1 Corinthians 14:31 & 39 "For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues.” Today's episode talks about how God wants to talk to each and every one of us. We were all baptized to be a priest, prophet and king so that means we can all hear God's voice. This episode talks about some reasons we might not be hearing Him and what we can do to change that. Wouldn't it be nice to talk with God daily and to hear Him respond? Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
All Can Prophesy
1 Corinthians 14:31 & 39 "For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues.”
I felt this was particularly appropriate this week since I just attended the School of Prophetic Ministry this past weekend. It was so amazing, I wish you could have all been there with me. I am definitely going to incorporate some of the exercises that we did at the event into the retreat that I am going to be hosting this summer or this fall. You will not want to miss it. There were 37 people who attended this school and it went from 6-9 on Friday night and 9-9 on Saturday. We learned so much information and also had plenty of opportunities to put that information into practice. The best way to describe it for me is to imagine you are going to class all day and yet you keep taking these breaks where you get to hear God speaking encouragement and love into you. I think every single person left that school feeling loved by God.
I thought I would take a minute to talk about what I mean by prophesy. I know I mentioned in another episode recently but in case you missed it, we were all baptized as priest, prophet and king. When we think of prophet we think, or at least I think of the major and minor prophets of the Bible. I think of people who God revealed information to and then they went out and relayed that information to God’s people. Most of us, when we think of prophecy, we think that is something other people can do, but we aren’t capable of doing it. This is not true. As you can see in the verse about we can all prophesy. The definition of a prophet is someone who hears God’s voice and speaks His word. You might be thinking that you are not a prophet because you can not hear God’s word. However, it says in the Bible that we were all baptized at priest, prophet and king. This means you are a prophet, which means you can hear God’s voice.
If you are a prophet, and you are supposed to be able to hear God’s voice, then why can’t you? Is this the question you are asking yourself? There are a few reasons why you might not be able to hear God’s voice. The biggest and most common one is because you simply aren’t listening. When is the last time you sat down in a quiet space and asked God to speak to you? When is the last time you talked to Him about your day expecting Him to talk back? When is the last time you asked God a question and then stopped and waited in silence until you got your answer? I am willing to bet for many of us, we never have, and for those who have, it has been a while since we have done it.
Another reason that we might not be hearing God is because we don’t believe we can hear Him. In this case, He is still talking, and we are probably hearing Him even, and yet we are brushing it off as just our own thoughts, or just saying it is our gut feeling or our inner voice. When we ask God something, He will answer. It says so in the Bible. This means if we ask God a question, and we listen for an answer then we can trust that God is speaking to us.
Not everything we hear is from God. If you are hearing something that goes against the theology of your religion, or against what you know to be true about God, then that isn’t God talking. He will never contradict Himself. Also, if what you are hearing makes you feel bad about yourself, makes you feel shame, or any other bad feelings, that is not God either. He does correct us and yet He does it in such a loving way that we don’t feel bad about it. Also, if what you are hearing is something drastic, like pick your family of 5 up and over them to another country, run that by a friend, priest, or spiritual advisor. Have them pray over that decision with you and have them help you discern if it is from the Lord or not.
Beyond those types of things, if you ask God and then you feel like you have an answer, move forward in the trust that it is God answering your questions. Most of us will get something to mind right away and we will push it aside and think to ourselves, “That was too easy, that must just be from me.” This has happened lots of times with me and the rest of the people in my class. However, when we are brave and when we release that word to the other person, even though we aren’t sure it is really from God because it doesn’t make any sense to us, then we find out it makes all the sense in the world to the other person and that it was definitely from God. God is so good, and He wants to talk to you too!!
Another reason that some people can’t hear God when He is talking to them is because we are so distracted. There is so much noise and distraction in this world. We tend to have music on in the background, or the TV on, just for the noise. When we sleep we have white noise machines, when we are in the car we have the radio. When we are waiting in line we are playing a game on our phones. We can’t hear God because we never have any time when are brains aren’t already busy doing something else, listening to something else, and concentrating on something else. What if we changed that? What if we decided to have some part of our day where there was no other noise, no other distractions. I know some of you are thinking that you are so busy, you don’t have time to add one more thing like meditation into your schedule.
I am not talking about meditation and I am not talking about adding anything to your schedule. I am talking about just sitting in silence for a few minutes. Look at your schedule, what are you already doing that you could do in silence? Do you have a commute sometime in your day? Do you spend some time in the car? Instead of listening to music or sports radio, could you ask the Lord to speak to you and then listen to what he has to say? Maybe at lunch time, if you eat lunch alone, you could ask God to talk with you during lunch? Maybe you could ask God to talk with you in the shower? It doesn’t have to be where you go to church sit in the correct pew and ask God to talk. He will talk to you anywhere you invite Him to talk to you. We are looking for progress not perfection. Just ask and He will answer.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to hear your voice, please help us. Please help us to believe you will speak to us. Help us believe you want to speak to us and you are just waiting for us to listen. Show us where in our lives we can make time daily to listen to you. Help remind us to ask you and listen to you when things get hard and also when things are great. Help us to trust it is really you talking to us. Meet us where we are Lord, just as you always do. We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. My book is for sale on my website right now. If you buy from my website I will write a personal message and sign it before sending it to you. Click Here for the book and Click Here for my website in the show notes. I also want to remind you that I send out a weekly newsletter with one of my podcast episodes, the most popular ones, and also an update on what is going on in my life. When you sign up you also get an audio training on how to invite Jesus into your everyday life. Click Here to sign up for the Newsletter! Thank you for all your support, I really appreciate it! I look forward to meeting you hear again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed weekend!