Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
9 20 2024
How God Speaks: Suddenly we just Know
Unless we know how God speaks, we will never understand his voice.
A divine impression comes to us from the leading of the Holy Spirit. While intuition arises from within our human spirit. We will come to learn and discern the difference. Divine impressions are not necessarily connected with our observations, logical inferences, or even past experiences.
Sometimes, the Holy Spirit will communicate knowledge that is frankly opposite
of what our minds believe, or our senses are telling us.
As we grow in our abilities and confidence to listen to God,
we will come to rely on divine impressions for guidance in our everyday affairs
and for direction in ministry. They will grow more frequently as you grow in your confidence
to ask in prayer for them and listen for them. But I believe we must stand on scripture and believe what it says. Here are four simple places to begin:
• We must believe and have faith that God WILL speak through impressions
• We must want these impressions so we might lead to serve God and his people
• We should Pray regularly for God to speak to us and give us direction.
• And then act on the impressions or intuition when they come, even at the risk of looking foolish in front of others.
Hearing God through impressions is a very biblical aspect of the language of the Holy Spirit.
Nehemiah told how God led him by an impression; “So my God put I into my heart to assemble the nobles, the official and the common people for registration by families”. Neh 7:5 It was not an audible voice, but rather an influence he felt in his heart to register the people. He was able to discern that this impression on his heart had come from God, not from himself.
Often divine impressions are just an immediate knowing in our spirit. It is a form of knowledge that does not come to us through logical reasoning or personal observation. Suddenly, we just know that we know. Jack Deere says this in his book, Surprised by the Voice of God; “God speaks to us through impressions all the time, but many Christians have trained themselves to ignore their impressions. We associate them with feelings, and we’ve been taught that feelings are bad or, at best, unreliable. People who are logical and analytical are strong. People who pay attention to feelings are weak. The rationalism of Western tradition has long been offended by knowledge that bypasses the mind. Our proud mind tells us that everything worth knowing must pass through our intellect. Sometimes God has to remove our confidence in our intelligence before he can talk with us.
There is an example in Act 14;19 when Paul looked at a man who had been lame since birth. While looking at him “He saw that he had faith to be healed”. Paul commanded him to stand up and he was healed. How do you see faith? How could he know that? Of course, you can’t literally see faith. It was discerned…there was an impression or perception made by the Holy Spirit giving Paul an impression of the man’s heart…of his inner faith.
God created us with feelings, mind, and body. He can speak to us through all three of these avenues, and all three can be the source of blessings or curses to us, depending on how we use them. If we listen to our feelings, minds, or bodies and follow their prompting in contradiction to God’s command, they will become instruments of rebellion. But if we learn to discern the voice of God, in our feelings, mind, and bodies, we will become better servants of Christ.
All Christians have become accustomed to hearing the voice of God through teachers, preachers, and, at times, prophetic ministries. But that doesn’t mean, of course, that everything they say is from God. Paul told us to evaluate prophetic messages in 1 Corinthians 14:29 teachers: “know in part” and prophets “prophesy in part” 1 Corinthians 13:9 says, “None of us is infallible”
You don’t have to be a professional minister to be used by God in a special way. Some people spend hundreds of dollars to go to a conference when they could’ve learned that truth at home. Their spouse could’ve told them if they had just stayed home and listened.
God will frequently speak to us through our family, friends, and even acquaintances.
If only we have ears to hear. There are many examples that I have not spoken about; Burning bushes, fleeces, or other more dramatic revelatory phenomena found in your bible. But I have talked instead about the most common ways that God speaks to us.
Unless we know how God speaks, we will never understand his voice.
Yet knowing how God speaks doesn’t guarantee he will speak to us, or if he does, that we will recognize his voice. But it’s important that we know that if an impression is from him. God’s voice, God’s leading, and God’s direction through whatever means he uses will never contradict his word. How many times have your read the bible and had a scripture just come alive to you. Speak to you. Sometimes its an answer of a question you had days, weeks or months ago. Filtering everything though his words is how we avoid keeping the devil from seducing us with his voice and twisted truth.
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Excerpts are taken from the Book Surprised by the Voice of God by Jack Deere page 153 – 156
Turn your eyes upon Jesus lauren daigle
