Lord, teach me your Word, that I may know your heart.
If someone hands me the phone, and I hear my wife’s voice on the other end, no one has to tell me who I am talking to. I don’t see her, but I know her voice.
God wants His voice to be something we know. So how do you learn His voice?
I learned my wife’s voice by listening to her and spending much time with her. We learn God’s voice by listening to Him and spending much time with Him. Of course, God’s voice is not auditory, so we must listen in a different way, but the principle remains the same. If you spend little time with God and if you never try to listen, you will never learn His voice. The most common reason people do not hear the voice of God is that they don’t even try.
Sometimes they believe God is nebulous – so why bother? Sometimes they don’t like what God says, so they shut Him out. But most people don’t think much of anything about God. They are so busy going to work and school, cooking dinner, shopping for groceries, watching movies, surfing the internet, thinking about a guy or girl, fixing their car, taking their kids to the doctor, and more – that they have no time to think on God. It’s not that they think God is nebulous, confusing, or distasteful. It’s that they don’t think on God at all. God is irrelevant to their world, so the idea that He can speak to them is likewise irrelevant. When people laugh at the idea that you can hear from God, it is usually these people who are doing the laughing.
But those who have faith will take steps to know God. They will want to hear His voice, and the first place in which you will hear the voice of God is in the Scriptures. The Bible is the very Word of God. It reveals how God thinks. It contains His voice. When you immerse yourself in Scripture, you immerse yourself in the voice of God. You soak your mind in God’s thoughts. When you ignore Scripture, you ignore the voice and mind of God.
Saturate your mind with Scripture, and you prepare yourself to hear from God. Scripture provides the intellectual, spiritual, and moral operating system through which God speaks. It reveals the culture of heaven. It is the worldview God has breathed out.
Soaking your heart and mind in Scripture helps you know God’s voice because God’s voice will never contradict God’s Word. Scripture provides a pattern that God’s spoken voice will fit, a standard that it will conform to. It provides the background for hearing from the Holy Spirit.
Suppose a friend tells you that your mother spoke glowingly about a politician that you know she cannot stand. You know that your friend is mistaken, not because you heard the specific conversation yourself, but because you know your mother. Perhaps the friend missed some sarcasm, but his claim is false, and you know it. You have background knowledge about your mom based on repeated experience with how she thinks and talks. This background helps you recognize her message.
It also helps you interpret her message when she speaks. Let’s say you know that your mom can get animated when she explains herself. When that happens, you know she is not angry because you know that’s just the way she is. You know her heart. But someone who doesn’t know her so well may ask why she is so upset.
Scripture helps you in these ways. It shows you the heart and mind of God, and as you get to know how God thinks and feels, you begin to recognize the sorts of messages God would or would not say.
Knowing Scripture is essential for discerning God’s voice. If you want to know the voice of God, get to know the Bible.
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