How To Hear God's Voice! Part 1

There are many people who have written on this subject.  I am not going to say anything they haven't already said, with great wisdom.  Before we get started I wanted to list one person in particular who has the clout to talk about hearing from God and acting on what God says.  His name is Bill Hybels, Pastor of Willow Creek Church in the Chicago area.  Bill wrote a book called The Power of a Whisper.  He has waited 30+ years to write the book so that He could back it up.  Check it out here.

© Francois Etienne Du Plessis | Dreamstime.com

There are three things we must understand if we want to hear the voice of God.

[Part 1 of 3]

God speaks when we listen.  Listening is much different than hearing.  Listening means we hear with anticipation to act.  God is always speaking.  Our inability to hear results from our inability to listen.  Jesus said: "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." -John 10:27 NLT  Two things get in the way of our ability to listen.  Sin and busy-ness.  

1. If we have sin in our lives that we haven't confessed to Jesus, we must confess it.  Confession is the first step to hearing God's voice.  We can't hear a holy God when we, ourselves, are bound by unholy sin.  In other words we can't hear holy, when we're unholy!  The only way to rid ourselves of sin is to confess and repent.  To confess means to tell Jesus what we've done.  To repent means to turn 180 degrees away from sin and walk towards God.  That's the first step to listening.

2. The second thing is busy-ness.  Psalm 46:10 says "Be still, and know that I am God!"  Notice where the comma is in that sentence.  "Be still, and know that I am God!"  We must be still before Him and expect Him to speak.  Since God is always speaking, we must make time to hear and listen.  If we can't sit down for 10 minutes a day and spend time listening for His voice, we'll never hear Him speak!

To recap: God speaks when we listen.  In order to listen, we must confess our sin and make time to hear from Him.

Parts 2 and 3 to follow.