Learn How God Speaks to You

Joe Newton:

I am Joe Newton, co-host of the Eternal Entrepreneur, and today we are talking about hearing God. I believe that in a good marriage, communication is crucial. One of the things that my wife and I sorta joke about all the time is that we are powerful communicators. We communicate properly with each other.

We communicate consistently with each other, and that is one of the main reasons that our marriage is awesome. Now that is not me bragging. That is. Just me stating the facts, but to bring that to what we're talking about today I do believe that an any key relationship, any relationship that you want to go deep with communication is important.

And here at the eternal entrepreneur, if you've listened to quite a few of our interviews, you know, and you've heard that. The people we talk to consistently partner with God, by hearing his voice, by getting a vision for their business that not only they have, but that God has for them. And it's crucial for us to know.

Not only that God thinks we're amazing that God has a destiny for us, but that God wants to be an active part. Of that journey. And I believe that the only way for us to partner with God is for us to actively hear his voice and have a dialogue with him. We see through out the Bible. There are times when people I'll just start with job.

It's one of the more obvious examples where. He goes back and forth and back and forth in dialogue with God about the problems that he's having about the ups and the downs. And that's just one example. You can see it throughout the Bible that the, the people who are in relationship with God are in dialogue with God.

And I'm not saying you're going to hear the audible voice of God. Every day, but I do believe there are ways that God does want to communicate with us and we should be aware of those and we should be actively practicing those side note. Please read all the way through job. It's a rough story. He does lose everything, but it has a happy ending.

And I think he doesn't get enough credit for that, that at the end of the book, he ends up with more than he had at the beginning. So side note, please read the end of, to the end of job if you're going to cite it and share about it. All right. Let's get back to the, the, the point at hand. So let's start simply.

We can all hear God's voice. If you have your Bible. Awesome. If not check me later, but I want to go through John 10 verses four through five here we have Jesus and he is giving a parable and he says, when he has brought out all, he has, let me start over. So this is a one take. Recording. You guys are getting the real of recording a podcast.

Here are at John ten fourth year five. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them and his sheep follow him because they know his voice, but they will never follow a stranger. In fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice. We are wired to hear God, we are made to hear God, we are God's sheep.

And, and God's voice is something that we should get to know, and we should know the difference between a stranger's voice. And I want to dig into this. All right. So practice builds confidence. How do we practice hearing God's voice? Well, first we have to know the different ways that God speaks. All right.

So I want to give you a quick list. We don't have the time to go and into an study, but I'm going to give you a quick list with a few examples of the different ways in the Bible that God speaks. So how does God speak first? He speaks through dreams now. As I spoke before about job. We also see this year.

So in Job 33:14, it says, indeed God speaks once or twice yet. No one notices it. And a dream, a vision of the night when sound sleep falls on men, while they slumber in their beds. Then he opens the ears of men and seals their instruction. So God can speak to us multiple times and we might not notice it.

And one of the ways God gets through to us is in dreams. He speaks to us. Now dreams can be symbolic or they can be literal. Now. Again, we don't have the time to go into all of the things about dreams, but just know one of the ways that God speaks in the Bible in the word is through dreams. Another way that God speaks his visions, you might call these a sanctified imagination.

And these can be pictures, stories in your imagination, or even open visions. And these are a way that we see God a lot. Speak to us again, through our imagination. We might get a picture or just a quick word. And, and here I'm not talking specifically about a trance, which is the next way that God speaks to us.

The, these. You might call a lighter versions. God, just speaking to us through our imagination. Now, as I mentioned a second ago, the next way that God speaks is trances. And we see this in acts, so acts 10, 10, but he became hungry and was dies desiring to eat. But while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance.

This is talking about Peter. When he is up on the rooftop, you might remember this verse where. A sheet falls down and unfolds to him and God says, get up and eat. Now, Peter, as far as he knows, was actually seeing this in front of them. He was seeing a trance. Another place we see this in the word is in revelations four one.

I was in the spirit on the Lord's day. Again, there are multiple times throughout the word that God will send people into a trance. Now, the next way God speaks is impressions. So in acts 27:10 it says, and he said to them, men, I perceive that the voyage will certainly be with damage and great loss, not only of the cargo in the ship, but also of our lives.

Now he says, perceive here. Now this is. Again, this is just an impression that he has. It's a perception. He perceives that this thing is going to happen. So impressions are a way that God speaks to us. God also might speak to us through thoughts often experienced as random and easily ignored bubble. And this might be just a quick word about someone else.

Again, you see this a lot with, with healing, like you might just have the quick thought of that person's back is hurting. These don't have to be deep. Our heart here at the eternal entrepreneur is. Not to get Misty woo. And with a lot of Christian years. So again, these are just very simple thoughts that might come into our head, but if you hear something and you, especially, if you hear it consistently, maybe this is something about your business.

Like, man, I should check this measurement or I should check in with this person. A lot of times we have that quick thought that comes through our head. Like, Hey. I should tell Pierce that he is amazing and you call up Pierce. You tell him amazing. And he says, Hey, that's just what I needed to hear today. I would bet to say often than not, that was the, the Lord putting that on your heart.

That quick thought that you should reach out to that person. All right. The next way that we see that. God will communicate with us his physical senses. Now in Hebrews five 14, it says, but solid food is for the mature who, because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Now again, we can actually perceive things in this.

This is where God talks about actually practicing how we can fine tune, hearing his voice. We can learn the difference between good and evil. It's a growing process for us to actually sense what it is that, that God's doing another way is feelings and emotions. Often you will feel emotions that defy your circumstances.

It's because you may feel others' emotions. Again, an example of this the way that I've seen it in my life is I might be interacting with someone and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I feel sad or I feel depressed. And I was in a great mood coming into that. But when I asked that person if that means anything to them, if they're going through that, they might reveal to me that, yeah, I'm going through a tough time right now.

I was even having suicidal. Thoughts. And then I get to pray with that person. I get to go through a process to bring God's joy into their life. So again, sometimes he puts those emotions. So if you're feeling something strongly and it's out of the blue again, I would ask God like, Hey, what is this that's going on?

Is this a motion from you? Now another way is recognition. You might recognize someone who looks like someone else. You know I had a friend who literally saw someone at Starbucks thought it was a totally different person. That guy got up left Starbucks. My friend ran out called his friend's name.

That guy turned around, said, yeah, they had the exact same name. He was able to say, Hey, I feel like you're a worship leader and that you're going out. He just started describing the friend that he knew who this person had reminded me of. And it turned out that all of those same things were true about this individual.

Again, this is something. God might use, he might not, but it's just something for you to be aware of the other way, which I hope is the most obvious way is through the word of God. I don't know if you've ever had it to where you've been reading a verse in the Bible. Then the next day the preacher is.

Preaching on that verse in the Bible. Then later that week you have a friend or a coworker come up to you and say, Hey, I was reading this verse, wanted to talk to you about that, but God will speak to us through his written word 100% and everything should be funneled through that, that lens that the word gives us.

So these. Again, are all of the ways, not an exhaustive list that God might speak to us. And we want to, we want to take time to, to practice and fine tune again, as Hebrew said, practice to have our senses, train to what he's saying. So all I would like to you to encourage you to do this week is just throughout the week.

Look to the ways that God might be speaking to you, just pay a little bit of attention. Is he bringing up a verse continually? Is there a thought that keeps coming into your head that you should reach out to a certain person or you should look into a place in your business? Are there other ways that, that he might be speaking to you?

Do you keep having a. Theme and your dreams, maybe you should just start writing those down and seeing if there's consistency. So this week just start to pay attention to the ways that God might be speaking to you. All right. Y'all that's it for this week, have an amazing week. And as I said earlier, don't forget.

You're awesome. It's not your fault. And I hope you deal with that a little bit this week. Can't wait to see you next time. Thank you so much for listening today. If you enjoyed this show, please leave us a five-star review and share this with a friend. It would help us out tremendously. Also, if you'd like to stay in touch and get a free copy of the first chapter of Pierce's new book, calling how to partner with God in any business with any boss at any place in life.