Today, I am concluding our July message series, which I’ve called “How To Hear God Speak.” In this series, we’ve been talking about prayer as not just one-way, but two-way communication. Prayer is not just about asking God for things, it is about a relationship in which God speaks to His children. If you believe that God is speaking to you about a direction for your life, then the wise thing to do is to do what He is saying. But how do you know if it really was God speaking to you? If it really wasn’t God, but you act on it, you could end up in big trouble.
Discerning whether God is really talking to you is kind of like one of the problems with email. Email is a wonderful invention. Yet, like everything else, it has it’s dangers. One of those dangers is called spam. Most spam emails are from people trying to sell you something you have no interest in. However, some spam emails are more dangerous. They are called phishing emails. A phishing email pretends to come from a respected institution that you do business with, such as your bank. It may politely ask you to click a link and log on to your bank account. However, although the site you go to looks like your bank, it is not. Within a few minutes after you’ve entered your name and password, the senders of the phishing email will have emptied your bank account. You must be very careful with emails, because it’s easy to be deceived.
It’s even more important to be careful about discerning if that impression we receive is really God’s voice or not. So today, I’m going to talk about “How To Discern God’s Voice.” Is that great idea you got as you were driving to work or as you were reading your Bible, is it really from God or not? How can you tell if the impression or idea you have is from God or not? How can you test that impression you have? TLB 1 John 4:1 Don’t always believe everything you hear just because someone says it is a message from God: test it first to see if it really is. The Bible tells us to not believe everything you hear, whether the message came from a pastor, from a book you read, from another person or from an impression you have. You need to test that message or idea.
Jesus said about His own teaching: MSG John 7:17 Anyone who wants to do His will can test this teaching and know whether it’s from God or whether I’m making it up. So today I’m going to give you three ways to test an impression, a teaching or any other way that you think God may be speaking to you. If the impression you have lines up with all of the biblical tests I’m going to talk, then you know it’s from God. If it doesn’t line up, it’s not from God.
To hear more about this topic, listen to my July 29, 2007 message entitled Discerning God’s Voice
Dear pastor Dan Walker,
How do I download the full article or message to listen to? I don’t see a link and I am very interested in the three ways to discern God’s voice.
Many blessings from Holland.
Yours in Christ,
Cheryl John
At the bottom of the post is a Flash player to listen to the message. A message download is not currently supported.
pastor, i want to learn more of God’s voice pls assist me. Send me more of your messages, for i am interested in your article.