Today we want to explore the conversational nature of our Heavenly Father. We serve a speaking God and we must learn to become a listening people.
God spoke a word of knowledge about finding a person at a specific address to Ananias.
Acts 9:11 The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. ESV
A few hundred years after this happened (sometime around A.D. 280) in modern-day Turkey a guy named Nicholas followed Christ and became known for his devoted lifestyle of expressing the sacrificial nature of Christ.
Children were disappearing in his local community and nobody could figure out how they were being abducted. God spoke to him that the children were being smuggled out in pickle barrels. He came forward to authorities and it was true. The trafficking ring was exposed because Nicholas was a man who listened and prayed. If you’ve not figured it out yet this is actually the actual person Saint Nick, whose sacrificial generosity became the legend of Santa Claus.
Oklahoma City Police officer we are friends with shared with me how a child with special needs was reported as missing while he was on his shift. The child was last seen within the hour in Southeast Oklahoma City. The police officer was driving in Northwest Oklahoma City, exactly opposite of where the child had been seen last. He felt the Holy Spirit prompt him on the northwest side of town to look for the boy by turning down a specific street. The child was somehow standing right there.
The world is a better place when people learn what it means to truly walk with Jesus!
We believe God is moving the church from audience to army and from hearing to doing. This means we must move from focusing on a prophetic celebrity to developing a prophetic community.
You may not realize it but if you have accepted Christ, you can year the voice of God.
Some Christians say they’ve never heard the voice of God. This can’t be true. They wouldn’t be born again if hadn’t heard God’s voice. Salvation is conversion in response to invitation. We don’t initiate that. God does and we respond.
Colossians 2:6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, (NIV)
Salvation is a conversational lifestyle where we learn to sense God’s presence and hear God’s voice as our way of life.
At times in our lives we might not feel we’re hearing the Lord but we do sense his presence. Don’t mistake God’s silence for God’s absence. Many times, God uses his presence to guide us.
The #1 key to hearing the voice of God is the willingness to hear what God wants to say more than what we want to hear.
Who comes to mind when you listen and pray? God’s voice won’t sound foreign to you as the nature of any Father talking to a child is to talk like the child.
Verses you can rehearse as you pray into this further:
2 Corinthians 13:14 “ May the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” (NAS)
Romans 8:14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. (NAS)
Isaiah 30:21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." NIV
Isaiah 54:13 All your children will be taught by the LORD, and great will be their peace. NIV
Proverbs 3:6 Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track. (The Message)
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. NIV
Obviously, God has good plans for our lives. If only we could know those plans. Actually, this is God’s plan. Jeremiah goes on to speak of the conversational nature of God.
Jeremiah 33:3 This is what the Lord says, he who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it—the Lord is his name: 3 ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’ NIV
Our prayer emphasis this season is to declare this verse over our own lives and over all of those around us.
Philippians 2:13 For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. NLT
Everywhere we go....
We Bring GP2RL: Practice hearing the voice of God this week by listening, praying and obeying.