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4 Ways God Speaks
So, you feel like God wants you to do something. Stepping out in faith can be scary. But it doesn’t have to be if we remember, what 2 Timothy 1:7 says, For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
But how do you know for sure it’s God telling you to do it? Satan will only tell you negative or hurtful things. And it will either contradict what the Bible says or only benefit you, which. God will tell you to do things to help others and it will line up with His word.
If you’re still not sure ask God to confirm it somehow. Either by something out of the ordinary happening as Gideon did or through others. I have to add just because you ask God to make something happen if He wants you to do a certain thing that doesn’t necessarily mean it will. Sometimes He just expects you to do it because you know His voice and you know what He has told you to do.
Some believe everything should be confirmed out of the mouths of two or three. I believe this is only true if someone else tells you what God wants you to do, because they may just be telling you what they want. After all, we’re all human, with human desires. If God tells you something directly I don’t believe it needs to be confirmed because the Bible says…
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. John 10:27
Let’s look at other ways God may speak to you.
Through Scripture
The Bible is the inspired word of God. As Christians, we should use it as a blueprint for how to live our lives. To do that we need to read it daily so we become familiar with it. You’ll be reading and a particular verse will jump out at you. It might be a verse you’ve read many times before and never really gave it much thought until it seems to jump off the page at you. There will also be times when a certain Scripture will come to mind and you will have an “aha” moment. And you’ll know it’s God.
Others
At times God will have someone to tell you something specific that only means something to you. Other times someone like your Pastor or a friend will be talking and something they say will be exactly what you need to hear. And they don’t even know it.
Dreams
God speaks through dreams. This happened a lot in the Bible. Joseph, Solomon, Jacob, Peter John and Paul are examples of people God talked to through dreams.
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: Joel 2:28
Joseph the earthly father of Jesus is a perfect example of God speaking through a dream. Joseph had decided in his mind to quietly divorce Mary. The Lord told him in a dream not to.
Prayer
When you are praying you will feel something in your Spirit that the Lord wants you to do. For example…
In 2005 I got the idea to send letters to people sentenced to jail telling them God loves them and inviting them to church. At the time our Pastor had just resigned, so I thought this was a crazy idea. Because how was I supposed to invite people to church when we didn’t even have a Pastor?
We finally got a new Pastor, and after me dragging my feet thinking, “It’s crazy! It’s just a piece of paper with words on it. What good is it going to do?” The Lord confirmed it three different times. Once my Pastor said to the congregation “So no matter how crazy you think it is you need to step out in faith and do it.” I finally got the courage to step out in faith and tell my Pastor what I was supposed to do. His reaction? He said, “So do it!”
Before I got the courage to take the plunge and tell my Pastor what I was supposed to do I took some small steps like writing the letter I was going to send out to the people in jail. And I checked to see how much a newspaper subscription was going to be. Then I was ready to hit the ground running once I got the courage to actually step out in faith and completely do what I knew I was supposed to. That was the beginning of what is now Hope Outreach, a prison ministry of Pathway Church of God in Orrville, Ohio.