How to Hear the Voice of God – Part 2

Secrets to Spiritual Small Talk

 

Do you want to hear God’s voice more clearly? Everyone needs to hear what God is saying, and you don’t want to wait until you’re in a crisis to try and hear Him. As a believer and His child, you can hear God. You were created to hear Him. It’s part of your spiritual DNA!

Key Bible Verse: John 10:27-28, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”

Transcription

Ashley: Do you want to be able to hear God’s voice more clearly? Well today’s show, we’re going to be talking about how we can hear God’s voice. Stay tuned.

Announcer: Why live a normal life when you could be living the abundant life? Welcome to the Abundant Life Program with Ashley and Carlie Terradez.

Ashley: Hello. Welcome to Abundant Life. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today here in the lounge. My name is Ashley Terradez, and this is my wife, Carlie. And today we’re talking about how we can hear the voice of God clearly. That’s why, if you’re a believer today, you can hear God’s voice. John 10:27 says, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them. And they follow me.” So we are made to hear God’s voice and God is always speaking to us. Amen. So we are in the middle of a series if you like about hearing God’s voice and we’re excited because we want you to be able to hear God’s voice more clearly. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been a Christian for. I think we should all have the desire to be able to hear God more clearly. And we talked about last time about how God wants to talk to us. Even the small things, not just the big things. In fact, it’s important to hear God in the small things so that we will hear him clearly in the bigger things.

Carlie: You don’t want to wait until you’re in the middle of a crisis before you start listening to God.

Ashley: Amen. Talked about cats eating pies.

Carlie: Oh my goodness. All kinds of crazy things.

Ashley: Driving and how God has spoken to us and things like that. And we’re looking at different ways that God speaks to us. God speaks to us in many different ways. And sometimes it depends on the circumstance. Sometimes it depends on our personality. God’s so gracious that he speaks to us in our voice, the ways we hear and depends on what we’re into. God will actually pique our interest with things that we’re interested in and speak to us in certain ways.

Carlie: He’ll do anything to get our attention.

Ashley: He’ll do anything to get our attention. but I’m saying I’ve got friends that are into certain hobbies and stuff and got to speak to them through them things. And like for me, he would speak to me sometimes through car illustrations and things.

Carlie: He doesn’t speak to me that way.

Ashley: It depends. So it depends.

Carlie: I think it’s because you’re carnal.

Ashley: I’m carnal. I like cars. That’s a dad joke right there. So anyway, so last time we looked at how God speaks to us through his word. And the word of God is the most clear way you can hear his voice. And we say never neglect spending time in the word of God. The word became flesh. That’s Jesus. And Jesus is God’s word. The Bible is the living word of God. It’s living, it’s breathing. It’s alive. It’s the most relevant book you’ll ever read. It’s much more than a book. And we spend time in the Bible every day. And nowadays with technology we talked about there’s no excuse why we can’t be in the word every day. Even if it’s five or 10 minutes, there’s no excuse for it. There’s not a legalistic thing we have to do, but it’s a way we’re going to get to know God better.

Carlie: It’s a sign of a healthy relationship.

Ashley: It’s part of our relationship, it’s how we get to know God, because I want to know God more. I want to know God more. We’ll read his word because he’s put himself in the Bible. It’s his living word. And as we read the Bible, we’re going to get to know God more. We’re going to get to know his MO, we’re going to get to know his character and what he does and doesn’t do. And so reading the word is, and I could tell you so many testimonies about how the lord has spoken to me directly through his word. His word is spoken to me. A scripture that I’ve read a hundred times will jump out and speak to me about certain situation. And I’m sure most of you watching have had similar incidences where you’ve read the Bible and verses jumped off the page. Sometimes we’ll read the Bible for days and nothing. And then all of a sudden, bam, something will jump out. Something will come alive to us. And that’s God’s living word. So God speaks to us through his word, for sure. That’s one of the main ways he speaks to us.

Carlie: Right. Actually it says this in Hebrews chapter 4:12, it says, “For the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow and able to judge the thoughts and intents of the heart.” We talked about how the word of God is a great benchmark for judging a word. Maybe somebody gives us a word of prophecy or they give us a word saying, I feel like the Lord is saying, or maybe it’s one of our own thoughts that comes to us. And we feel like it’s God speaking to us.

We can take the word of God and use it as a benchmark, as a ruler if you like, by which to judge that word. And it says quite clearly here, the word of God is living and able to judge the thoughts and the intents of the heart. God will speak to us through his word. As part of our relationship, part of hearing from God, sometimes he’ll give us scriptures to read or he’ll give us a passage or a book, or maybe just one phrase that’s in his word of God. He’ll use his word to confirm his thoughts to you. His intentions to you. His directions to you. The word of God is a more sure word of prophecy.

Ashley: Amen. It really is. And I’m reading this in the New King James, Carlie was using the modern English version in the New King James it says, “For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the the division of soul and spirit.” And this is one way we can tell when a word is from God and when a word is from us. We’re one spirit of the Lord. 1 Corinthians 6 says that we are one spirit with God. So therefore, when God speaks to us, sometimes it sounds like us that sometimes we have a hard time discerning when it’s us and when it’s God. And it says, the word of God will separate spirit from soul. You will separate your spirit part of you. You’re a three-part being, you’re a spirit, you’re a soul, and you have a body.

You are a spirit, you possess a cell and you live in a body. Your spirit is your God part if you like. When you got born again, all things become new. 2 Corinthians 5 says, that’s your spirit part. You got born again. And your spirit is just like God, it’s, what is it? 1 John 4:17 says, “As he is, so are we in this world.” So your spirit part is just like Jesus, your soul part, that’s your mind, will and emotions. That’s your soul. And that’s where your character is and things like that. And that’s the part that sometimes can lead us astray because we’ll have our own thoughts and our own emotions-

Carlie: Own opinions.

Ashley: Our own opinions about things that don’t line up with the word of God. They don’t line up with our spirit and it’s just our own thoughts and our own opinions. And that’s why we need the word of God. The word of God can separate those two things and show us no, this is just you actually, or no, this is God, and it will separate those things. That’s why it’s so important to be in the word. I read this as well. Last time from Proverbs 6:22, I love this verse, this is Proverbs 6:22. It says, “When you roam, they will lead you.” So if you run him off track the word of God to get you back on track again. It says, “When you sleep, they will keep you.” And it says, “And when you awake, they will speak with you.” The word will speak with you.

And I believe when we wake up, we should be in the word and let the word speak to us. And it doesn’t have to even be a lot of quantity. It’s more about quality. Now, one verse from the word of God, you can let that speak to you. You can meditate on that verse. Be thinking about that verse and let that verse speak to you, it’s powerful. It’s alive, sharper than any two-edged sword. Praise God. So we love the word, the words also, and this is from the Amplified. I’m going to read this again. This is Hebrews 4:12 in the Amplified. “The word that God speaks is alive and full of power, making it active, operative, energizing, and effective. It is sharper than any two-edged sword and it penetrates and divides the line between life, your soul and the immortal spirit. And the joints and marrow the deepest parts of our nature and exposing in sifting and analyzing and judging the various thoughts and purposes of our hearts.” That’s the Amplified. It’s powerful.

So that’s why the word of God is the basis for hearing God’s voice. We need to be in the word all the time, praise God. So that’s number one. We’ve got other ways that God speaks to us here. So the second thing I want to talk about today is how God can speak to us through an audible voice. God’s audible voice. That is a way God can speak to us. Now it’s rare. And it doesn’t happen that often, but we can often have God speak audibly. And in the Bible, there’s lots of examples where God spoke audibly. One example I’m thinking of is in John, when Jesus was on the cross and it says here that he spoke and they thought it was just under. They didn’t even think it was God speaking because they couldn’t understand. Even though it was God’s audible voice, the people around there. It’s just thunder. So unless you’re a believer, you’re not going to be able to hear it, I don’t think.

Carlie: I think God speaks to us in many different ways. And in my experience, it’s either people that are just on the verge of getting born again, or really very new to the faith that have had these audible voice of God type experiences, because God has a better, more reliable way of talking to us. Once we’re in relationship with him, he can talk to us through a still small voice out in a witness on the inside of us. He can talk to us through the word of God, but when we’re brand new to the faith and we don’t know him at all, he doesn’t have those opportunities. We’re not listening. We’re not tuned in yet. So the audible voice of God, I’m thinking Saul on the road to Damascus. He heard the audible of God and he repented and became Christian.

Ashley: Eli and Samuel-

Carlie: Eli and Samuel. Yeah.

Ashley: Talked directly to Eli, or was it the other way around? God spoke directly to Samuel. And then Eli, I think, I’d have to check the Bible now to check that out. But anyway, God spoke. Wen I was 16 and I wasn’t a believer and my mom got born again before me. She read a book and read the prayer at the back of the book and got born again just a couple of years before I did. And I actually went the other way I rebelled. I was like, I don’t want anything to do with this God and this Jesus and I’d rip the bumper stickers.

Carlie: Thought your mom had gone crazy.

Ashley: Oh yeah. I’d rip the bumper stickers off her car. I really didn’t like the fact that she was into Jesus. I was like, don’t talk to me about Jesus, mom. And I was against it.

Carlie: You persecuted her.

Ashley: I persecuted my mom a bit about it and I was dead against Jesus and about God and this because she changed so much, it scared me and I was only 15 at the time. And when I was 16, I started thinking about it and started to think about it more and more. And one night I was asleep in my bed and I heard the audible voice of God. He just said my name, it just said, Ashley. But I think it’s in Revelations 14. It says, “His voice was like a sound of many waters.” And I can’t explain it fully, but how can I explain it is when I heard my name spoken, when God spoke my name, Ashley, it like filled the room. It was like a synthesized voice. It filled the room, many, many different voices. And it felt so homely. It felt like he was calling me home. I loved this voice. The first time I’d heard it. And I went back to sleep again and it woke me up again and went back to sleep. It happened four or five times.

And the next day I said to my mom, I said, were you calling me last night? I thought my mom was putting on some sort of voice and calling me, she said, no. And I said, well, someone kept calling my name and kept waking me up. And the same night she’d been reading about Samuel and Eli and about how God spoke with a normal voice. And she said, that’s God. God’s speaking to you. Answer him. I didn’t wait until the next night. I knew God was real then. He had spoken to me audibly, I heard his voice. So that night I gave my life to him. I said, Jesus, if you’re real help me. And I got born again. I gave my life to the Lord right then and there that night. But I heard the audible voice of God. Haven’t heard it since. But maybe like you said, he had to get my attention. So that’s how he spoke to me.

Carlie: Well, I say it’s an audible voice because it was so loud. I was looking around to see if anyone else had heard it too. And I think sometimes the voice of God speaking to us can sound so loud. Especially if your group of people are just like, surely you heard that too. But I don’t know whether it is really an audible voice that you’re hearing from the outside, with your ears or whether it’s just really loud on the outside or whether it’s just one of those supernatural moments, where it is God speaking in an audible voice, but no one else can hear it, but you. It’s only tuned into you. But either way I was a teenager, I’d been born again a very short time. And I was sitting in church on a Sunday night. And I remember listening to the preacher thinking, I’ve not got a clue what this man is saying.

Ashley: It was one of those churches.

Carlie: I was not churched. And so I’m sure his sermon was awesome, but he was using the church language that I just didn’t understand. He was using Christian-ese. We have our own lingo, don’t we, in the church. And so coming into church, I didn’t understand the scriptures. It was almost like he was speaking a completely foreign language. And on top of that, I mean, I just come from a place of real, emotionally being completely broken. And I had a very abusive childhood and I carried that through and all of that damage, it really hurt my heart. I had a lot of fears, just a lot of terror on the inside of me, a lot of wounds a lot of emotional damage, a lot of emotional scars from those years of abuse.

And as I sat in church, listening to this man, and I knew that God was real and I’d given my life to the Lord. I was a new believer, but I just had no real grounding in the word, no real experience or understanding of church. And as I sat there in the pew, I just felt so completely and absolutely alone in the middle of church, listening to this man, speak in the word of God. Like he was speaking secrets that I couldn’t understand. And in the middle of that, I heard the Lord say to me so clearly that I believe it was audible and no one’s contested it yet. So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it, but I heard the Lord say, “I know, and I love you.” And in that moment, it’s like, when you were saying, when we hear the word of God, one word of God can be like a mighty rushing wind.

It could be like the voice of many waters. It didn’t just mean to me that God knew me and that he loved me. It meant to me a million more things that he was there. He held my hand. He was there in all of my moments of heartache and pain and fear. All through the abuse. He was there with me. And in that moment, his word brought healing to my heart. The holy spirit did in a heartbeat what counseling couldn’t do in years. That was the importance of hearing the voice of God when he speaks to us. And from then on I’ve never heard the voice of God in the same way since then. But I believe that God did that for me, because that was how he could get my attention.

Ashley: Right. That’s good. That’s good. And if people are watching, most people don’t hear the audible voice of God. There’s something special about hearing the audible voice of God. This is another level, as Carlie said earlier, there’s a more sure word of prophecy. Hearing the audible voice of God, isn’t the clearest way of hearing God, isn’t the best way of hearing God. There’s better ways of hearing God through his word and through his spirit. But sometimes you just want to make your way. Sometimes that’s one way God speaks to us. And like I said earlier, there was an instance in John, when the Lord spoke directly, this is in John 12. And in John 12, it says, I believe it’s around 28. It says, “God spoke from the heaven and they didn’t believe it.”

This is in John 12:28. It says, “A voice came from heaven, an audible voice came from heaven and said, I have both glorified and I will glorify it again.” This in verse 29. This is John 12:29. “Therefore the people who stood by heard it.” So they heard God’s voice coming out of heaven. And they said it was just thunder, it must’ve thundered, or it’s an angel. So even though they heard God’s voice audibly, they were discounting it as it was just thunder. And sometimes we can hear the audible voice of God. We can question it or other people might not believe it, but God can speak audibly is what we want to tell you. It’s rare, but that’s one way that God can speak to you.

So another way God can speak to us is through people, other people. So God can use other people to speak to us. And many times I’ve had other people come to me. Now, sometimes they might be operating in a spiritual gift. We’re going to cover spiritual gifts a little later on in some programs about how God can use words and knowledge and words of wisdom and prophecy and things like that to speak to us. And sometimes it could just be, someone says something and it’s God speaking to us, but God can use people to speak to us. And I’m sure, again, people have got testimonies. You’ve probably had people say something to you and it’s been profound. It’s been like, wow, that’s God. God’s spoken to me. And God could speak to you.

And I’ve had it many times where people have said things to me. And like I said, sometimes they will operate in the spiritual gift, but sometimes they’re not, sometimes they’re just saying something and they don’t realize how profound it is, but God is using them to speak to us. So God can definitely use people to speak to us. Now there’s a flip side to this because God can use people to speak to us and people can speak to us, but also people can speak to us and it can be from the enemy.

Carlie: Right. So it’s important to know the difference and to be able to judge that, right.

Ashley: It’s very important. There’s a great incidence with Peter, and Peter turns around to Jesus and said, you don’t have to go to the cost Jesus now. Me and the lads we’re talking-

Carlie: There’s an easier way.

Ashley: There’s a way out. And what does Jesus say? Jesus turns around and says to Peter, now he just told him, your revelation of who I am, I’m the Christ. I’m going to build my church on your revelation on this rock. I’m going to build my church. So Pete must be like, yeah.

Carlie: Pretty good at the time.

Ashley: You know what? This is like, Jesus loves me. This is awesome. And then just a few sentences later, he turns around, says, get behind me Satan. Calls him Satan. And you can imagine, Jesus obviously didn’t take the leadership approach where you’re meant to praise in public, and correct in private. I mean, leadership will tell you this, you went in for only praise in public and correct in private. But I guess this was private. This was just amongst the disciples. But Jesus turned around and corrected Peter and said, get behind me Satan. Why? Because the enemy was using Peter to speak to Jesus.

Carlie: He was planting a suggestion that would be wrong.

Ashley: And it was tempting Jesus. If it hadn’t attempted him, Jesus wouldn’t have been so strong to rebuke it. In Isaiah, it talks about every weapon formed against you. You shall condemn every lion tongue that comes against you.

Carlie: Isaiah 54:17.

Ashley: Isaiah 54:17. So this word came from Peter. It was actually the enemy tempting Jesus, not to go to the cross because Jesus had the choice. And because it’s tempting, Jesus turned around and rebuked it, he quickly silence that voice as they get behind me, Satan. So he wasn’t calling Peter Satan. He was just calling that word that Peter said Satan, that temptation was from the enemy. So the enemy can use people sometimes. I mean, once I was in the bank and I was getting some cash out and they said, it’s not safe, the teller, it was like the devil. He said, it’s not safe to carry cash around. He said, you shouldn’t carry that cash around. It’s not safe. And the way he said it was like, it went into me-

Carlie: It’s like planting fear.

Ashley: It’s almost putting fear into me, like it wasn’t safe to carry cash around. And I was doing some buying and selling and I needed some cash. And man, I felt it. And rather than just let it sink in, I rebuked to it, I turned around and said, no, you know what? It’s perfectly safe for me to carry cash around. I said, if I get robbed, all I can get robbed for is what I have. And he said, no, you should carry a credit card. I said, well, if I have a credit card, I could go down to this store and buy something that I can’t afford. And I can be robbed and pay for it for three years.

Carlie: [crosstalk] something you don’t have.

Ashley: At least this way I could go to get what I’ve got. But my point was that voice came at me and it felt like it was the enemy speaking to me. So I rebuked it. So you got to remember, people can be used both ways. God can use people, but also people can be used by the enemy to speak to us. Now don’t go around your family members and call them Satan. That’s not going to go well.

Carlie: Yeah, that’s probably not going to go down very well.

Ashley: But sometimes that will happen. I mean, when we made the big decision to one of the biggest decisions of our life at the time was to leave our business, was to uproot our family and moved to another town to help plant a church. And I remember there was some friends of ours and they were fairly close friends of ours and they told us, you’re going to fail. This isn’t going to work out. This isn’t going to work-

Carlie: To be fair. As when God speaks to us sometimes, he doesn’t speak to everybody around us. And so maybe they haven’t heard the same word from God, the same direction that you have. And so your choices, your decisions, your act of walking in faith, doesn’t always make sense to the people around you. And these were friends of ours. They loved us. They cared for us. They have best interests at heart, but God had not spoken to them about our situation, the same way he’d spoken to us about our situation.

And so they started to bring us kind of words of warning. They thought it was wisdom. They thought that us stepping out in faith was actually craziness. That’s how it looked like to the natural world, right? To give up all your job, to move your family halfway across the country, to a place that you’d never been to before to have all these tuitions to pay and just do only a word from God to go on. But a word from God changes everything. Amen. And we had confidence and faith to step out and make that move. Even though it didn’t make sense, because we had heard clearly from God in the first place, but they hadn’t had they?

Ashley: No, that’s right. They hadn’t heard from God. We heard from God. And it was more than just natural wisdom. Some people they care for you, friends, family, they’re going to just give you some natural wisdom. Have you thought about this? You’ve thought about that. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, in a multitude of counselors, there is safety. So it’s good to take some outside input on things and people say like, let people play devil’s advocate with you a little bit, just so you can get perspective because sometimes we can get blindsided to things. But in this instance, it was much more than that. There were loaded words. They were the enemy using these words a little bit like Peter and Jesus. I want to read this because it is pretty good.

This is in Matthew. I’m taking this from Matthew’s gospel. And we can read this in Matthew 16:22 Jesus has just talked to the disciples about what’s going to happen to him. He says, “I’m going to die. And on the third day, I’m going to rise again.” And then in Matthew, in verse 22, it says, “Then Peter took Jesus aside.” I love this. Peter took Jesus aside, he said, “Far, be it from you. This shall not happen to you.” Far be it from you Jesus that you’re going to have to die. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to look after whoever Peter’s type of … And he told him. Now, Peter may have thought he’s just being caring. But the enemy was actually using that to distract Jesus. And this is what their people were doing.

They thought they were just being caring. Most people don’t know they’re been used by the devil and it’s type of a hard way of saying it. So obviously be careful what you say that when people have been used by the devil, but we can say some things and we’re just being flippant or we’re just trying to be caring, but actual fact that the enemy can use those words to tempt us.

Carlie: Or just speaking from our flesh.

Ashley: Speaking from our flesh. Exactly. Speaking from our flesh. So, and then in verse 23 then, “He turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan. You are an offense to me.” And that word offense can also mean a stumbling block to me. If you study out that word offense, you could cause me to stumble here. So Jesus says get behind me Satan. These words could cause me to stumble. These words could get me off track. He said for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men. And sometimes just natural thinking, being mindful of the natural things. In 2 Corinthians 5:7. It says we walk by faith and not by sight.

So if we get mindful of natural things, then it can lead us off track and it can cause us to stumble. And our friends, when they told us this, isn’t going to work out, you’re going to fail. How are you going to pay the bills? How are you going to work, et cetera, et cetera. They were natural mindful things. And if we’d listened to them, it would’ve got us off track. We wouldn’t have moved. And we wouldn’t have been able to do what all the Lord had called us to do as it happened. We did move. It did work out. We didn’t starve, we prospered. And after the fact, we lived a better life when we moved and gave up our business. And when we put God first, then before, we just put Matthew 6:33 into practice.

We sought first, the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things and natural needs were added to us often supernaturally. So we was actually better off when we put God first and wasn’t putting work and business first. And it’s amazing how that works out. But those people, when they spoke to us, they were just giving us some natural wisdom. But it was actual fact. That was the enemy speaking to us. So God can speak to us through people and the enemy could speak to us through people as well. So be aware of that. When people speak to us, we have to test it and be aware of people coming to you and saying, God told me this. And I’m always concerned about that.

Carlie: In the scriptures, he says, take heed how you hear, right? And so it’s, what are we listening to? We need to judge the avenues that we’re listening to. If we’re spending a lot of time listening to things, listening to voices, opinions, whether it’s in the media, whether that’s through friends and family, however way that comes to us. But if we’re spending time listening to other people’s opinions and interpretations or the word of God or what God is saying to us, rather than relying on our own relationship with him, we’re going to be easily distracted. And we’re going to find ourselves, listen, it’s good that God will use other people to speak words to you. But really those words should be confirming what God has already said on the inside of your heart.

I was in a church one time and I think this is where we were just kind of starting to dabble in the realm of spiritual gifts. And because the church wasn’t really grounded in the word of God to judge rightly the difference between the flesh and what God was really saying, it was very much based upon how people felt about something. Feelings and emotions. There’s nothing wrong with feelings and emotions, but the word of God is solid.

Ashley: Amen.

Carlie: Amen. And so where there was a guy with a New York Yankees hat on, and someone comes up to him and says, I feel the Lord is saying, you need to move to New York city. Well, look, I had never considered that before God. I’d never spoken to him about that before. But all of a sudden he was about ready to pack up and jump ship and move to New York and whoa, hang on there a second. You need to take some time to meditate and ask the Lord for yourself because if God has shown somebody else something he’s going to show you. We can’t make life altering decisions on second hand revelation. If it’s important enough to make a decision upon, God is going to speak to you first. Amen.

Ashley: That’s right. I remember when I was a teenager, I had a guy come to me and said, God’s told me you’re going to marry this lady. And he told me her name, that’s your wife. And I didn’t even find her attractive. I was like, oh no, I’m going to marry her when I don’t even find her attractive, that’s going to be terrible. And for weeks, I was heartbroken.

Carlie: Especially for a young teenager.

Ashley: I know. I was a 17, 18 year old guy. I was heartbroken. I was like, I’m not even going to find my wife attractive anyway.

Carlie: That’s like coal mine evangelism.

Ashley: Yeah, it wasn’t a word from God. It was just his own opinion. He thought it would be a good idea. And thank God gave me a wife that I’m very attracted to.

Carlie: Oh that’s good.

Ashley: Keep it PG. But anyway, God will use people to speak to us. And that verse we’re looking for is Luke 8:18. Jesus said in Luke 8:18, “Be careful how you hear.” And so we looked at today, we looked at God using an audible voice to speak to us and how God spoke to Samuel with an audible voice. And we also looked at how God can use people to speak to us. And the main thing is God is trying to talk to us. God is speaking to us and we need to learn how to listen. We can hear him through his word. We can hear him through an audible voice and we can hear him through people. And we’re going to be back real soon. We’re going to have more to talk about this. We’re going to cover more things about how you can hear the voice of God, praise God.

Carlie: Amen.

Ashley: So until then, we want to thank you for joining us. And like I said, we’ll be back real soon to finish up this series. But remember, don’t just live a normal life. Live the Abundant Life.

Announcer: To order your copy of this teaching, visit our website, TerradezMinistries.com or call us at (719) 600-3344.

Carlie: Thanks so much for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the program and God is speaking to us every day through all kinds of different avenues, all kinds of different ways. He wants to have relationship with you. I would encourage you to make it and take advantage of this teaching series. We’ve mentioned things today, but we’ll have a whole series which goes into so much more depth and I believe is really going to be a blessing to you and enrich your relationship with the Lord. So make that decision today and order your copy.

Announcer: To order your copy of this teaching. Visit our website, TerradezMinistries.com or call us at (719) 600-3344. Coming up next on the Abundant Life Program.

Ashley: What can happen is as Christians that you can make a decision for God. So whatever that is, one of the big decisions we made. We’re going to move and move to Bible school and actually get a Bible school back in 2006. And we could say, okay, we’re thinking about moving to Bible school. If all the circumstances work out and everything works out and our house sold and we got a new house for rent and we got a job and everything worked hasn’t it? Must be the Lord everything’s working out, but yet, if everything went wrong and it was difficult, we couldn’t find housing. We couldn’t sell our house. Everything went wrong. Must be the Lord, the devil’s trying to stop us.

Carlie: It comes down to interpretation.

Ashley: It’s down to interpretation, yeah, it can’t be right we have all these circumstances against us. We must’ve missed God. This can’t be God. All the circumstances are good. So it must be God. Either way, do you see how we can use circumstances to argue our case both ways? That’s why we can’t put weight on circumstances.

Carlie: You can’t put faith in the circumstances.

Ashley: Amen.