Jeremiah 33:2-3 “Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to establish it—the Lord is his name: Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” In this episode I discuss various ways God communicates with us and why the enemy wants us to doubt God would talk to us. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Call To Me And I Will Answer You
Jeremiah 33:2-3 “Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to establish it—the Lord is his name: Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”
How great would it be if the Lord was talking to us like this? I picture this scene like the movies where Jeremiah is just sitting there drinking his morning coffee and all of the sudden a booming voice comes out of nowhere and says, “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” This is not how God communicates with most of us. He did communicate with some like that. Moses talked with God and heard His reply. God called to Samuel in his sleep. Some people report hearing the Lord’s audible voice, however, most people do not hear His voice. Even if you do not hear His voice, the Lord can still talk to you. He can communicate in a variety of ways. Let’s examine what the verse is saying, and then we will talk about the various ways He talks with us.
The first part of the verse is reminding us how amazing God is. It says, “The Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to establish it - the Lord is his name.” The next part says, “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” God is constantly telling us throughout the Bible if we ask He will answer. This time He is telling us He will tell us great and hidden things we have not known. Who wouldn’t want to know great and hidden things? So, how do we know when God is talking to us? How do we hear his voice? Do we hear His voice?
As I mentioned earlier, you may hear His voice, but this is very rare. I know a lot of people who hear from God regularly and they do not hear an audible voice. There are several different ways that God communicates with us. The way I see God communicate most often at my Thursday prayer group meeting is when we are all silent and ask the Lord to speak to us. We usually say what Samuel said to God in 1 Samuel 3:10, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Then we wait to hear from the Lord. Most of the time someone has a thought come into their mind. It is not an audible voice but the Lord has put this thought in their head and they share it with everyone. Listening to the Lord does require a degree of trust and a degree of vulnerability. If you ask the Lord a question, or if you just tell Him you are listening and willing to listen to Him, and then you started to get a bunch of thoughts in your head, it takes trust to believe it is God speaking to you. Especially if you are new to communicating with the Lord in this way. If you are sitting and asking God to talk to you, have paper with you to write down any thoughts you get after you ask God to talk with you. Trust that these thoughts could be from God. You asked Him to talk to you and when we ask, He answers.
The enemy does not want us communicating with God because He knows when you do you grow closer to God and your deepen your relationship. Do not be surprised if when you are trying to listen to God and a thought enters you mind, you start to doubt it’s from God. This is the enemy. He will also put thoughts in your head, but these ones won’t be nice thoughts. The thoughts from the enemy will be things like, “Why would God talk to you, you’re a nobody?” “You’re just thinking whatever you want to think.” “God would never talk like that, God would never say that.” If you start to doubt what you are thinking is actually from God, know the enemy is probably putting those thoughts in your head. You can answer those questions with the truths that God has give us. For instance, “Why would God talk to you?” Your answer can be that God would talk to you because you are made in His likeness and image and because He told you if you asked He would answer. If you call to Him He will answer. He tells us this right here in this verse. Don’t let the enemy convince you otherwise.
Another way some people communicate with the Lord is through visions. They will ask the Lord to speak and then they will get a vision of something. Sometimes this vision is accompanied by a word and sometimes it is just a vision. My friend Corinne tends to have visions during our prayer group meetings and often times they are comical. Our Lord has a sense of humor and it really comes out in her visions. One time during prayer group He was trying to convey a message of joy and Corinne had a vision of us all riding down the hill on a sled in the snow. We were all just laughing and have a great time. Sometimes people will have a vision and then they will have a word from the Lord that goes with it to sort of explain it.
Another way God talks to us is through the scriptures. I have had a lot of people tell me about how they were really struggling with something and then they saw a scripture verse and it gave them so much comfort. How they see this verse is always different. Maybe they heard it at church, or they saw it in a book or on a magnet. Maybe their friend mentioned it or they saw it in passing somewhere. I remember a story I heard from a speaker. She said she knew God was asking her to move to another state, but she really didn’t want to go. She said if He wanted her to go He was going to have to make it really clear because she didn’t want to go. She had three different random people give her the same scripture verse in one week. I am not sure what the verse is anymore, but it was clear to her that God wanted her to move. One of the people that gave her the verse was a delivery man. It was not someone she knew. She had never talked with him before, he did not know if she was religious. He just dropped off her package, went to walk away, and then turned around and said, I feel I am supposed to give you this scripture verse. This happened two other times with different people in one week. This leads me to another way God communicates with us.
God communicates through other people. You could be struggling with something and you don’t mention it to anyone and yet someone you know, or maybe someone you don’t know, happens to say something that makes you feel better, or answers your questions. I listen to a lot of different things, between podcasts, webinars, music and prayer groups and they are always exactly what I need to hear. How does God do that? I listen to the Big Life Devotional Podcast. It is actually where I got the idea for this podcast. There are hundreds of thousands of people that listen to that podcast. There are at least 400 of those listeners that are in the Big Life mentoring program. Pamela Crim does a Facebook live for all her members in the morning while she records her devotional. All those of us that are watching live are all different. We are different ages, different jobs, different stages in our lives, different family make ups and yet every one of us feels like each episode seems to be written specifically for us. The sermons in church are the same. Did you ever wonder why the Sunday sermon said exactly what you needed to hear? It’s because the Holy Spirit helped write that sermon.
The woman that does the Big Life Podcast could not do the morning Facebook Live video this morning because she is traveling. She told us if we wanted to do our morning routine we could watch an old one that was recorded. I saw one the other day that said Wednesday. I didn’t check the date because it happened to be Wednesday. I watched the whole thing, it was really what I needed to hear, and I actually connected with someone else who happened to rewatch that one on Wednesday. I finally realized it wasn’t the correct date It was from Jan 6, 2021. God knew what He was doing. He knew I needed to connect with this lady. He knew of all the messages in her devotionals, that was the one I needed to hear today. God is so good. He will talk to you through other people if you are open to hearing it.
I said earlier communicating with God requires trust and it requires vulnerability. It requires trust because you have to believe that if you ask He will answer. You have to trust those thoughts in your head, after you asked the Lord to talk, are really the Lord. You have to trust He will talk to you because He said He would. It also requires vulnerability because it can feel like you are risking rejection asking God to talk to you. What if I ask God to talk and He doesn’t, what does that mean. This brings us back to the trust. If you ask God He will answer. It also requires vulnerability if you are in a group setting because you are saying the thoughts that come into your out loud and you might start to wonder, “Did I really hear something?” “Is this really from God?” “What if it’s not from God?” This is normal. When this happens remember the enemy doesn’t want us to communicate with our heavenly Father. He wants us as far from Him as we can get. He will always start to cause doubt when He sees we are getting closer. Keep trusting it’s the Lord talking. Spend time each day listening for all the Lord has to say. I promise if you do start listening more, your relationship with the Lord will grow so much deeper. You will develop an intimate relationship with your heavenly Father, His son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
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 listen more. Open our eyes to see all the ways you are trying to communicate with us and open our ears to hear them. Open our minds to understand your messages Lord. Lord we are open to hearing you, in whatever way you want to communicate with us. Help us to hear you and help us to recognize it is you talking. Help us be brave and share what you tell us with others. Fill us with the trust we need to believe you would talk to us. We love you Lord! You are truly amazing. You are the light of the world. You are the word made flesh. We are so grateful for all you do for us. 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. I look forward to spending time with you on Monday. Have a blessed weekend!