When I mention hearing God, I don't mean an audible voice. Oftentimes it's nothing more than an inner prompting. Have you ever traveled down the road when Someone shouts into your spirit, "DON'T GO!" Nobody spoke to you audibly, but somehow the internal voice persuaded you to turn the car around. Ever rebel against this prompting and pay some serious consequences?
How would you explain this to a friend without sounding crazy? This type of phenomenon happens all the time when God tries to speak to us. Many times His gentle voice passes us by undetected, disguised as intuition. I doubt that too many of us have actually heard the literal voice of God. I haven't. At some point, however, the Living God has probably tried to speak into all our lives about salvation.
The Holy Spirit convicts humanity of sin (John 16:8). "When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment" (NIV). As the Ultimate Evangelist, He wants us to have an intimate relationship with the Father. His gentle voice speaks truth into our hearts. We know when we've done wrong. He informs our conscience. He also reaches out to us through the biblical text.
God the Father watches to see how we'll respond to His word. Why should He bother speaking to us about life decisions if we don't take the smaller details of Scripture seriously? The more that we shape our lives within the guidelines of the sacred text the more our Father takes note of our genuine faith. Then His voice penetrates our life.
We need to dedicate time for bible study, so that we can make right choices. To take the Bible serious is to invite God's voice into our world. How can we do this without knocking the dust off the Word of God and dedicating time each day to apply it to our life? Some of my future blogs will train laypeople to more adequately interpret Scripture, so that they create opportunities for God to speak into their life.
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