Does God Still Speak to Us? David Field July 20, 2009
We’ve all heard it said, “God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” So why would we think that God speaking to men is only for the bible times?
It is a fact that the enemy is and has been working to draw God’s people away from God. We can’t see what happens in the supernatural world if we only see in the natural. Man was made with a body, soul, and spirit. We see our body, so we believe in it. We know our soul, which is our mind, will, and emotions. It’s our spirit we have lost the understanding of. God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit. We were created to worship, or love God. God wants to enjoy a relationship with us, as his children.
This western society has evolved losing touch with the spiritual world. Eastern societies still understand the spiritual realm, but we revere human logic. Logic is wisdom, we think. But there is much more to wisdom than our human intellect. We need to regain what we have lost over the generations. This hit me when I was reading in Genesis. Sarah’s servant Hagar was sent out on her own with her son Ishmael. She was desperate. God looked down on her with compassion. He spoke to her. Notice that she heard. How did she hear? She wasn’t even a Hebrew, one of God’s chosen. People must have once known how to listen to the spiritual. Adam and Eve walked and talked with God daily. It must have been easy for them. This has been taken away from us, or more correctly stated, we have departed from it.
God is still trying to speak to us in our heart, meaning our emotions. God made us with emotions for a reason. We think of emotions as something we must try to get under control. We think our mind is responsible for controlling our emotions. I submit to you that our mind is the weaker of the two. The mind follows the emotions. Decisions are made with the heart. First we want something, and then we set our minds to make it happen. First, a desire is set in our heart, then we set our resources to obtain that end. Remember the three parts of our soul, which are the mind, will, and emotions. Our will can follow or choose the decision of our mind, or our emotions. Which does it follow more? We follow our emotions most of the time. That is why we need a change of heart when we need to go another direction. A change of heart means a change in our emotions. Think of any decision you have made, like buying a car. What was the primary thing that dictated your decision? Was it first the color, or the style? And what logical difference would that have made to its functionality? What about choosing your house? Did you first have to have a good feeling about it? What about choosing your spouse? How much logic was involved? We leave the important decisions up to our emotions whether we admit it or not.
Faith also comes from the heart. We can know something is true in our mind, but we really don’t have faith in it until it is known in our heart. Consider this illustration. Suspend a board across a high place. Calculate its ability to support your weight according to it’s known material strength and thickness. Now walk across. Wouldn’t you rather test it first? You’d probably have more faith in the plank if you’ve tested it first. After you’ve tested the plank, the knowledge of its strength or ability to support our weight hits home, to our heart. Then we believe in that board, as far as trusting our life to it.
So if it is true that we follow our emotions, perhaps we had better get more in tune with them. God speaks to our heart, which again means our emotions, because that is the part of our makeup that is in charge. This is the key to understanding how to communicate with our God. He does not speak to us in an audible voice. He will speak to us the way he designed to speak to us, right into our heart. We need to learn to listen to him there. It is a learned skill, especially for us westerners. Here is how to begin. Meditate on the Lord. Meditate means to ponder deeply. Get quiet in your soul. Relax; empty your mind, which means stop thinking of other things. Don’t let your mind wander. Don’t worry. Trust that the Lord will come in when asked and protects you from the enemy from entering. If it is God you are seeking, it is God that you will receive. If it is self that you seek, you will find someone else. More and more you will begin to hear God like a still small voice, or thoughts that enter your mind. You’ll learn to recognize those thoughts as thoughts that are not your own. You will learn the thoughts, or voice of God. Wrong thoughts can be identified as only self-serving. God’s thoughts will be full of love, peace, and joy. Even when he is correcting you, he does it with love, peace, and joy. It is a joyful thing to learn what we have been doing wrong because he points it out for our benefit. I eagerly wait to hear how I can live in more victory. That is how God corrects us. If you hear someone say God spanked me. A spanking implies pain. If you are feeling pain, it is because you have made a choice that took you out of the protection of your father. He says you have a choice in everything. You have the free will to choose live or death. Choosing to live in sin is choosing death. Choosing Jesus is choosing life.
Practice this mediation with God daily. Spend time with God. Isn’t it amazing to know that he actually has unlimited time for you? Don’t just pray to God asking for things. Be quiet and listen also. He wants to do things for us of course, but what he enjoys more is to have a relationship with us. God is drawn to our praise, which is our love. To understand him, look at yourself. We were made in HIS image. How would you like your children to interact with you? You want them to come to us when they need, but what you really enjoy is for them to come and interact with you; sit and talk. God wants to have a two-way relationship, so be still and listen. He has a lot to tell you. The closer you get to him; the more joy will fill your life. What do you think that God would say to you? I believe that the first thing he would tell you is that he loves and wants to keep you. He proved it first by creating you. Then again by sending his firstborn son to redeem you. But he left you the choice. Who wants to be around someone who does not want him? So he wants you to want him. If you knew him, you would want him.
What About Dreams?
Dreams are mentioned many places in the bible. I believe as we go to sleep, our mind slows down, and we go into a mental state that is conducive to hear from God. I also believe that if God wants to tell us something in a dream, and we are open to it, that he will make sure we are able to remember it, by waking us after the dream. So when you have a dream that is interesting, I suggest you journal it, and be aware that he can speak to you in this way.
In summation, the idea that God is finished talking to us doesn’t seem to make sense at all. If God loves us, why would he cut off communication? Is this the way you would do with your children? “Well, you can call me and ask for things, but I have already recorded all your answers in this book and I’m not going to explain it again.” This book is called the bible and is a collection of religious writings, which the Catholic Church compiled at the Council of Nicea in 325. In 1534 Martin Luther revised the bible moving what he deemed as the uninspired books, but still worth reading, to the end of the Old Testament. In 1611 this cannon was translated into English under the direction of King James, and these uninspired books were dropped. Later revisions followed.
Are there no more inspired writings after 100AD? And is there no more inspiration of any kind? I’m not suggesting we add more writings to the bible at this point in history. It seems to be complete from being to end. But sometimes a personal clarification can be a great help to our understanding. Does God have the time? Of course he does! And does God have the desire for us to know? Of course he does? So why would he withhold communication from us?