Episode Details

As we’ve seen on “A Different Perspective” these last couple of weeks, God speaks to us in all sorts of different ways. But – well, how do we really know when He’s truly leading us in a particular direction. I mean sometimes, we have big decisions to make. How do we know that we’re truly hearing God correctly?

Well, here we are, another Friday and another end of the week and another end of the series of messages. Time flies when you’re having fun. Over these last couple of weeks we’ve been chatting about how you and I can hear God speaking into our lives, and that’s so important. One of the most common questions that people ask me is, “How can I hear God speak to me?”. And so that’s exactly what I’ve called this series of 10 messages of which today is the last. How can I hear God speak to me. And over the course of this series we’ve looked at eight different ways that God speaks to us today.

Firstly the Bible, God’s Word, the authority for God to revealing Himself to us.

Secondly, prayer: He speaks to us during our times of prayer and devotion. We can hear that still small voice of His Spirit.

Thirdly, preaching: God speaks to us through anointed preaching when someone opens the Word of God for us.

Fourthly, signs and wonders: God still uses signs and wonders from time to time to get His message across.

Next, prophets: The New Testament makes it clear that God appoints certain people in the body of Christ to be His prophets, to speak His will into our lives. Next, He speaks sometimes out of the blue: sometimes God just pipes up completely out of the blue right in the middle of the cut and thrust of life.

Next, through the counsel of others: God so often speaks to us through other godly men and women whom He puts around us.

And finally, as we saw yesterday, through dreams and visions: that makes some people a little bit uncomfortable. But again the New Testament is clear, Acts Chapter 2: God’s plan in these last days was to speak to His people through the dreams and the visions that He gives to some.

And you add all of that up and what you discover that God is speaking rather a lot. Principally, primarily through the authority of His Word, the Bible – the living Word of God. That’s why I put it right up there at Number One. If numbers two to eight purport to be God speaking, then they’d better be consistent with Number One – the Word of God. If they aren’t then they’re not from God.

If someone claims to have had a dream or a vision or a prophecy but it contradicts the Word of God, make no mistake, that dream or vision or prophecy simply cannot be from God. God is not in the business of contradicting Himself. God is not in the business of changing His mind. But He is interested in our lives: in the nitty gritty of our lives and He knows that sometimes we need His specific guidance because He loves us. It stands to reason therefore that He’s going to speak specifically into our lives as any other father would. My Dad didn’t speak vague generalities into my life. My Dad spoke specifically into my life because He loved me.

I heard a pastor, a man that I respect a great deal, stand up and preach a sermon not too long ago in which basically He said, that God only speaks these days through His Word the Bible and through no other means. Well, the first thing is that’s simply not what the Bible says. Each of the other ways that God speaks to us that we’ve looked at numbers two through eight have come straight out of God’s Word. I haven’t made them up. They’re in the Bible.

So afterwards I went and asked this pastor a couple of questions. The first one was, “Why did you become an ordained minister in this church and this denomination?” His answer was, “Because I felt called.” And that is exactly the right answer. In fact, “it’s God calling” that’s the only right answer for a pastor of a church. So my second question was, “How did you discern that calli