Hearing God's Voice Pt. 1

God Wants to Speak to You

Prophetic words spoken over me by classmates during my time at Bethel Supernatural School of Ministry. God can speak to you through many different means.

Humans have an inherent need for connection. We see that connection expressed in our relationships with family, friends, lovers, animals, or even inanimate objects like how a child connects with a stuffed animal. We actively seek to bond with other creatures. That deep, inherent desire stems from our creation. When God created us, He did with the intention for relationship. God desires connection with us.

Connection is fostered by communication. Without communication, we wouldn’t be able to relate to one another, express love, build bonds… actually, we wouldn’t have even been able to build civilizations without communication. Lack of communication divides and isolates us.

I’ve heard many Christians say, “God doesn’t speak to me,” or “I don’t know what His voice sounds like.” Some don’t even bother trying to hear Him, maybe because they think it’s just too hard or they don’t care. Whatever the reason, I find it really sad. One, because not being able to communicate with God isolates them from the source of infinite love and life; and two, because I think it breaks His heart. I think His heart breaks not out of need – God really doesn’t need us, He is surrounded by angels and heavenly beings, and the very nature of the Trinity is one of connection – no, I think His heart breaks out of love. God desires to speak to us. It is lie from the pit of hell that God doesn’t speak, won’t speak, and doesn’t desire to speak to you. That is a lie to keep you from intimacy with God, designed to keep you in isolation. He wants to speak to you, and He speaks to be understood.

What Does the Bible Say?

There is a passage in Matthew 13 where Jesus’ disciples ask Him why He always speaks to the people in parables, and He responds by quoting Isaiah. He says:

”This is why I speak to them in parables:

‘Though seeing, they do not see;

though hearing, they do not hear or understand.’

In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;

you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.

For this people’s heart has become calloused;

they hardly hear with their ears,

and they have closed their eyes.

Otherwise they might see with their eyes,

hear with their ears,

understand with their hearts

and turn, and I would heal them.’ ”

(Matthew 13:13-15. NIV.)

For some, these verses make it appear that Jesus didn’t want to be understood, or that God purposely made them not understand, but that’s not what is written at all. If you read through these verses and the ones in Isaiah 6:9-10, they show that the people made a choice to stop listening to God, and as a result, their hearts became calloused. As their hearts became calloused, they stopped understanding Him when He was speaking.

Yet, there were some who understood Him. Why? Because they were hungry. Only those who wanted to more of God and His kingdom would seek to understand, and they wouldn’t be able to understand unless they drew closer to Him. By speaking to the people in parables, Jesus opened the door for intimacy. They felt their need for some sort of connection with God, and it drove them to seek Him out. Hearing God’s voice for yourself starts with being hungry for Him.

A project I did during an art class where the Lord used art to speak to me about our relationship.

There is also something big to be said for submission. The people in Isaiah had turned their hearts away from God and His lordship. They began worshiping idols and making sacrifices that God didn’t sanction. They didn’t see their need for God. They filled their need for connection with Him by worshiping wood and stone. This led to their hearts being calloused. They were prideful, arrogant, selfish, and evil. There were people like that in Jesus’ day and there are people like that today. Their sin stops them from hearing God. But, if you have made the decision to submit your heart to Him and you are hungry for Him, there is nothing stopping you from hearing Him. If you feel sin might be standing in the way, simply deal with it and ask His forgiveness. He reveals Himself to those who desire Him.

“But that’s not for me; that’s for well-established Christians or leaders, and I’m not that.” Jeremiah 31:34 says, “No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest.” (NIV, emphasis added). To give some context for these verses, the Lord was telling Jeremiah how He was going to restore Israel after the exile. More specifically, in the verses around verse 34, God is telling Jeremiah how the Messiah was part of this plan and what life would be like with Him in power. Verse 34 refers to what we live in now. All will know God, from the least to greatest. So yes, being able to hear and know God is for you. You don’t need to be someone important.

But what about the verse that says, “Who can know the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” Doesn’t that imply that we can’t understand what’s going on in His mind? Great question! That verse is originally found in Isaiah 40 where Isaiah is marvelling at the awesomeness of God and wondering how anyone could possibly know how God thinks. This is before Jesus’ time and before the work of the Cross. However, Paul uses that verse in 1 Corinthians 2, after the work of the Cross, as part of his argument that the Gospel is easy to understand and that God desires to reveal His thoughts to us. Get this – Paul writes in verses 10-16:

“The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received a spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God (that is the Holy Spirit), that we may understand what God has freely given us (This refers to so much! The Gospel, His Spirit, His love, His intimacy, His thoughts, our adoption, our inheritance, to name a few – everything we live in on this side of the Cross. All of it originated in God’s thoughts. I don’t think Paul could be any clearer. God has given His Spirit to us, so we can understand His reasoning – His mind!) … The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them (like the people from earlier whose hearts were calloused) …

‘For who has known the mind of the Lord

that he may instruct Him?’

But we have the mind of Christ.”

(1 Corinthians 2:10-16, NIV, emphasis and notes added).

“But we have the mind of Christ.” There is so much tied up in that statement. We have the mind of Christ, so we can understand Him, we can know Him, we can think like Him. Paul is referring here to our sanctification.

Sanctification of the Mind

To sanctify means to set something apart and make it holy and pure. We were sanctified – made holy and pure – completely at the Cross, at the moment of our salvation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, and the new has come!” (NIV, emphasis added). And Hebrews 10:10 says, “…we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. (NIV, emphasis added). The power of the Cross is complete. We are completely, wholly, and entirely sanctified which means our minds have also been sanctified. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (NIV, emphasis added). Renewing of the mind means that your mind is being transformed to look like Jesus! Holy Spirit is teaching you new ideas, new thought patterns, new ways of thinking, etc.

But wait, that verse says “renewing” as if it’s ongoing. What happened to sanctification being a complete process? Well, if we continue on in Hebrews 10, verse 14 says, “…because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” (NIV). This verse also implies that there’s an ongoing process. Here’s my take on it: our salvation is two-fold. At the moment of our salvation, we are made perfect and holy, new creations, our sin is stripped away, and our sinful nature is dead. We are awakened to new life found in Christ. We are given a new identity, new authority, and a new nature. Fully sanctified. We are also given a new mind: the mind of Christ. However, being given the mind of Christ doesn’t mean we suddenly know everything about how the Kingdom works. Instead, it means now we develop new thought patterns and engage new truths; now we begin to learn and discover all the incredible ways of our infinite God. We start the journey of maturing in our new identity.

Having a sanctified mind doesn’t mean we can’t have bad thoughts, just like having a new nature doesn’t mean we can’t sin (Adam and Eve didn’t have a sin nature when they chose to sin). We are still responsible for what we allow to enter our minds. That’s right, what we allow. We are in control of our thoughts and any thought that isn’t submitted to the Lordship of Jesus we have the responsibility to take captive and make it obedient to Him (2 Corinthians 10:5). This is part of maturing.

Now that we’ve gone deep down the rabbit trail, what does any of this have to do with hearing God, or art for that matter (this is an artist’s website after all)? Well, if God has sanctified every part of us, including our minds, that means our imagination has also been made holy. Why is that important? One: as artists, creativity is all about imagination. Two: as we’ll see in the next post, God often uses our imagination to speak to us.

Part of work on Irresistible. The Lord used my imagination to give me a vision of three different lions that I needed to paint, each part of the Word that went with the piece. This is the second lion.

If you have been believing any of the lies that God doesn’t want to speak to you, that you cannot hear from God, that you need to be someone important to hear from Him, or that your mind isn’t holy, let’s deal with it. Dealing with it is as simple as repenting for believing the lie and choosing to embrace the truth. Here’s a prayer that you can use as a guideline: “Lord, I repent for believing that… (insert lie here). I recognize that it is a lie and I break the agreement I’ve made with it over my life. I choose to embrace the truth that… I give you permission to remind me of the truth when I stray and to hold me accountable to that truth.” Still struggling with the lie doesn’t mean you’re not free. You’ll only return to bondage if you choose to agree with it. The enemy will try to get you to believe it again. Instead, this is an opportunity for growth. Whenever you struggle with the lie, say no to it, and speak the truth over yourself. Tattletale on the devil and take it straight to God!

Now onto how He speaks.