Hearing God’s Voice and Becoming His Friend - Part 7
Hearing God’s voice more clearly and accurately is a lifelong pursuit. Your ability to hear God’s voice will grow as your relationship with the Lord matures and deepens.
Hearing God’s voice for others takes it to another level. There are special challenges in communicating God’s voice to others that add a whole new weight of responsibility.
Here is what James writes to those who want to share God’s messages as teachers:
“Not many [of you] should become teachers [serving in an official teaching capacity], my brothers and sisters, for you know that we [who are teachers] will be judged by a higher standard [because we have assumed greater accountability and more condemnation if we teach incorrectly].”—James 3:1 (AMP)
On the other hand, keeping this responsibility in mind, people’s lives can be deeply impacted and even transformed forever as you learn to communicate God’s messages to them in love. And as you learn to hear God’s voice for others, you will grow in your ability to hear God’s voice for yourself. So, it’s a win-win. Everyone benefits from you growing in your ability to hear God’s voice clearly and delivering His messages with grace and truth.
Be Equipped
It all starts with equipping. If you want to be effective and successful on any mission that you undertake, you have to have the proper equipment. You would never think of going into battle without weapons, and you would never want to take on a challenging job without the proper tools.
Jesus gave His disciples the Great Commission, sending them out to make disciples of all nations, but first He commanded them to wait in Jerusalem until they were equipped for this mission. Without this equipping, they would not have the power to be successful in reaching people with the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Jesus described this equipping in Acts 1:8. He said, “you shall receive power (ability, efficiency, and might) when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends (the very bounds) of the earth” (AMPC).
The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is essential in order to be equipped to be an effective witness for Christ. If the original disciples were not allowed to share God’s messages with others until they were equipped with the power of the Holy Spirit, how could we ever hope to be effective without this same equipping?
This is the first step in being an effective messenger of our Heavenly King. 2 Corinthians 5:20 tells us that “we are ambassadors for Christ.” We are Christ’s representatives in this earth, but we cannot hope to fully achieve God’s mission for us without the Baptism of His Holy Spirit.
Earnestly Desire the Best Gifts
Along with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Paul also exhorted us to “earnestly desire the best gifts” (1 Corinthians 12:31 NKJV). The nine gifts of the Holy Spirit are listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, but Paul seemed to place greater weight on one of these gifts, giving it more importance than the others.
“Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.”—1 Corinthians 14:1 (ESV)
“Therefore, my brothers and sisters, earnestly desire to **prophesy”—**1 Corinthians 14:39 (NASB)
Why did Paul emphasize prophecy over all the other gifts?
A wise man once taught me that prophecy is the “springboard” to all of the other gifts of the Spirit. If you can operate in the gift of prophecy, then you can operate in all of the other gifts. Prophecy opens the door for you to operate in all of the other gifts of the Holy Spirit.
If you can prophesy, then you can also receive words of knowledge, words of wisdom, and the interpretation of tongues in the same way. As you regularly operate in the gift of prophecy, your faith will increase so that you can more easily operate in the other gifts of the Spirit.
I have found this to be true in my own life. I have loved the gift of prophecy since I first heard it as a teenager. As I have taken risks to step out in faith to share words of prophecy, I noticed that I began operating also in words of knowledge without even noticing that I was moving in a different gift. Then other gifts came to me when they were needed for particular situations.
This is something that is available to you, and to everyone who has received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, as Paul assures us in 1 Corinthians 14:31:
“For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged” (ESV)
Training
After receiving the Holy Spirit baptism, if you are really serious about learning to communicate God’s messages effectively to others, it is important to be trained by wise leaders who have a proven track record of communicating God’s messages effectively with grace and truth.
There are some amazing leaders who can help you to grow in your abilities to use the gifts of the Spirit and to effectively communicate God’s messages in love.
My life was completely changed by Doug Addison’s teaching on prophetic evangelism. I began to learn from him how to reach people as Jesus did, rather than through evangelistic methods that tend to be more confrontational and often push people further away from Jesus, rather than drawing them closer to Him.
I highly recommend Doug Addison’s Prophetic Lifestyle Training Kit as a foundational teaching on how to hear God’s voice for others.
Sean Bolz also offers wonderful guidance through his books, courses, and other media, like his God Secrets course. This is an excellent resource to help you sharpen your ability to hear God’s voice and communicate to others with love.
Dan McCollam is co-founder of Bethel School of the Prophets and he offers wonderful, detailed training resources to help guide you on your journey to hear God’s voice more clearly and accurately for others. His book, Basic Training for Prophetic Activation is filled with practical exercises to take your gifts to the next level.
Practice What You Believe
As you receive training and guidance from wise leaders, you will only grow as you step out in faith and begin to practice hearing God’s voice for others.
It’s not enough just to believe. Real faith is demonstrated as we take risks and step out to touch the lives of others.
James wrote that, “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:20 KJV).
And Jesus told us that, “whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing” (John 14:12 NIV).
Remember the words of Hebrews 5:14:
“But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” (ESV)
Every leader who consistently hears God’s voice clearly got to that level through constant practice, making it a lifestyle to actively listen and respond to the voice of God.
Start with Prayer
I would suggest prayer as a starting point for practicing to hear God’s voice.
One of the most successful activities that we have used to practice hearing God’s voice for others is what I call “Prophetic Prayer Outreach.”
A small group of us will go to the food court in a mall and sit at the same table.
One person in the group will look around the food court and ask God to highlight one person.
When that person is chosen, then each person at the table will quietly ask God to reveal the needs of this “highlighted” person. Without speaking to each other, every person at the table will write down what they feel that God is saying to them about the needs of this person that was highlighted.
After everyone is finished writing, then we go around the table, sharing what we feel that God has revealed to us about this person’s needs.
We have had amazing experiences doing this. Many, many times, different people at the table have received the same revelation from the Lord about the needs of the highlighted person. Sometimes, two people have even had the very same Bible verse come to their minds to pray for the person at the food court.
This activity has a been a tremendous help in building people’s confidence in hearing the voice of God. They realize that some of these vague impressions that they thought might have just been their own imaginations were confirmed by others at the table to be the true voice of God!
After sharing our notes with each other, then we spend time going around the table and voicing prayers for this individual that has been highlighted to us.
When we pray for people in public like this, it is not the same as praying in a church prayer meeting. We do not want to draw attention to ourselves or do anything that might embarrass anyone. We do not hold hands or bow our heads or close our eyes. Looking at us, you would think that we were just continuing our normal conversation with each other at the table. That’s what we want you to think! We don’t want to do anything that would make us stand out as religious because we have found out through hard experience that that can cause people to turn away from us, and then we would lose any opportunity to minister to them.
We have discovered that God hears us just fine, even when we don’t act religious.
After praying for the “highlighted” person, then someone else in the group chooses another person at the food court for our prayer.
We never approach the person that is chosen for our prayers. Our communication is only with God and our table group. That makes this a low-risk exercise that has a big payoff!
This activity can be practiced in any location where many people congregate. It doesn’t have to be at a food court. You can do this on your own when you are sitting in a waiting room, or standing in line to checkout at the store, or any time you are around other people.
I have often practiced this kind of prayer when I have been riding on public transportation. I will focus on one person on the train or bus and ask God what this person needs. Then I will begin to pray silently for that person according to what I feel God shows me that they need.
There have been times when I felt prompted to speak to the person and to give them a word of encouragement.
When that happens, I usually approach them by simply asking, “Can I ask you a question?” This has been the most effective opening line I have ever used.
If they are open to talk, then I might say something like, “This may sound weird, but sometimes I get impressions about people, and I got an impression about you. Is it alright if I share it with you?”
This happened at a shopping mall one afternoon with a girl who was working at a kiosk for a non-profit organization.
When I asked her if she would like to hear the impression that I got about her, she pulled back.
“Is it positive?” she asked.
“Oh, always positive,” I responded.
I’d had a quick vision of her riding a motorcycle off-road. She had left the well-worn path and was making her own way across the terrain.
I said, “I got the impression that you are a person who is not following the crowds. You are not doing what everyone else is doing, or what other people think you should do. You are blazing your own path in life, and because of this, you will find your purpose in life. This will lead you to your destiny.”
I didn’t know what her spiritual beliefs were, so I did not use any religious language in my description.
After I share my impressions with someone, I usually prompt them for a response by saying, “Does that make sense?” But this young lady needed no prompting.
She responded immediately, saying, “I was just praying and asking God if I was on the right path in life! I am not doing what other people told me I should do, and I was beginning to doubt the path that I had chosen. For you to come to me today and say this to me … I can’t tell you what this means to me. It really means the world to me!”
What if I had chickened out? What if I had received that impression from God, but was not willing to take the risk to share it with this young lady? Her life would not have been touched. She would have been left with doubts that she was following God’s direction for her life. And I would have lost my reward—not stepping out in obedience to God’s prompting.
If a word from the Lord could change *your *life today, wouldn’t you want someone to take the risk to step out and share it with you? Are you willing to be the one who takes a risk and steps out to deliver a life-changing message from God to someone who desperately needs it?
Kids Church
Children seem to catch on to this more quickly and easily than adults. Kids don’t usually have to struggle to overcome all of the strongholds of doubt and unbelief that seem to plague many Christian adults.
In our children’s church on Sunday mornings, I led the children’s prayer time. As we moved into the prayer time each week, I encouraged the children to hold onto their *personal *prayer requests until we heard from Jesus about what *He *wanted us to pray for.
Then I led the children in asking Jesus what we should pray for, and we all waited until He spoke to them.
I taught them that Jesus may speak to them in a voice, or through other sounds. He might show them a picture, or a scene like they might see in a movie. He might also give them different feelings in their bodies. For example, if they feel a pain in their stomach, it might mean that we need to pray for someone who has an upset stomach.
We even allowed the kids to lead our outreach teams for one event. We asked the children where we should go and who we should approach during our outreach. The children were so accurate that every single encounter that we had was successful and positive. I was amazed because, even though I have been involved in outreach for many years, I’m still not 100% accurate all the time.
You can practice hearing God’s voice in the same ways. Now, I’m not expecting you to immediately perform at the level of these children. That would be a lot to ask. You may have adult strongholds of lies, doubt, and unbelief that you will need to overcome before you can approach the level of accuracy in hearing God’s voice that these children demonstrate, but with practice, you will continue to improve!
When you pray for your friends and family members, ask God to show you what they need most, and then pray according to what God tells you.
You don’t have to contact them after you pray, but sometimes, you may feel God prompting you to do so.
You could be a bright light of encouragement and comfort in the lives of others that leads them to greater faith in Jesus Christ!
**References: **
Addison, D. (2022, February 24). Prophetic Lifestyle: Training Kit - Doug Addison Online Store. Doug Addison Online Store - InLight Connection. https://dougaddison.store/prophetic-lifestyle-training-kit/
Bolz, S. (n.d.). God Secrets. Spiritual Growth Academy with Shawn Bolz. https://courses.bolzministries.com/p/god-secrets
McCollam, D. (n.d.). Dan McCollam. Prophetic Company. https://www.propheticcompany.com/dan-mccollam
