Who among us has heard the voice of the Lord? Your testimony?

sermonindex Aug 14, 2009

Who among us has heard the voice of the Lord? I suspect a lot more than we would think. I posted the article below by John Piper, that details a morning, an event when he heard the actual audible voice of God speak to him.

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TasteAndSee/ByDate/2007/2021_The_Morning_I_Heard_the_Voice_of_God/

Seeing that this is not a "prophetic site", please do not post visions , or dreams, or audible words that may predict or cast a negative light on anyone...[ except maybe the Devil, of course..].

The idea is, that God is still speaking, contrary to the ideas and doctrines of some that may believe that the era of the supernatural has ended with the apostles and the completed canon..[ Bible..] It can be a great encouragement to many to know this. I might add, that this is not a thread to breed controversy, but testimonies of a personal God who yet speaks, audibly and clearly, to his beloved children.

"He who has an ear, let him hear....what the spirit is saying to the Churches."

sermonindex Aug 14, 2009

I can testfy to those things which happened to people in the Scripture as truth, as I've experienced many of the very same things. I've spoken with God and was blessed by having Him speak to me audibly and in the voice of thundering waters. I've been to heaven a couple of times. I've met the Holy Spirit. I've seen our Lord in His 'flesh', as well as in His glory. All of the things which the Scripture describes as happening to people are true. God hasn't changed and neither have His ways.

T

trxx Aug 14, 2009

Should we be surprised that God still speaks today? Scripture and history beyond biblical times shows that God does indeed speak. He even has been heard by groups of people at the same time. I love the stories of revival where God has spoken clearly of situations unknowable to the hearer. Think of Evan Roberts where he asks some to go outside and that they will find a lady in soul distress at such and such a place and it is so. It is encouraging to me that so many in history have heard His voice either through Scripture, through an internal voice or perhaps even an audible voice.
Have I heard His voice? I have. Once I was puzzled by a particular piece of Scripture and so I prayed to understand how it could be that it was written that way. I was puzzled by the Beatitudes (Matthew 5), especially where Jesus says, "Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be ssatisfied." I thought that it really should read, "Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after God", not just righteousness. I would literally substitute "God" for "righteousness" every time that I read it and that was frequently because we were actually doing a study on the Beatitudes. A day or two later, after praying about it, I was on my way to work in the car coming up to a stoplight, watching traffic, listening to some music, not having thought at all about my petition when a thought literally jumped into my mind while I was considering something else. The thought that jumped in was that the Beatitudes presupposed a right relationship with God. It was a completely foreign thought to my mind at the time. I knew that it was at the same time an answer to my prayer, that God was speaking. I couldn't wait to verify it. It may not be a "revelation" to you but it was to me at that time.
Another time I was reading what I refer to as the Readers Digest condensed version that Jesus gave of what the Law and the prophets wrote in the Old Testament. He said that to love the Lord God with everything that we have and our neighbour as well summed up everything they said. I figured that love must be pretty important but I knew that I didn't really understand what love was. So again, I prayed about it. The next night as I prepared to open my Bible and read, again no thought to the previous night, I said to myself, "I'm tired and I don't really feel like doing this. Maybe I should just go to bed. But I know that this is the right thing to do so I'm going to do it anyway." Having had this thought I heard in my mind His voice, "Now you got it, that's what love is." I knew exactly what He meant. Love is a choice and I was expressing love when I chose to do the right thing even though my emotions told me otherwise. It also helped me in time to understand that the same could be used in relationships with people. Being a slow learner it took me two weeks to realize that I could apply it at home as well. It doesn't mean that love is unemotional. It simply means that even when the emotional side of love is not easily found it is still possible to love God or others.
Who would find it easy to love someone who has just struck you yet Jesus said that we are to love those that hate us? I may not feel like loving an individual at any particular time but I can always choose to do the right thing and express not hatred but love. Its my choice. To understand love this way was a "revelation" to me. It has also greatly helped me to make the right choice in circumstances with people and to express love rather than to respond as I felt. There is no doubt in my mind that God spoke to me that day and gave me to understand love.
There are other circumstances that are much more involved where God has spoken to me but this post is already too long. I often tell people, unbelievers included, that God still speaks today. I had one such person who out of the blue asked me if I thought that God still speaks today, without any prompting from me, and I was able to share with him a very powerful circumstance just two days previous. God definitely speaks today. And its all by His great grace, nothing of us.

L

Lysa Aug 14, 2009

Brothertom,

God started calling to me when I was about 16 or 17 and I finally talked to the air and said that I couldn't saved because I loved smoking weed way too much. I told Him very nicely that I could give up smoking cigarettes and I could even quit drinking but I was afraid that if I gave it up weed for Him, I'd go back to it; so I needed to quit for me. Who knew He would hold me to it?!!

Fast forward almost one year later and I started noticing that I couldn't think straight anymore!! LOL So I told a friend that I was going to stop smoking weed for a week to see if I could get my mind straightened out.

Well, lo and behold, the following Sunday was Easter Sunday and I had promised my granny that I would go to church with her (my yearly visit). So I'm sitting there while the preacher is preaching and I hear a voice that caused me to look over my shoulder and then turn to my friend and whisper, "Did you say something?" The Voice said, "You quit for you." When my friend said no; I froze because I knew it was God and He said it again to me, "You quit for you."

I started crying because I never dreamed He'd come calling if and when when I did quit! LOL This is the first time the most amazing thing happened... He and I had about a 10 minute conversation within a nano second, that is the best I can explain it and I remember the last thing I told him (in my mind) was "I've tried everything else, I'll try this but if it doesn't work, I just want you to know I'm going back." And I could feel Him smile and say, "OK!"

You know, I have a good friend that would swear up and down (if she swore), that the first prayer God hears from a person is the sinner's prayer and I've told her that I don't believe it because I had a whole conversation with Him and I never did say any type of a sinner's prayer before or after that conversation and yet, here I stand! Loved by God; as all of you are!!

He is amazing! He is holy and He is worthy to be praised!

sermonindex Aug 15, 2009

Wow Lysa that was excellent. I liked the part about quitting for you. That really ministered to me. I never thought about that approach before. I've always thought it was noble to quit for the LORD, but I can see much clearer now that if your going to quit something for someone, do it for yourself. For your own good, for your health, for your testimony.

We always feel God speaking to us from within and most times it's never audible. Several years ago I was jolted out of my sleep by hearing the words, "Be Ready". I fell back to sleep and I was awakened by the same words. Well since that time, getting ready for something you know not what has been difficult.

Thank you for that mini testimony, loved it!!

sermonindex Aug 15, 2009

I moved from Southern Illinois in 1993 to Kansas city, Mo. with my family and business. After about 2 years, we returned back home. The whole experience was wonderful, but traumatic, and left me with a feeling of loss, and I kept on pursuing the Lord for His Geographical will after returning home.

I returned to Kansas city in early 1997, scouting the land, hoping I might hear the Lord redirect us back there. I was driving in the older neighborhoods in South Kansas City, looking at neighborhoods and houses, and caught up in prayer. I cried out to God for help, and direction, and as I was driving around, in this mode, alone,and it happened.

The voice of the Lord surprised me with His Word.

"Son, I'm teaching you how to Love!"

He spoke with compassion, and a surprising common tone...not at all like Charlton Heston did and heard in "THE TEN COMMANDMENTS".

"Son, I'm teaching you how to love!"

"Well, that's fine, but what about ME?.. could have been my attitude. I never did hear where I was supposed to go, so I went back home, where I remain these 15 years later.

I now realize more of the privilege and mercy that I have been shown. I now understand the import of such a word. What good is it to be exactly where you ought to be, without Godly fruit or character? 1 Cor: 13...the love chapter; without it we are but a shell, and a waste, no matter if we possess the universe.

"He scourges every son he receives". I never knew that discipline in my early days, or how precious it really is, and what a gift it is. God did not have to teach me anything; He could have let me go my own selfish way...but He did not. He has called me "son". I now see that there is no greater privilege, and I am careful to make sure that he will never name me bastard...so I strive to endure some of his more harsh methods of His teaching...the Cross.

I must diminish...He must increase. I could never be taught that by man, and I could never endure that without manifold grace. I have learned that it is 10,000 times more important in what I become, than what I do. I have learned that death must work in me, for any of His life to transmit to others, and I seek to die to myself, that He might live in me, and through me.

All of this, is of course in measure, riddled by failure. I have learned that if I stumble, to get back up again, and it seems that I find myself getting up quite often. I have learned to dust myself off, look again to Jesus, and begin again. I have learned that His grace is sufficient, and His mercies are new every morning.

And most surprising, is that I see glimpses of myself that I do not recognize...flashes of a compassionate man...a loving man, and merciful. This is a miracle. I know the selfish religious manipulator that is me.

So, which is better? To be in the right place, or become like the right God? Jesus loves me, and I am God's son too.

sermonindex Aug 15, 2009

So, which is better? To be in the right place, or become like the right God?

Could you clarify the latter portion of this statement brother, I am sure other words belong and are missing?

Your post was most inspirational, I understand completely what you said, as if I wrote it.

E

elharris Aug 15, 2009

Hi,

I just thought what you learned here from the Lord was so AWESOME.

"I said to myself, "I'm tired and I don't really feel like doing this. Maybe I should just go to bed. But I know that this is the right thing to do so I'm going to do it anyway." Having had this thought I heard in my mind His voice, "Now you got it, that's what love is." I knew exactly what He meant. Love is a choice and I was expressing love when I chose to do the right thing even though my emotions told me otherwise.

I work for the County mental health, and I have a family of five children I work with everyday.
In reality the Lord put these children in my life to raise for him, as I knew them and worked with them, long before I actually got a "job" doing it, which was a miracle in and of itself.

They were never taught ANYTHING! No manners, nothing, lived more like animals and no discipline whatsoever. The wound up in state care and in foster homes and then came back 6 months ago, and one of the things they have to do now is "chores". Well that is a rodeo and circus trying to get 5 kids to do what they nevr had to do before, and the big statement out of them has always been, "I DON'T WANT TO!" OR "WHY DO WE HAVE TO DO THAT?"

So I am always telling them, "That's what life is about DOING THINGS YOU DON'T WANT TO DO!" And they are finally getting this through their head. They are "trying" and "trying", meaning they are getting better and it's really tried my patience (did I spell those words right?)

But God has his hand upon them. One boy espeically has many problems but wants to be a Christian. The other day, I made him sit down at the table and eat his dinner. He'd rather eat snacks and run around with the family sits down to eat (something they also never did before).

But I make him sit down and eat what's put in front of him, and he don't like it much and yet he dose like it. So he asks me if I've ever heard of this wrestler guy, and I say "NO, I've never heard of him, but I know this other guy named Levi, who's 10 years old, and wnats me to MAKE HIM be a good boy! He said: "Your so crazy and so smart, how did you now that's what I wanted? Are you in my head or something?

Doing what you don't want to do, shows your love for God. It's really our flesh that doens't want to do what it right, and we have been called to overcome the flesh. Our flesh is enmity againt God, that is why they that are in the flesh cannnot please God, because the flesh runs on emotions, what it "feels" like doing at any given time.

I love reading testamonies like your's because I am so comforted seeing how God is able and God is working in so many, to bring them to a knowledge of Christ, so that they may be DOERS of his Word.

In the love of Christ,
elharris

sermonindex Aug 16, 2009

I originally wrote;

"So, which is better? To be in the right place, or become like the right God?"

Deep Thinker wrote, asking:
"Could you clarify the latter portion of this statement brother, I am sure other words belong and are missing?"

brothertom replied;

I meant that the lord was very, very concerned about me being transformed into the image of Himself as a good son, and learning how to love, with a transformed life and spirit. This was vastly more important that being in the correct geographical location that He wanted me in.

L

Lysa Aug 16, 2009

Traxx wrote:
There are other circumstances that are much more involved where God has spoken to me but this post is already too long.

Amen Traxx, I sure we all had to only select one!! :-)

I have been blessed reading everyone's responses. Isn't it amazing that God's knows what each of us need and provides it? God has not spoke to any one of us the same way.

Amazing love!!

sermonindex Aug 16, 2009

Many years ago one evening I was going on my usual walk along a certain route I usualy took. A voice very clearly sounded in my ear turn around , go the other way. I turned around and as I did I said lord why is there someone this other way that you want me to witness to? About twenty more steps I saw two teenagers behind a power box by a strip mall. Are these the ones you want me to witness to?? I guess so. so I went up to them and spoke of heaven, hell and the Gospel of Jesus. I was sharing with them and they were starting to listen. Then some girls pulled up in a car and they got distracted from me to them then got in and left as I was giving them final words. i chocked it up as a seed planting and left the rest in Gods hand.