LEARNING TO DISCERN HOW GOD SPEAKS

learning to discern God's voice the prophetic prayer and intercession developing intimacy with God learning to grow and develop in your spiritual gifts and to move with God in His power learning to walk out the Lordship of Jesus Christ in every area of our lives Num 23:19 KJV) God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? God Speaks To Us Through His Word: God is a communicating God, so He finds many ways to speak to His children. Of course, the most important and most reliable of these is through His written word, the Bible. The Bible is the inspired word of God, and it must be our absolute standard by which we judge all else. When God speaks directly to us, we bounce it off of the written word of God. If we "hear" God say something directly to us that contradicts the Bible, then we must assume we have "heard wrong." Numbers 23:19 says, "God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should change His mind" (NIV). Also, the first part of Malachi 3:6 says, "I the Lord do not change" (NIV). So we see that it would be inconsistent with God's character to speak something to us in the Bible (which we hold as absolute truth) and then later to change His mind about it and say something contradictory. He simply would not do that! God speaks to us through the Bible in many ways. The most obvious is by teaching us "His ways" -- e.g., how to please Him, how He desires us to behave, what He is like, etc. Show me Your ways, O Lord, teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation. (Ps 25:4-5, NKJV) God Quickens Scripture for Specific Situations: There will be times where we need to hear God for a specific situation. God will sometimes take a passage of scripture and quicken it to us for our specific situation, including our callings. I was called into the ministry under these verses: Mat 9:37 Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Mat 9:38 Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest. The anointing I would walk under was defined by these verses: This is not a sign of how it always works I am showing you how it did for me. Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

Luke 4:19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Divine coincidences: Are where things just happen to fall together in such a way that the hand of God is evident in your circumstances. As you sit back and look, you can see that God has been orchestrating events to lead you into the center of His perfect will. Phil 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Sometimes this can be fairly simple and sometimes it can be quite elaborate. Sometimes the leading of God is very clear as the events are unfolding. Other times His plans may seem very elusive and unclear until they have been accomplished. Acts 20:22 And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: Internal promptings: Are when you strongly feel you are to do (or not do) something. You can't explain why you feel that way, but it is in you. Sometimes the intensity inside just keeps building until you do it. Other times, you just happen to do something that very much turns out to be precisely the right thing. You can't explain why you did it, but somehow you knew to do it. Acts 20:22 And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: Acts 20:23 Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. Acts 20:24 But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. Object lessons: Are where we see something in the natural and then God shows us how this illustrates a spiritual principle. Jesus used a lot of object lessons when He taught. For instance, He said that faith is like a mustard seed. The tiniest of seeds grows into a huge tree, where the birds of the air can rest in its shade (Mark 4:32). The mustard seed is a truth from everyday life. Even the smallest faith, when exercised, will grow into something spectacular. understand." God tends to show up and speak to us from our everyday life experiences: We are simply going about our daily routine and suddenly He breaks in and gives us a revelation from them. These can be fairly simple or they can be incredibly deep. They can be an understanding of God's nature, or they can be directive. When God speaks to us through everyday life experiences, these are things we "live" for a more extended period and suddenly the understanding breaks forth. Sometimes God speaks to us in dreams: The Bible is full of examples of this. The wise men were warned in a dream to go home another way and avoid Herod (Matthew 2:12). Joseph, when returning from Egypt, was warned in a dream to take his family to Galilee instead of back to Judah (Matthew

2:22). We know that God speaks to believers and unbelievers alike in dreams. We see God speak to Abimelech (a heathen king) in a dream to return Abraham's wife Sarah to him (Genesis 20:3). We see pharaoh having a dream about seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine in Genesis 41:18. He acted on that dream and built up grain store houses, enabling him to feed his people when the famine hit. Sometimes the Lord gives us a check in our spirit: It is as if our internal alarms have gone off and we suddenly feel leery or cautious about something. We don't have any reason in the natural to feel this way, but we feel this way nonetheless. It may be in regard to an activity; don't do it because it is not safe. It may be in regard to a person; this person's motives are not what they seem. It may be in regard to a teaching; it simply does not feel right though you can't put your finger on why. John 13:21 When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. GOD GETS HIS POINT ACROSS repetition getting an inner witness through a book, teaching, movie or song

Repetition Repetition is where we run into the same thing over and over again, until it finally dawns on us that God is trying to tell us something. Sometimes it is precisely the same thing over and over. Other times it is similar or related things. But we begin to hear or see or feel or experience something over and over again. It begins to dawn on us that this is more than mere coincidence, that God is communicating to us. Hearing Someone Share Something And Getting An Inner Witness Did you know that sometimes God speaks to us through other people? Sometimes someone will say something to you, and your spirit will really latch on to it. Something inside of you sparks and you just know that is right. This is called an inner witness. The Holy Spirit gives us an inner witness when He wants to confirm or underscore something. Through A Book Or Teaching Or Movie Or Song God is not at all limited in the ways He can speak to us. He uses so many things. God tends to speak to me through old war movies. I never thought I would like that sort of movie. But a while ago, I watched one. To my surprise I liked it, and I began to watch others. When the movie portrayed the courage and dedication of the soldiers, God began to speak to my heart about those topics. One movie portrayed a soldier laying down his life to save his platoon by jumping on a grenade and covering it with his body. God began to speak to me about preferring one another and laying down our lives for each other, about love and caring in the Body of Christ.