God's Talking

From the dawn of mankind, God has spoken to man. In the Garden of Eden, Scripture recounts God coming down & walking with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. He communed with them as friends. Later, God came down to talk to Abraham face to face. He told Abraham his plans for Sodom & Gomorrah and how He was going to destroy the city, but Abraham out of his relationship with God, convinced God to stay His hand & to spare the city for as few as ten righteous men. Fast forward to the New Testament, and you find God in the flesh (Jesus) dwelling among men. He walked & talked with them. When He went away, He promised them a comforter & teacher, assuring them it would be better for them if He went away. The Apostles & the early church evidenced the fact that God speaks to men & women (if we believe the Bible is God breathed, then we believe God spoke to man).

The pattern that is shown all throughout the entire Word of God is that God speaks personally & directly to us. There is no place I can find (other than a sadly misinterpreted Scripture in 1 Corinthians) that gives any indication that God has suddenly quit speaking. Despite that, it seems most people have no idea what it means to hear from God or what that might possibly look like.

I just want to stretch your thinking a bit here. God speaks. That has been true from the beginning of humanity until today. The problem is not His ability to speak, it’s our ability to hear. We'll explore a bit more over the coming days how you can hear from God and, just as importantly, how you can discern whether it's the voice of God or not.