We have already discussed how God’s Voice tells us we need to be saved, we need to have our sins forgiven, we know his voice is there to correct us when we go astray, what else can we hear from God?
This part will fit into finding what God wants for us in our dreams, visions passion. God’s voice guides us in his will and this can happen in four different ways.
- Christian Counselling
“Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counsellors there is safety”
Proverbs 11:14 (ESV)
Have you got someone in your life, someone older, wiser that has been there and done it and can pour into you? Someone who has more life experience, who love God and who love me and have so much wisdom to give. Often God speaks through other people, if someone is speaking God’s truth God can be speaking to you through that person, listen closely when a wise Christian person is speaking to you.
- Circumstances
“After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade”
Acts 18:1-3 (ESV)
In 2013, I went to Haiti on a mission trip after they had been struck by an earthquake. I was going over to help to the best of my ability and to share the gospel. After a year planning, we were finally there, but after 3 days I was questioning why I was there. I didn’t get why I travelled to the other side of the world and felt like I wasn’t doing anything of purpose, like I wasn’t making a real difference. I started genuinely asking God “Why am I here?”.
One day we headed to a church building, inside there were American doctors and nurses who were caring for pregnant women. The hospital for pregnant women had been destroyed in the earthquake, and these doctors gave up their time and their gift to help these women in need.
When I saw them, I cried, and I felt God speak to me. I knew that although I may never deliver a baby, I do have a passion for football, and I can communicate the gospel. I felt God say I want you to go to Coaching For Christ. He said that to me in 3 seconds through the circumstance in front of me. And here I am, 9 years later doing exactly what he said to me in Haiti.
On occasion, God will bring the right circumstances around you to communicate what he wants for your life.
Have you ever seen or been in a particular circumstance where everything seems to be pointing in one direction and put it down to luck? A coincidence? You will know in your heart when it’s God revealing something to you.
- Conviction
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people”.
Hebrews 9:14 (ESV)
Conviction can be described as having a strong feeling of what God wants you to do and you feel it deep inside your heart or within your spirit.
I was passionate about sharing the gospel and using football to do it. What are you passionate about? What could God use within you to reach other people for this glory?
- Confirmation
“All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV)
God will confirm his plan through scripture, this is the key. If you experience God speaking to you through the other three C’s it will be confirmed by his word and will not contradict it.
“You will seek me and you will find me if you seek me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29:13 (ESV)
Seek God, dive into the Bible, get people to help you if you need because God has something to say to each one of you. He isn’t hiding, he isn’t uninterested, he isn’t far away. He wants to talk to those he has created.
God calls us to be saved, he corrects us when we stray, and he guides us in his will.
To demonstrate how important, it is to listen to God’s voice I am going to use an example by Francis Chan. I want you to imagine an extremely long piece of rope, long enough to wrap around your house even your town, a never-ending rope. At the very tip there is a small bit of red tape. That is our life. We may be a different phase of our lives, we have school, university maybe, get a job, get married, might have kids, might now, retire and eventually pass away. And then we have the rest of the rope ahead of us. Eternity.
Where you spend eternity depends on what you did with God’s voice.
Did you listen to God when he said you need to be saved? If so, you get to spend eternity with God in Heaven, which has been described as paradise. If not, you spend eternity in a place called Hell.
All down to how we react to hearing the voice of God. That is why this is so important, that is why we have to hear, listen and obey the voice of God.
Written by Simon Barr
