Does God Speak To Us Today?

The host of a radio talk show asked his listeners, “Does God speak to us?” He was reacting to a sports celebrity who claimed that God spoke to him about his relationship with his girlfriend.

As Christians we often assert; “God spoke to me,” or “God told me,” or ”God led me.” Non-Christians usually misunderstand us; they think we are either self-deceived or arrogant.

However, Christians rarely mean that they heard God’s voice audibly. Scripture makes clear that God can do that. “God called to him from within the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’”(Ex. 3:4). But more often God has either communicated directly with a prophet’s spirit or given him or her a vision or dream. “During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision”(Daniel 2:19).

The big question is not, does God speak, but are we listening? Are we even able to hear God? In our natural state mankind is hearing impaired. Jesus addressed this universal deficiency by quoting from Isaiah who had encountered the same problem. “Though seeing they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving’”(Matt. 13:13,14).

Of course, few humans admit their impairment, just as people who are hard of hearing often delay getting hearing aids, blaming their difficulty hearing on the way others speak.

To correct this hearing deficiency, we need God’s Technician to install a hearing aid and teach us to use it. That Technician is the Holy Spirit who alone can “give us ears to hear.” How? Through convicting us of our careless and unconcerned attitude to what God has clearly revealed in the universe around us, in our consciences, and in the Good News of the Gospel. When we admit that we have shut our ears to God’s voice but want to become hearers, the Spirit gives us spiritual hearing equipment, that is, a new heart. Through this conversion, we become believers, those with faith in what God communicates. “And without faith it is impossible to please God [or hear Him]” (Rom. 10:14).

With this spiritual “hearing aid” in place, and faith to receive God’s Word, the Spirit begins to teach us how to interpret what God is saying in life and providence. “No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God”(1 Cor. 2:11). Just as simultaneous translators interpret a foreign speaker and beam the translation into the ear of delegates to the UN, so the Spirit becomes our interpreter.

Learning to interpret God’s voice requires us to go through a training process. Sometimes we misinterpret God’s voice. In a subsequent blog, I’ll discuss the process whereby the Holy Spirit trains us to interpret God’s voice accurately.

(Further articles, books, and stories at: http://www.countrywindow.ca Facebook: Eric E Wright        Twitter @EricEWright1)