Growth Group Week 3 - Communicating With God Today

After learning last week that God wants to speak to us and we should expect to hear from Him, this week we learned how God communicates with us today.

Chapter 3, titled A Marvelous Voice, showed us the different ways God has spoken with His people throughout the Scriptures. First, in the Old Testament, He spoke through His prophets, and confirmed His Word via a visible sign. Think Moses and the plagues, and Elijah when he challenged the priests of Baal (1Kings 18). When the Israelites wanted a word from God, they had to find the prophet, who would then speak God's Word to the nation more so than the individual. Next, Jesus came to earth. Now the world was hearing from God, manifested as man, and His word was confirmed by miracles. Jesus would forgive sins, which would bring incredulity and questioning of His authority. Then He would perform the miracle, and the people would be amazed, having to accept that He truly was the Son of God. What about today? We have an amazing gift, because today God speaks to each of us individually via the Holy Spirit, and His Word is available to us in written form. We can hear His voice no matter where we are, no matter the time of day or the present circumstance.

Chapter 4 is A Guiding Voice. The Holy Spirit is a guide Who can see what we can't. Know that saying, "Hindsight is 20/20"? Well, the Holy Spirit is our hindsight. He can see future events that we can't even understand in our current state. Of course, the Holy Spirit only enters into our lives by invitation; He's waiting for us to invite Him in. Once we do, He takes residence in our hearts and begins to transform us. This transformation is moved along as we apply certain disciplines in our lives: daily prayer, reading of His Word, and meditation on it. We learned how the Holy Spirit then accomplishes His work. We humans are composed of three parts, because we are made in the image of Almighty God. The material part is the body, the physical component. Our soul consists of the mind, will and emotions. The spirit is the essence of each of us, that part which connects us with the Holy Spirit. When we become believers, it's our spirit which receives the Holy Spirit, who then proceeds to renew us, body and soul. It's a process, but it's very orderly. The last important point in this chapter was that our conscience is NOT the voice of the Holy Spirit. Our conscience is the voice that guides and directs us, but it can be faulty. It can be evil (Hebrews 10:22), defiled (Titus 1:15), weak (1 Corinthians 8:7), or dead (1Timothy 4:2). We must allow the Holy Spirit to train our conscience so that it can work in conjunction with Him to guide us in our lives.

Chapter 5, a Verifiable Voice, emphasized the importance of staying in the Word. Nothing the Holy Spirit tells us will contradict the Scriptures, so if at any time we hear a word and are unsure if it is really God talking, we can verify it with Bible. This is why it's important to read the Word daily. Once a week at church is NOT ENOUGH!!! There are 168 hours in a week; spending one hour in the Word will not bring us closer to an understanding of God's voice. We need to discipline ourselves to stay in the Word, reading it, meditating on it, memorizing it, so that when issues come up in our lives we can be reminded of God's will. Especially in our day and age, when we're saturated from all sides with messages that contradicts God's truths, we must immerse ourselves in His Word. The more we do, the more closely our thoughts, emotions and decisions will align themselves with the Holy Spirit's message to us.

Lastly, chapter 6 was a study of the Persistant Voice. God knows us better than we know ourselves. Many times God finds Himself repeating things to us over and over before we realize He's speaking to us. How many times haven't we heard God's voice, only to look back and recognize that He's been talking to us through our Bible reading, messages at church, friends, radio programs, etc. We just weren't tuned in. But God, in His unending love for us, doesn't give us a message and walk away. He persists in speaking to us until we react. As a matter of fact, nothing in our lives happens by chance. One of the paragraphs in the book really spoke to me: "Never think that the circumstances of your life have nothing to do with God's will! They have everything to do with it. When you're seeking God's guidance, you should always reflect on the events the Lord is allowing to occur in your life." (Discerning the Voice of God, page 80). There was also a great quote by Steve Farrar: "When I hear the same thing from two or three different people in a very short period of time, I know the Lord is speaking to me. It's as clear as a Fed-Ex letter."

After we were done, the best part came. Testimonies! When I hear confirmation from these lovely women of how God has spoken to them during the week, when the study points specifically to an experience someone has had just recently, it lifts my spirit in adoration of a God who loves us and wants to dialogue with us. Not monologue, Dialogue!! He wants to speak to us AND hear from us. And He won't give up, either. I'm so thankful to the Lord for allowing me to be a part of this group. As I told the ladies last night, I may be leading the group, but I'm probably getting more out of it than they are! We are extremely blessed.