means of hearing God, build your relationship with God, that a Prophet’s direction serves mostly if not always as a confirmation to you. Also, you need to be careful not to take in any message, every word that is contrary to the word or the will of God should be totally rejected.

The ways in which God speaks to His children can never be exhausted, He could decide to speak to you through stones or even through water. Countless times, He has spoken through diverse means, He has spoken to His servants through situations or activities (Jer 19:3-6), I suffered a great storm a few years back but God still uses the experience to speak to me till date, the glory of the Lord was greatly manifested at the end of the trial and the pains were nothing compared to the glory it brought (2 Cor 4:17), God spoke through a burning bush to Moses (Exodus 3:2-10), through an animal (Num 22:27), through the stars (Matt 2:2), through angels (Luke 2:8-12) and lots of other inexhaustible means.

Sometimes we limit/restrict the way God speaks to us by expecting to hear from Him just through the method we’re familiar with and fail to take cognizance of the other times He tries communicating with us. God can never be exhausted, likewise His ways.

Deliberately seek God and He would reveal Himself to you, never limit Him, His ways are not the ways of man and His thoughts are not our thoughts. God is good to those who come to Him.

God bless you!

Let us pray!

Lord, I appreciate you for your word, I thank you for this fresh light and understanding you’ve given me today, I ask that you search my heart as I deliberately run after you today, reveal yourself to me and help me continue life’s journey with you. Thank you Jesus; In Jesus name,

Amen.

Tsalla Emmanuel

 GOD SPEAKS