The Holy Spirit is a spokesman for God. God speaks to us through the Holy Sprit.
John 16:13
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
God speaks today!
The same words Peter spoke on the day of Pentecost are still for us today.
Acts 2:17f
17 " In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams. 18Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
Has God spoken to you?
If you wonder if God has spoken to you, it may be He did, but you didn't know that it was He. Samuel didn't know it was God the first two times God spoke to him (1 Sam 3), so it is possible that God has spoken to you without your knowledge. I will mention a few things that may help you see that God did speak to you.
How God speaks
Hearing the voice of God is like learning a new language; in the beginning you are insecure. You are not sure if it is right or not, but when you have practiced it for a while you get more secure and you can distinguish what is the voice of God.
There are different ways God can speak to us: Through prophecies, dreams, visions, pictures, an audible voice, and an inner voice or through His word. The two last are probably the most frequent ways, but I believe there will come a time were we will experience the other ways more often.
Prophecy
Did you ever get an encouragement where someone wrote to you or told you that "God loves you very much and has a great future for you" and it was something that you really needed then and there? At that time, God spoke to you through another person. Maybe you also have had a scripture from someone, or something you have read yourself became an encouragement or a revelation for you. Then, you have had the experience of hearing God’s voice. It’s as simple as that. It's not really difficult to hear God speak to us if we are listening and aware of Him. I will say more about prophecy in the next chapter.
Dreams
It could be that you’ve had a dream from God. Check the list below and see if you recognize anything.
- Does the dream lead you to seek God more?
- Is the presence of the Holy Spirit there when you wake up?
- Does the dream repeat itself?
- Does the dream give you symbols (like Daniel)?
- Does the dream suddenly wake you up?
- Does the dream come back to you again and again when you are awake?
Visions
Visions are thoughts or goals you have that are inspired by the Holy Spirit. If you have a goal to see five people saved during a year, is this a God given vision? He wants everyone to be saved.
It can also be seeing a picture in front of your eyes when you are awake. The founder of Youth With A Mission saw a vision about a wave, wave of youth that should enter every country of the world with the good news. He has seen this vision fulfilled. YWAM is today one of the biggest mission organizations in the world, with workers in close to 150 counties.
Pictures
You see pictures instead of words. It can be a word of knowledge that comes like a picture. Some people are more visual than audient and God speaks to us in the way we communicate best.
Audible voice
It’s not often that this happens, but it does happen today. Paul experienced this audible voice when Jesus met him on the road to Damascus. (Acts 9)
Inner voice
This is the most common way to here God’s voice today (at least here in the west). Often, this happens by an impression you get, or through simple thoughts that come to your mind. I know that God is speaking to us in this way daily, and he is more willing to speak to us than we are to listen.
I can often have a talk with God in my mind. How do I know it is God? Often, I just know it is He because the solutions and answers I receive are not the usual, logical way I would think. It may sound strange, but I know He functions like this.
The best evidence of knowing that I hear God’s voice is when I pray for people. When I pray for people I sometimes get thoughts about that person I could not possibly know.
In the beginning, when I prayed for people, I‘ve thought the words I received were only my own thoughts, but when I’ve dared to speak the words out loud I’ve usually had good reports back.
Through the Bible
If you have experienced a time when you read the Bible and the word spoke to you, even though you have read the scripture many times before, you have heard the voice of God.
Some weeks after my baptism in the Holy Spirit, I experienced God talking to me in this way. When I was praying in my apartment one day, I was holding my Bible and suddenly I looked up a scripture that really spoke to me. It was a promise that he would tear down all of my strongholds that I had about myself and about God. The scripture is: Is 25:12
12He will bring down your high-fortified walls and lay them low; he will bring them down to the ground, to the very dust.
Some personal experiences about hearing God’s voice.
Once, some friends and I were having a worship time together. When we sang one of the songs, I got a word of knowledge from God. It was one sentence: "I am so sick and tired of God not hearing my prayers." After we singing this worship song, I shared this sentence with the group. Then, one of me friends said: "That’s strange, but that is just what I was thinking before we sang this worship song."
Before I left for my outreach on my DTS in Skien, Norway 95/96, we were seeking God to find out what we should do on outreach. We split up into small groups and asked God. There were four in my group, and when we were to share what each had received, we all had one idea and it was the same idea: Street kids! We didn't know it before we left Norway, but the YWAM base in Ethiopia was just about to start a work among street kids. They were really encouraged when we told them what God had said to us.
When I first heard God’s voice in this group I thought it was just from myself because it came so easy and it was the first thing I thought of. I thought if I should really hear from God I had to hear a loud audible voice saying: STREEEET-KIIIIDS!!!! But, God spoke to me through an ordinary thought.
When you learn to hear God’s voice, you will soon recognize what is from yourself and what is from God. You get certainness in your heart.
Once, I experienced God speaking to me through a picture in my mind. I was going to a Christian camp, and I needed a car to get there. I had a car, but there was something wrong with it. I took it to a garage, but they couldn't find what was wrong. On my way home from the garage, I prayed: "I know it's your will that I should go to this camp, God, and you see that I need this car for tomorrow, so I pray that before I come home you will show me what's wrong with this vehicle." Just a few minutes before I arrived home, I saw a picture of the exact thing that was wrong with it. I went out, tightened a screw, and my car was fixed.
