How to Hear the Voice of God – Part 5

Secrets to Spiritual Small Talk

 

Join Ashley and Carlie Terradez for Part 5 of How to Hear the Voice of God! Ashley and Carlie share how the still small voice of the Lord sounds just like you and how to determine if you are hearing Him.

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

Carlie: Did you know that when God speaks to us, his voice on the inside of us sounds like us. That’s right. That’s his still, small voice speaking to you today.

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. My name is Ashley Terradez. This is my wife, Carlie, and we’re so glad you’ve joined us today in the lounge. We’ve got an exciting program for you. We’re talking about how we can hear the voice of God. In John 10:27, Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.” You can hear God’s voice. As believers, we can hear God’s voice and God is always speaking to us, but sometimes we need some help on understanding when He’s talking and how we can hear Him more clearly. So we’ve got some examples. We’ve got some different ways that God speaks to us and we’re going to help you in this practical teaching, show you how you can hear God’s voice more clearly. Amen.

Carlie: We’ve actually covered a number of those different ways that God speaks to us. We’ve talked about how God speaks to us through the word of God, how the word of God is a great benchmark for measuring other words that other people give us. God confirms what He’s saying through His word.

Ashley: It’s the foundation. The word of God has got to be the foundation. God will never contradict His word. So if you get a word of prophecy or a word from someone else, or whatever, a dream, a vision, it will never contradict the word of God. The word of God has to be the foundation. And really it’s the primary way that God’s going to speak to us. You can open the scriptures. It’s the living word and the scriptures will speak to us. Amen?

Carlie: Amen. We’ve also talked about how God can speak to us through circumstances, about how those circumstances are open to interpretation. Sometimes circumstances go in our favor and sometimes circumstances don’t, but God sure can confirm things. We’re looking for circumstances sometimes to confirm the word of God, but they shouldn’t direct what God is saying to us. It’s more of a confirmation. We’ve talked about how God can speak to us in an audible voice. Mostly that this is these people that are new to the faith or people that don’t even know Jesus. Saul on the road to Damascus was a perfect example of this. We’ve also talked about how God can speak to us through other people, through the spiritual gifts, through words of wisdom, words of knowledge, words of prophecy and even interpretation of tongues.

Ashley: Amen. And people can speak to us and we got to be careful because just like circumstances, sometimes people can speak to us and it can be negative. It’s not always God. And there’s a great example of that when Peter said to Jesus, “You don’t have to go to the cross, Jesus,” and Jesus turned around and said, “Get behind me, Satan.” Because that was the enemy using Peter in that instance to speak to Jesus. So we have to be aware of when people speak to us. Sometimes it can be for good, sometimes it’s not so good. So we have to make sure we line it up with the word of God and making sure that it fits with the word of God. Praise God. Also, we looked at dreams and visions.

Carlie: And desires.

Ashley: Yeah. Dreams, vision, desires. Sometimes we can have dreams. Sometimes we can have visions of things. God can give us dreams. God can give us visions. And it’s amazing how God can speak to us in that way. Again, should be confirmation more than something new. They’re not a new concept. Should be confirmation. And then desires. Desires. I love this. This is in Psalms, Psalm 37, verse 4. It says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” The key here is delighting ourselves in the Lord. As you delight yourself in the Lord… You say, “Ashley, what does delighting myself in the Lord mean?” Spending time with Him, thinking about Him, having Him on your mind, seeking Him, reading His word, fellowshipping with Him, praying with Him, worshiping Him, praying in tongues, whatever you want to do to spend time with God. You can do it driving in your car. You can do it when you’re at work. You can do it even when you’re doing your normal things.

You can still be meditating on God’s word and including God into everyday situations. In fact, God loves to be included in everyday life. Sometimes I’ve been guilty of having my time with God… Sometimes people would use devotionals, every day with Jesus or every other day with Jesus or every week with Jesus or whatever, and they spend their time with God, their 10 minutes, their half an hour, whatever, with God, and then the rest of the day, they don’t really include Him. But God wants to indwell us. God wants fellowship with us. And He loves it when we include Him in every area of our life. So when we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us His desires and our desires become His desires and He’ll start leading us with those desires. All of a sudden, you want to do certain things and it’s God speaking to us that way. Well today, we’re going to be looking at the still, small voice. This is a way God speaks to us spirit to spirit. This is powerful. This is God’s spirit and our spirit being one.

In First Corinthians 6, I believe it’s verse 17. I could look it up. First Corinthians 6, verse 17, it says, “But he who is joined with the Lord is one spirit with Him.” So if you’re born again today, if you’re a believer today, you’re one spirit with the Lord. That’s why in First John 4:17, it says, “As Jesus is, so are you in this world.” In your spirit, you’re one spirit with the Lord. You are seated with Him in heavenly places. And that’s why when God speaks to us, it’s often spirit to spirit. It can sometimes sound like our own voice. It’s not a third person voice on the outside saying, “Ashley, do this.” It’s usually within us. And sometimes we can miss it because we think that just sounds like me. But it’s often God speaking to us. There’s a great example of this, about the still, small voice in First Kings. You got that there? First Kings 19. This is Elijah and what happens here with Elijah?

Carlie: Yep. Well, it says in verse 11 and 12, “He said, ‘Go and stand on the mountain before the Lord.’ And, behold, the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind split the mountains and broke the rock into pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. When after the wind, an earthquake came, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, the fire came, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still, small voice.”

Ashley: Wow. Sounds like Colorado. We live in Colorado. One season, we have fires, the next season, we have floods.

Carlie: We only have three seasons: freeze, fire, and flood. That’s it. That’s Colorado.

Ashley: But at least it’s quite spectacular. I mean, Elijah wanted to see God and he came past him. He hid him in a rock and he came by and there was a mighty earthquake that split rock, and there’s a mighty wind, and there was an earthquake, but God wasn’t in these powerful things. Sometimes we’re looking for God in the spectacular. We think the supernatural is always going to be spectacular. But God is a humble God and often He’ll speak to us and He’ll do things in a way that you can almost miss them.

Carlie: Right. You can miss the supernatural looking for the spectacular.

Ashley: Amen. The burning bush, even though that was a supernatural incident, Moses could have walked past it and not stopped and turned aside. It said, “Moses turned aside to see why the bush was burning.” When Jesus walked out on the water and walked to the disciples on the boat, that was a supernatural appearance of Jesus walking on the water. But it says Jesus would have passed them by if they hadn’t have called out to him. So God will present Himself in a way that’s humble and it’s up to us to ask Him to enter in. It’s up to us to commune with Him. And then right here, it says that He spoke to Elijah with a still, small voice, not the fire, not the earthquake, not the wind, a still, small voice. And that’s still how God speaks to us.

Carlie: It’s intimate.

Ashley: It’s intimate. It’s a still, small voice. It takes faith to believe it. And it’s intimate. It’s a still, small voice. And like I said, because we’re one spirit with the Lord often we’ll think it’s our own spirit speaking. We can’t tell the difference between us and God. And that’s why we need the word of God to determine these things and work out if it’s just our flesh or if it’s God, because we’re one spirit. He often speaks to us in the first person. In my own experience, I feel like I’ve missed it more with God because I thought that’s just me. That’s just my own thoughts. That’s just me thinking.

Carlie: Because when God speaks to us on the inside of us, it sounds like us. When I’m hearing God on the inside of me, it sounds like my voice. It doesn’t sound like a man’s voice. Right? And so I think it’s much easier for us to discern good from bad. It’s like night and day. Well, that seems like it’s not a good thought, it’s not noble, it’s not a good report. Right?

Ashley: So you can test your thoughts. You can test them against like Philippians 4:8. Philippians 4:8 gives you a list of things, whatever’s good, whatever’s noble, whatever’s virtuous, whatever’s praiseworthy. Think upon these things. You can test them. You can take every thought captive and test it. You can test it against John 10:10. John 10:10 says if it’s going to kill, steal and destroy, it’s from the devil. If it’s going to bring life and life more abundantly, it’s of God. So good and bad is easy, like you said.

Carlie: That’s pretty easy. What’s much more challenging is trying to discern what is good and what is God?

Ashley: Good and God. Wow.

Carlie: Because there are lots of opportunities in life. There are lots of thoughts that run through our minds and some of those are good ideas, but they’re not God ideas. And if we take up our time and our energy pursuing just busy things, but they aren’t God ordained things, we can easily find ourselves getting weary.

Ashley: And get distracted from our relation with God.

Carlie: Exactly.

Ashley: In fact, Adam and Eve were tempted, it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It wasn’t the tree of the knowledge of just evil. It was a tree of good and evil.

Carlie: Right. And so when our thoughts come to us, when we’re not necessarily having sinful thoughts or evil thoughts, it’s just our own imagination. It’s our own mind, it’s our own mind, will, and emotions. It’s our own opinions on things and discerning what’s of our flesh, what’s of our own mind apart from when God is speaking to us in that still, small voice, which on the inside of us sounds like us can be the hardest things to differentiate.

Ashley: Right. People say it’s the knowing in your knower. It’s like, you’ve got knowing in your knower. And I’ve been there. There’s been times when deep down, I’ve just known on the inside. You know what? This is God speaking to me. And it’s a still, small voice. And like I said, most of the time, I think maybe it’s just me, but no, it’s God speaking to me. And usually I’m not a hundred percent sure. I tell people this, I’m not a hundred percent sure it’s God until afterwards. Afterwards I can look back and say that was God, a hundred percent. But at the time, I’m really not that sure until afterwards. And that should help some of you because some people waiting for a hundred percent clear voice from God.

They’re waiting for the writing to be in the sky, or for God’s voice to speak to them from the outside, “Ashley, do this.” When really it’s often from the inside. It’s that intimate, still, small voice from the inside. And it’s that knowing on the inside. Don’t ignore that knowing because if you ignore it, it’s going to be just that little bit harder next time to hear it because you’re shutting it down. It’s a little bit like your conscience. You can see your conscience. You keep saying no, keep ignoring it, keep ignoring it and it’s not going to be quite as in tune. Whereas as we practice hearing the voice of God, as we act on the voice of God, it’s a lot easier to hear Him later on.

Carlie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Just being real practical here, one thing I’ve noticed is when I’m maybe in worship often actually is when God speaks to me in that still, small voice, and I’m in that time of intimacy, I’m in that secret place, as David says in the Psalms, but I mean, that’s where I am really concentrating. I’m really focused on the Lord and I’m thinking about Him. If ideas, during that time, come to me, thoughts come into my mind that don’t have a train of thought… In other words, sometimes, maybe I’m just being carnal here, but in church on a Sunday and the pastor’s preaching up a storm, but it’s getting near to lunchtime and your stomach starts rumbling. If what comes to your mind in those moments is what am I going to have for lunch?

Ashley: And then you start thinking about what restaurant to go to.

Carlie: Right.

Ashley: Who are you going to go with? That’s a train of thought.

Carlie: That’s a train of thought. That’s probably not God, right? It has a train of thought. You can find out where it started from. You can trace it back to your stomach rumbling. But if an idea comes to your mind and it’s like that seemed to come from absolutely nowhere. That was just out of the blue. And it sounds like God, and it smells like God, and it sounds like and it matches up to the character and the nature of God, man, I’m like, “Lord, is that you speaking to me?” And I’ll just ask, “Is that you Lord?” And I’m like, “Is that your still, small voice?” Because on the inside of me, my spirit in me is bearing witness. In other words, it’s getting excited about what it’s just heard, right? There is a connection. There is a yes and amen going on on the inside of me and I’m starting to get excited.

Well, then what I do is I take that thought and I take it and I say, “Lord, can you show me again? Can you give me some confirmation?” And the more I think about it, the more I meditate on it, the more excited I get, the more desire I have for it, the more peace I’m led into. And so that’s the process that my brain goes through when I’m hearing from God. And I found that that really helped me because when I’m asking the Lord to confirm things to me, often He’ll give me a scripture to go read or a passage, or He’ll have somebody else maybe come up and say, “Hey, I’ve been praying for you. I just feel the Lord is saying,” and they’ll give me a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, word of prophecy that will confirm the Lord has just spoken to me. So in those moments, that’s one practical way that I’ve found to discern the still, small voice of God and bring our thoughts into captivity so that we can judge them rightly according to the word of God.

Ashley: Amen. That’s good. That really is good. We’re talking about practical ways we can hear the word of God. And I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve thought about doing something or I’ve gone to do something and that still, small voice is telling me no or, “That isn’t right for you.”

Carlie: You just haven’t had peace about it.

Ashley: You haven’t had peace about it.

Carlie: Feel uneasy and unrest in there.

Ashley: Now, we’re talking about spiritual peace, not fleshly peace because often the Lord will tell us to do something and our flesh freaks out. I think at one time I was at a banquet, a missions banquet, and I was asked to be the speaker there. And then they had this place set out for probably 200 people. It was beautiful. They had people dressed in black and they had silver service and the tablecloths on everything. But a snowstorm coming. We live in Colorado Springs and often we can have a freak snowstorm. And this was in the winter. I think it might have been the fall time and a snowstorm came in and it dumped like a foot of snow really quickly. So no one came out to this mission banquet in the evening. It was really sad.

Carlie: Just a handful of people there.

Ashley: Just a handful of people. So I spoke. I gave a good offering. I put in the offering and as I was leaving, I was walking away and I was just delighting myself in the Lord, just praying to the holy ghost, just thanking God. And as I’m walking out that still, small voice says to me, “That money you have in your savings account, the money you have for down payment on a house.” So we’re not just talking about a few thousand. We’re talking about a lot of money. We saved up for a down payment on a house. And God said, “Go back and give that to that missionary.” Well, I’ll have you know, my flesh was freaking out.

Carlie: It wasn’t comfortable.

Ashley: My flesh was not at peace. And in fact, that’s when you can tell if you’re giving a generous gift because if your flesh is freaking out, your heart’s beating fast, if you’re shaking as you write the check, you know it’s a generous gift. Well, God has spoken to me with a still, small voice about doing this. And I wasn’t a hundred percent at the time. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure it was God but I knew there was a still, small voice inside of me and my flesh was freaking out. And I remember calling you and you told me the natural, some of the reasons why it might not be a good idea, which is good. It’s good to seek counsel and find out. But then in the end was an agreement. I said, “No, I’m ninety percent sure this is God.”

Carlie: Well, I said, “Just give me a minute. I need to go and pray about this,” because it was a sacrificial gift. And it would have had consequences for us in our finances. But I just went before the Lord. I’m like, “Lord, is this you or not? Yes or no.” And I just listened. And what I heard in my spirit was this still, small voice that said, “Yes.”

Ashley: Yep. So you called me back.

Carlie: So there you go. Job done at that point.

Ashley: So, because it was a large amount of money, I had to go and get a cashier’s check from the bank. So I got a cashier’s check. I said to the missionary or his friend, “Can you come and meet me tomorrow morning?” And his friend says, “Well, the missionary’s type of busy,” and I said, “Listen-

Carlie: He’s going to want to meet me.

Ashley: “He’s going to want to meet us.” So he met us in the morning. I gave him the check and as he took the check from me and saw the check, he started to cry.

Carlie: You were crying.

Ashley: As I handed the check over, I started crying. Not letting go of it. But you know what? It was the exact amount of money he needed to build this Bible school in Asia. He was a missionary in Asia. He was building a Bible school, brick and mortar Bible school. And he built this Bible school with this money. It was exact amount of money he needed. And I got back in my truck and I was driving home. And as I was driving home, I was thanking God. I was like, “God, thank you for speaking to me. Thank you for allowing me to give this money.” And you know what? I heard God’s voice again. As clear as day I heard God’s voice and this time it was a hundred percent clear. It wasn’t ninety percent, was a hundred percent clear. He said, “Thank you.” And I was just blown away. I was like, “Excuse me, Lord?” He’s like, “Thank you.” I pulled the truck over. I was crying and I felt God’s presence in that truck thanking me for giving that money.

And this is what he said to me. He said, “I asked lots of people to give that money to that missionary, but they couldn’t hear me.” It’s like they didn’t have it on their radar. They weren’t listening. They didn’t have on their radar. And I tell a joke about it. When I first heard God tell me to give that large amount of money, that I was like, “I can’t hear you, Lord. I can’t hear you, Lord.” I tell a joke about that, but that wasn’t the truth. The truth was when we were young, when we first got married and we had no money, we were so poor we couldn’t pay attention. We wrote out five checks. It was like one day, we’re going to give $1,000. One day, we’re going to give $10,000. One day, we’re going to give $50,000. One day, we’re going to give $100,000. We wrote out checks and we started to believe God that we would prosper enough to give away these large amounts of money. And praise God since then, since we gave that down payment away…

Well, first of all, we now own a house debt free. We don’t even need a down payment because we own in it for cash. So God is so good he’s prospered us. But since then, we’ve given many checks away of more money than that because God has blessed us. But that’s not the point. The point is we heard God’s voice and we participated in it and God was saying to me, “If you will listen to me, I will lead you in right ways. I will lead you in good things.” He’s got good things for us and he longs for us to hear his voice. He longs for us to hear his voice. And praise God that missionary is blessed. We were blessed. We increased. And that’s happened lots of times since then. So I’m telling you when God speaks to you, obey his voice. Look for that spiritual peace.

Carlie: That’s what that scripture says.

Ashley: Yeah, yeah.

Carlie: In John 10:27. “My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me.”

Ashley: Yeah. And they follow me. So I follow Jesus. When he speaks to us, follow Jesus. If it’s that still, small voice, follow Jesus. I’ve got some practical tips, if you like. The first thing is, as we had already discussed, it does often sound like our own voice because we’re one spirit with the Lord. I’ve got here that sometimes it can just be like a hunch or a feeling. Sometimes you just have a hunch or a feeling like, I think this is God. I’m not sure. I think this is God. That can often be God. Sometimes we can have a picture or an impression. Sometimes we’ll be thinking about something or we’ll be praying for someone and we’ll have a picture or an impression and we’ll have an image or we’ll think about something.

Carlie: Or just a word.

Ashley: Yeah. Or just one word.

Carlie: I remember ministering to a lady one time and I think it was a healing event that we were doing. And I didn’t know this at the time, but her relationship with the Lord had become… She’d become so disappointed because she was just struggling so long to receive healing. She’d become really discouraged. And she said in her heart, “I’m not going to tell them what’s wrong with me.” She’d gotten to the point where she was even questioning her faith and her salvation, if God was even real. She was so discouraged. But she said, “God, if you’re real, I’m not going to tell these people what’s wrong with me, but they’re going to know. You’re going to tell them what’s wrong with me.”

Ashley: One of those.

Carlie: One of those. So she comes to the ministry after the message and I asked her, “What are you dealing with? What can I agree with you in prayer for?” And she said, “Oh, I just want you to pray for me. I just want you to pray for me.” So I thought, hmm, that’s a bit strange. So I just started praying in tongues actually for a short while. And I just had the word liver just come into my mind absolutely out of nowhere. I wasn’t thinking about livers. I couldn’t tell on the outside what was wrong with this lady, but I just had this word liver. So I said to her, “This could be completely just I’ve eaten too much cheese for lunch. This could just be me, but I feel like the Lord is saying the word liver, do you have a problem with your liver?” And she just started to cry. I mean, and ball and weep. And we prayed for her. And she had like a type of liver failure.

She had all kinds of symptoms in the body that you couldn’t tell by looking at her, but she had all kinds of symptoms. She was miraculously healed. And it started because I was listening to that still, small voice on the inside of me that revealed one word. And then that one word, what that meant to that lady was more than just a healing. It meant that God loves me, that He is real, that He does care and that He loves me enough to tell somebody else about me. So sometimes when we’re listening, it could be the most obscure thing that comes to mind. And we need to be careful not to discount it. I mean, sometimes God has revealed things to me that I thought, that just seems so obscure. We could easily move past it thinking that’s just craziness. But we need to listen to that voice and go back and ask, “Lord, is this you? Is this you speaking?” And it could be a word. It could be a picture, as Ashley was saying. Lots of different ways.

Ashley: God is trying to minister to these people. God loves us and this is one of the ways the spiritual gifts work. We’re going to be looking at spiritual gifts hopefully next time. And you need to hear God’s voice because most of the spiritual gifts work by hearing God and acting on His voice. Words of knowledge, words of wisdom, prophecy. We need to hear God’s voice. And then we can fly in spiritual gifts, praise God. So it could be a hunch or just a feeling. It could be a picture or an impression. Sometimes it can unsettle us. We already talked about this, but sometimes the holy spirit or God’s small, still voice can unsettle us. It can tell us no in a certain situation. When you’re about to do something and God’s saying no. And then afterwards you look back and say, “Ooh, praise the Lord that was a no because that would have been a mess.” Even in the natural, everything looks good, it could have been a mess. But we always have to listen to God.

Before I make a commitment to something, I always ask God, “Is this right? Is this the right thing to do?” I want to know God’s heart because God knows the beginning from the end. So I’m telling you, He knows how things are going to turn out and He will always lead you to victory. So it’s good to ask God. The mistakes I’ve made in the times when it’s cost me thousands of dollars of mistakes and everything else, the times when I’ve cried and stuff is because I haven’t listened to God and I’ve just run ahead. We need to walk hand in hand with God. How can two walk together unless they agree? God wants us to walk hand in hand with Him. He doesn’t want us to lag behind. I believe it’s Psalm 32 says don’t be like a mule that’s lagging behind. Don’t be like a horse that runs ahead. Talking about obedience. Now be hand in hand with God and He will lead us. And if we run ahead and don’t listen to Him, we can get into trouble. And if we lag behind, we’re not going to get into the things of God. So we need to make sure we’re listening to that still, small voice and if it checks us, it checks us.

I’ve got here, how do we know when it’s God speaking to us or when it’s not? And this is good. So we’ve already covered this. The first thing is it’s got to line up with scripture. If it contradicts scripture, it’s not God. And I had someone come into my office the other day and they said, “God told me this.” And I just turned around to him. And I said, “No, he didn’t.” And they got really upset with me. They said, “How do you know that?” I said, “Because I know God, I know the word of God and God did not tell you to do that because it doesn’t line up with his word.” God won’t contradict his word. So it’s got to line up with his word.

Carlie: We can’t expect other people to be our holy spirit, right? We need to take a little bit of responsibility and this might not be popular, but we need to take responsibility for our own personal relationship with the Lord and not rely on other people. Now, God will use other people to minister to us for sure. But that’s not a substitute for our own connection with the Lord. I had a lady come into my office one time and she was an older lady, and she said, “Do you think I should marry such and such?” This guy. And I said-

Ashley: I take it she wasn’t already married.

Carlie: She was a single lady and he was a single man. Okay? But I said, “Well, what do you think? I mean, I wouldn’t be the one marrying him. You’d be the one marrying him.” She goes, “Well, I don’t know. I mean, I just don’t know.” I said, “Well, have you prayed about it? Have you asked the Lord?” And she says, “Well, I’ve asked the Lord.” I said, “And?” And she says, “And I haven’t heard anything. But my classmates,” she was in college, “My classmates think it’d be a really good idea. And they’ve told me, you never can really know when you walk down the aisle. It’s not till after you’re married.” I’m like, “No, you can know. You can know if you’re supposed to marry this man or this woman. This is a big decision.” I said, “You need to know.”

I mean, I’m not going to be making a life-altering decision like whether I should marry someone or not if I don’t know, if I don’t have peace on the inside. This isn’t 50/50. I’m not going to phone a friend or put it out for a vote. We need to have our own relationship with the Lord. And when it comes to life-altering decisions like that, take a little time because if we’re not in peace, then hold off, right? Then hold off making that decision until we find a place of the most peace. And sometimes we’re faced with decisions and neither direction seems great. Well, go with the direction where we have the most peace.

Ashley: The spiritual peace, yeah.

Carlie: The spiritual peace.

Ashley: That’s one of the things. If it’s a life-altering decision, if it’s a big deal, then it’s okay to ask the Lord for confirmation. It’s okay to seek counseling. And there’s safety in the multitude of counsel. Find people that are older than you, not just in years, I’m talking about older in the faith, if they have a bit more experience in that area. Find someone who’s had victory in that area and ask their advice on something. It’s okay to ask for advice. I’ve got here, you can ask people’s advice and find out. That’s Proverbs 11:14. Proverbs 11:14 said in a multitude of counselors, there’s safety. So ask advice from people. That would really help. And I’ve got some other notes here. Hearing God’s voice and acting on it, it takes faith. It’s going to take faith to do this. When you act on God’s voice, we’re never a hundred percent sure until afterwards. It’s going to take faith to do this. It takes practice. Go ahead and say yes to God. It’s going to take practice. It’s going to take obedience. “No, Lord” is an oxymoron.

If He’s your Lord, if He’s your master, then you can’t say no to Him. It’s an oxymoron. So once you know it’s God, you got to say yes. Obey God and leave all the consequences to Him. So say yes. And often it’ll take courage. Sometimes you’ll be scared to go for it. It takes faith. It takes courage. God’s going to be with you. Any word from God is going to have everything you need to succeed. Praise God. And then just a few things real quick as we finish up. How you can hear God’s voice more clearly. First of all, confess that you can. John 10:27. You can hear God’s voice. Stop saying you can’t hear God’s voice. Start confessing by faith you can hear God’s voice.

Carlie: Start in expectation.

Ashley: Start in expectation. Spend time with God. Make sure you’re spending time with Him, getting to know Him, praise God. Learn what He says and doesn’t say. That’s by reading the word. Find out what He does say and what He doesn’t say and make sure that you’re cutting out distractions. Don’t be so distracted. Be focused. Be focused on the word of God. And be obedient. When He says do it, then go for it. When He says do it, go for it. Luke 6:46 says many call me Lord but they don’t do what I tell them to do. So do what God tells you to do and that will really help you. Don’t limit God. Don’t say, “God, is it A or is it B?” Sometimes God has C, D, E, and F for us. So don’t limit God. Be open for God to speak to us and don’t limit God. Praise God. And when you do that, you’re going to be able to hear God’s voice. So we want you to be able to hear God’s voice clearly. Amen. I want you to-

Carlie: God wants it more than we do.

Ashley: Amen. In fact, I want you to repeat after me. Wherever you’re watching from right now, say, I’m a believer and I can hear God’s voice clearly. Say it right now. I’m a believer and I can hear God’s voice clearly. That’s based on John 10:27. The truth is you can hear God’s voice. God is speaking to you.

Carlie: You do.

Ashley: Amen. You do hear God’s voice and God wants you to hear Him. He wants you to listen and He wants you to be obedient. He’s leading you into good things. So be obedient today to God’s voice. Amen. Praise God. Well, thanks for joining us. We’ll be back real soon. And until next time, remember, don’t just settle for living a normal life when God wants you to live the abundant life.

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

Ashley: Thanks for joining us today. We’ve been talking about hearing God’s voice more clearly. God loves us and He’s always speaking to us and as believers, as His sheep, we can hear His voice. And we’re excited to offer this service to you. It’s going to go into more detail about how you can hear God’s voice. The details are on the screen. It’s going to unpack the word of God and it’s going to give you some practical tips about how you can hear the voice of God more clearly. So go ahead and pick up a copy today. It’s going to bless you.

Annoucer: 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: He Himself, Jesus, gave some. Now this is the first thing. Now people get bent out of shape about this, but I’m just going to say it. These offices aren’t for everyone. Some people are set in these ministry offices. Now, unfortunately these ministry offices have been type of glorified in the body of Christ like they’re the pulpit ministry positions. They’re like the stage ministry positions. They’re the glamorous ministry positions. If I’m not a fivefold minister, I haven’t really arrived.

Carlie: And people put their value in that, don’t they?

Ashley: Yeah. Some people think that they’ve pushed themselves into a fivefold ministry office when Jesus didn’t put them in that office and that’s a dangerous position to be. Let me tell you this. The fivefold ministry positions are actually the least glamorous. They’re actually the biggest servants.