on hearing God
by don rousu

In John 10:27, our Lord Jesus Christ leads us to believe that hearing His voice is not unusual but what Watchmen Nee called "the normal Christian life" for all of His followers. He says, "My sheep hear My voice. I know them, and they follow Me." And in each of His letters to the seven churches in the Book of Revelation (chapters 2 - 3), He says, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches." Because of that, one of our chief values is to wait upon the Lord and refrain from acting until we hear His voice.

Notice that the passage from John 10 has three components: Revelation, relationship, and obedience. Hearing His voice is about revelation, but knowing Him and being known by Him is about relationship. Hearing takes place in the context of intimate relationship, where all sin has been dealt with and we easily come to a place of worship and quiet surrender. And the latter part, following Him, is about obedience. If we are to accurately hear the voice of the Lord, we must approach Him as subjects before their King with the intent to obey, even before we know what He is going to tell us.

There are a number of factors involved in hearing the voice of the Lord accurately. One critical factor is a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures, which allows us to hear how the Lord has spoken to His people for thousands of years in the past. What better way to learn to recognize His voice? He will never speak anything to our personal spirits that opposes the written word. The written Word and the Spirit always agree.

Further to that is being able to recognize the witness of the Holy Spirit, which will assure us that God is speaking a "now" word to us. Romans 8:16 says that the spirit of God bears witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God. God's revelations come spirit to spirit. That goes beyond thinking. It is a knowing. Your spirit has the capacity to intuitively "know" truth, and to recognize when God is speaking to you. Very often, we need to be mentored by more mature and experienced believers to help us recognize when "the witness of the Spirit" comes. It may come through an unexpected physical manifestation: For example, weight on the body, heat on the forehead, or a physical trembling. It may come simply as a profound sense of peace. In Colossians 3:15, Paul talks about letting the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. The original Greek word for rule literally means "to serve as the umpire." One should never act on a revelation until there is that sense of peace. A lack of peace may have to do with an inaccurate hearing or with an inaccurate interpretation of what we've heard. A lack of peace might also have to do with the timing - God's way of saying not to move ahead with what we've heard until the peace comes.

In order to hear the voice of the Lord, it is important that we be wide awake in our own personal spirits. The scriptures exhort us to "stay awake" and to "keep watch." There are things we can do to stir up our personal spirit to wakefulness. Eph. 5:18-21 is one of the best sources of guidance where Paul tells us not only to be constantly filled with the spirit, but he gives us four practical ways to go about doing that. And in I Cor. 14, Paul talks about the value of praying in the spirit, that is praying in tongues, because it builds the spirit man within us and keeps our spirits sensitive and attentive to revelations from God.

The final thing we need to know is that God has given us a major safeguard against deception, and that safeguard is the Body of Christ. We are built for corporate unity, and we are built to hear the voice of the Lord together. I Cor. 2 is perhaps the most complete biblical chapter on receiving spiritual revelation and hearing the voice of the Lord. The remarkable thing is that it is not individualistic at all, but profoundly corporate. Paul talks about the things that God has revealed to us (plural). It is we (plural) who have received the spirit of God, so that we (as a Body) may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And he concludes the chapter with these words, ". . . we have the mind of Christ." He wasn't claiming anything for himself. He was speaking corporately. None of us has the mind of Christ alone. But together, as a Body, we have the mind of Christ. On a very practical level, I have learned that God wants me to hear the voice of the Lord first of all with my spouse, and hearing comes through agreement. Until we both hear the same thing, we don't act. As a pastor, I have learned that I will only hear the full counsel of the Lord in concert with many other spiritually mature leaders in the church. Each of us can get a piece of the puzzle, but it is only together, corporately, that we get all the pieces and the whole picture of what God is saying to the church.

Although it may take time and patience for us to hear the voice of the Lord accurately, we are committed to growing to full maturity in the normal Christian life of John 10:27.

Don Rousu and his wife Ruth pastor Harvest Vineyard in Edmonton. In they serve on the Regional Leadership Team for the Prairies and on the National Team for Vineyard Churches Canada. Don can be contacted at don@consumed.ca