How to Hear the Voice of God – Part 1

Secrets to Spiritual Small Talk

 

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: Would you like to hear the voice of God more clearly? To be able to understand when he speaks to you? To be able to hear his, even in the still small voice? Well you can, every day. Stay tuned to find out more.

Announcer: Welcome to the Abundant Life program with Ashley and Carlie Terradez.

Ashley: Welcome to Abundant Life. My name is Ashley Terradez and this is my wife, Carlie. And we’re so glad you’ve joined us today in the land. We’ve got an exciting program for you. We’re talking about hearing the voice of God and hearing the voice of God more clearly. I don’t know about you, but I want to be able to hear God’s voice even clearer.

Ashley: So wherever stage you are in your relationship with God, we can all hear his voice clearer and it’s so essential. You know, whether you’re talking about spiritual gifts or just walk in your everyday life, we need to hear God’s voice clearly, praise God. So, that’s what we’re going to be looking at today. Some practical tips on how we can hear God’s voice. Amen?

Carlie: Amen. And as children, we are created in his image to be able to understand, to be able to interpret, to be able to hear God when he speaks to us. Amen?

Ashley: Amen.

Carlie: It’s part of the normal Christian life.

Ashley: It’s the normal Christian life. I’ve got a verse here. This is our key verse, if you like. This is John 10 verse 27. This is John chapter 10 verse 27, puts it this way. This is Jesus speaking, he says “My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.” And right from the off I want you to know if you’re born again today, if you’re a believer, you can hear God’s voice. This is a promise you’ve got from God. You can hear his voice.

Ashley: And I know a lot of believers we come across, we travel the world, we’re privileged enough to hold conferences and going to many, many churches. And we have a lot of believers say to us, “I just can’t hear God’s voice. I just can’t hear his voice clearly.” Or, “I don’t feel like I can hear God’s voice.” The truth is you can hear God’s voice and you need to start from that position of, “I can hear God’s voice clearly.” Instead of, “I’m struggling.” Or, “I can’t hear God’s word.” That’s a negative confession. Let’s start with a positive confession, that we can hear god’s voice.

Carlie: In fact, we were created to respond to the voice of God.

Ashley: Amen. That’s right. That’s how we’re designed.

Carlie: It’s in our spiritual DNA.

Ashley: That’s what we’re designed to do. Praise God. So, that’s our key verse. And really hearing God’s voice, I mean even in small things it is important, but it can be life or death. I remember one time I was driving along in my truck, I’m just driving down the… it was a divided highway and there was a hitchhiker on the side of the road. And he was dressed up, you could see he had probably had a hard time. He looked like he might have been homeless or whatever but he was hitchhiking. And as I was driving towards him, I saw him in the distance and I felt the holy spirit. That still small voice, I felt I heard God’s voice and God’s voice hits me, “Pick him up, pick up that hitchhiker, pick up that hitchhiker.”

Carlie: That’s a tongue twister.

Ashley: That was tongue twister. Stop and give that hitchhiker a ride. And I was like, no way. I was like, that’s just me, I’m just… no way. I was like, “I can’t hear you Lord.” I didn’t want to, in the flesh, in the natural, I didn’t want to. So I kept driving in the closer I got to him, the louder the voice got. “Pick him up, pick him up.” And in the end I ignored it, I drove past him. And even once I drove past him, then it got really loud. It’s almost like the holy spirit shouted at me. “Pick him up.” So I thought, oh man. So I had to turn around, I drove back past him and then turned around again and finally stopped and picked him up. He got in my truck and he said, “Thank you so much for giving me a ride.” And the first thing he said was, “What do you do for living? What’d you do?”

Ashley: I said, “Well, I’m actually a minister. I’m a minister of the gospel.” And he looked at me and said, “Are you kidding me?” I said, no. He said, “Just two minutes ago, I prayed. And I said, God, send someone to help me. I need one of your workers to help me.”

Carlie: And he sent you.

Ashley: And so he got in my truck. Now we’re driving down the road and we spent about 20 minutes together and I ministered to this guy. Turns out he was born again years and years ago, but he rededicated his life to the load. I let him in the baptism of the holy spirit, he received his prayer language. It was a powerful time of ministry.

Ashley: Now when I dropped him off, he got out my truck and he shut the door. And then he quickly opened the door again. He said, “I want to tell you one thing, sir.” He said, “I want you to know. He said, this was going to be my last night. I was going to end it tonight.” He said, because he;d been through so many hard times, so many bad things had happened to him. He said, “This was going to be my last night.” He said, “And I prayed today. And I said, God, if you love me, then you’re going to have to show me.” He said, “And spending time with you is just encouraged me. I feel like a new man now.” And he was so encouraged.

Carlie: Right.

Ashley: He had started off down beaten and thinking about committing suicide. And by the end of our conversation, he was encouraged and he was ready to go out again. My point being this, me hearing the voice of God was a life or death situation. I mean, I know you’ve had similar things where God’s warned you about things. But we don’t know how many times God’s trying to speak to us and have us help other people, or maybe it’s warn us about something to come. But God’s voice, hearing God’s voice clearly could really be life or death for us and for others. So it’s that important. As well as small things as well, it’s not just the big things. God wants to communicate with us and hear his voice in the small things.

Carlie: Right. Part of having a relationship with the Lord is everyday conversation. Sometimes our relationship with the Lord boiled down to just crisis moments and God can be there for those. Amen. He can be there in the middle of a crisis. But more than that, having a life-giving relationship with our father means having everyday normal conversations as well. Right?

Ashley: Amen.

Carlie: If the only time I ever spoke to Ashley was when I was in the middle of a crisis and I needed something, that’s going to be a kind of sorry relationship.

Ashley: Right.

Carlie: But you know, sometimes our relationship with God, we just go to him in those moments of absolute need and those moments of crisis. But there’s a relationship that we can develop with the Lord that is much more intimate than that. And that’s hearing his voice in our everyday situations.

Ashley: Amen.

Carlie: I like to call it small talk with Jesus.

Ashley: Yeah.

Carlie: Right? But I remember one time I was at home, we lived in a farm house in England and I was just baking a pie and everybody was out for the day.

Ashley: You make good pies. Was it a savory one or a fruit one?

Carlie: I can’t remember.

Ashley: In this farm, Carlie used to pick the… what were they? What fruit was that? The fruit-

Carlie: Green gage.

Ashley: Green gage fruit of the trees. All different fruit trees they have on this farm. And she used to make fruit pies. Hey, you’re making me hungry.

Carlie: Oh my goodness, anyway.

Ashley: Chicken pies.

Carlie: And chicken pies. And so I’d made that [crosstalk], I made this pie and I’m just-

Ashley: I’m hungry.

Carlie: It’s not even lunchtime yet.

Ashley: Pies, good pies.

Carlie: I’d just taken it out of the oven and set it on top of the stove to cool down. And I went upstairs to check some emails and things on the computer. And we had three farm cats. We had mice on the farm, we had cats to-

Ashley: And those cats.

Carlie: …take care of the mice and they were useless mouses actually.

Ashley: I thought you had one cat.

Carlie: And we ended up with three cats.

Ashley: So, if you’re going to get one cat because we was on a farm, you need a cat to keep the mice down. I said, okay. So they went to get one cat. They said if you’re going to have one cat, you’ve got to have two cats. Because two cats, they’ll play with each other and they’re less work. And then we had three kids at the time, they were little. So they said, if you’re going to get two cats you might as well get three cats, one for each of the children. So the man who didn’t want any cats turned up back home with three cats.

Carlie: I don’t know what collection of cats is called, but you know-

Ashley: A gaggle of cats.

Carlie: We had a herd of cats, anyway. So we had three cats and they use this because they’d never actually catch the real mice. In fact, they’d just bring them in and let them go in the house, which defeated the whole purpose.

Ashley: Once, they brought a rabbit in the house. I’m watching TV and I thought I’m going crazy, I see in the corner of my eye a rabbit run through the living room. And I’m like, “I must be very late. I must be eating too much cheese pizza or something.” And then I saw it again, a rabbit run through my living room. And what is was, the cat caught a rabbit, brought it into the house.

Carlie: Just to play with it.

Ashley: It wasn’t quite dead. It was running around the house. Anyway-

Carlie: Anyway.

Ashley: I’m getting right off. I’m going down a rabbit trail. Anyway-

Carlie: Let me roll you back in. So as I’m sitting there on my computer, the cats would like to sit around me and watch me move the electronic mouse. They found that way more entertaining and see the little arrow, the little cursor move across the screen. So as I’m doing that I’d been practicing up until this point, just hearing the voice of God in my quiet times with him. Just in the little… in the still small voice. And as I’m sitting there checking my emails, I hear what I believed to be the voice of God on the inside of me saying, “The cat is eating your pie.” I thought, the cat’s not eating my pie. I’ve got three cats and then they’re all here. The cat is not eating my pie. So I carry on doing my emails, but this voice gets louder and louder on the inside of me.

Carlie: And I nearly missed it because that voice sounded kind of like me, right?

Ashley: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carlie: But it was a still small voice of God speaking to me. And in the end curiosity got the better of me.

Ashley: They say curiosity killed the cat.

Carlie: Well not quiet, but almost after I found out what the cat did. So I just decided, this is crazy. Look, I’m looking here and I’m seeing three cats and there’s no cat eating my pile. All my cats are present and accounted for, but I decided to go downstairs and just check on my pie.

Ashley: The Lord was concerned about your pies.

Carlie: Well-

Ashley: Here’s one of the things we think, the Lord is the creator of the universe. He wouldn’t be concerned about pie. The Lord is concerned with small details-

Carlie: He likes pie.

Ashley: It’s so awesome, the Lord is so awesome. Yes, he’s the creator of universe, but he’s also concerned about the small things in our lives.

Carlie: Right.

Ashley: I feel like sometimes we miss it because we don’t get the Lord involved in the small things in life.

Carlie: Well, definitely. So I went down into the kitchen and sure enough there is a cat on the countertop eating my pie.

Ashley: The fourth cat.

Carlie: A fourth cat came in through the cat flap.

Ashley: This is a stray cat.

Carlie: A stray cat had into the kitchen. My pie was that good. Right?

Ashley: So if you’d listened to the Lord in the first place, it would have saved the pies.

Carlie: Well as I went down to the kitchen and saw this cat eating my pie, I’m like, “What is happening?” And then I hear the Lord say, “I told you.”

Ashley: If you had listened to me in the first place, you could have saved your pie. So the fourth cat was in fact Chism. We named him. He decided to live with us as well. So we ended up with four cats and he was a male cat, and the other three were female.

Carlie: He wasn’t real popular.

Ashley: No he wasn’t real popular.

Carlie: In a house with female cats.

Ashley: He wasn’t real popular, anyway I had four cats. So the holy spirit was warning you about your pie.

Carlie: Yeah.

Ashley: Isn’t that amazing?

Carlie: But you know, there was a deeper reason for that I didn’t know at the time. It wasn’t just about the cat eating my pie, but it was about spending time with the Lord and developing that intimate relationship. Because it’s in those times of intimacy that we hear from God about the more important things in our lives other than just pie.

Ashley: Amen.

Carlie: And a few days later, I was driving at children to school down the… we lived in a rural area. So we’re driving down the country lane and there’s a national speed limit, single lane roads.

Ashley: I’m going to have to explain this to our American viewers.

Carlie: 50 mile an hour roads.

Ashley: So even though we live in America now. We need to explain this. In England where we lived, there was farm lines and they’re actually single carriage ways. And they’ve got tall hedge rows to either side. And the national speed limit is 60 miles now. So people buzz around these little farm roads doing 60 miles an hour, sometimes even more.

Carlie: But you can go both ways on them.

Ashley: Bling corners, yeah. And then you have to wait. If someones coming the other way, you have to move over almost into the bush.

Carlie: Yeah they have like-

Ashley: [crosstalk] this passing.

Carlie: …passing places.

Ashley: Passing places. But sometimes you’ll come around the corner and there’ll be someone head on at 60 miles an hour so you have to slow down the corners. And it’s a type of… it’s quite a rush.

Carlie: It’s kind of primitive really. [crosstalk] But anyway so we’re driving, I’m driving the three children to school that that morning and going quite fast on this road. And all of a sudden I hear the holy spirit on the inside of me say break really loudly. And I mean, I didn’t fast and pray. I didn’t phone a friend. I didn’t ask for confirmation, I just slammed my foot on the brake. And right in front of me, a tractor came through the hedge row and crossroads right… I mean we would have had a head on collision at 60 miles an hour. I mean that was probably a potentially fatal accident right there. And that was avoided because I had practice listening to the voice of God in the still small quiet times, in the little thing.

Ashley: So the Lord was warning you about that.

Carlie: Yeah.

Ashley: Reminds me of the time when the pastor was driving down the windy road and he had his window down and the car coming the other way and it was one of his congregants.

Carlie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ashley: And he’d had some-

Carlie: Is this a joke?

Ashley: Yeah.

Carlie: Oh, God.

Ashley: I’m here now though, it’s too late.

Carlie: This is a dad joke.

Ashley: And he’d been very upset with this man and they’d had a falling out, and the guy was coming the other way. And as they passed each other in the corner quite closely, they both of the windows down and the guy shouted out to the pastor, he went “Pig.” And he went, “You”… the pastor just lost it, I mean he’d been holding it together for years but that was it. It was too much. He shouted back at him, “You jerk.” And had a go at him like that. Can you say that on TV?

Carlie: I don’t know, you just did.

Ashley: I have to edit that out. Anyway-

Carlie: They might have to beep something.

Ashley: Anyway, whatever it was he said some nasty word. He called this man nasty words.

Carlie: It’s too late now, it’s out there.

Ashley: But anyways, they pass their cars. Anyway, the pastor went around the corner and hit the pig in the road. The guy was just warning him about the pig.

Carlie: Oh.

Ashley: He wasn’t calling him a pig.

Carlie: Yeah.

Ashley: He was just saying around the corner, there’s a pig. Be careful pastor.

Carlie: It’s still not funny.

Ashley: The pastor thought he was calling him a pig.

Carlie: I understand, it’s just-

Ashley: He shouted back at him.

Carlie: It’s just not funny.

Ashley: Anyway. So hearing the voice of God is what we’re talking about here today. We’re talking about John 10:27. If you’re a believer, you can hear the voice of God.

Carlie: And he has better jokes than Ashley.

Ashley: Yeah, he does have better jokes. We’re going to look at different ways we can hear the voice of God. That’s one of the first things we’re going to look at. And God speaks to us in lots of different ways. And actually he’ll speak to us in different ways, depending on our personality, depending on the situation and things like that. And what we want to go through, we want to make this teaching practical. We’re going to cover a few episodes of this. So we want to start off with the different ways God speaks to us. And this is really going to help you. The first thing I’ve got here, the first way God speaks to us is by his word. By the word of God.

Ashley: I think that is probably the most important thing we’re going to cover. And really the word of God is one of the main ways you’re going to hear from God.

Carlie: Right.

Ashley: In fact, I had a prophet friend of mine. Someone came out to him and said, “Give me a word, give me a word. I want… tell me what God’s saying right now. Tell me what God’s saying right now.” And he pulled out his Bible- [crosstalk]

Carlie: How about this book right here.

Ashley: He pulled out his Bible and gave it to him. He said, “There’s thousands of words in there.” But it really is the… the main way God’s going to speak to us is by his word. And a lot of the times… I’ve been to churches, they said, “Well, that’s some of old news, we want the revelation.”

Carlie: We want something a little more exciting.

Ashley: This is the living word.

Carlie: Exactly.

Ashley: The word of God is the living word of God. And it’s amazing how even the same verse that you’ve read a hundred times, God can make it jump off the page. I’m sure if you’re a believer, most of you watching could tell me testimonies about how when you’ve read the word, all of a sudden, the verses popped out. Passages jumped out at you and spoken to you. God’s spoken to you directly. The word of God is alive. It’s a living word and it will jump out at you and speak to you. So the word of God is… but you have to read it to be able to hear from it.

Carlie: Yeah.

Ashley: And it’s important that we read the word.

Carlie: Someone was asking me this question the other day, how do I study the Bible? And I really studied the Bible actually as part of my relationship with the Lord. So when I get my Bible out in the morning, I start by asking the Lord, “Where should I begin in the scriptures?” Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a daily reading plan. Some people really like that, where they have a set formula that they follow.

Ashley: Or have a devotional every day with Jesus. And every other day with Jesus.

Carlie: You’re right.

Ashley: And what about once a week-

Carlie: Depending how committed you are.

Ashley: How about once a week with Jesus? Abut once a month with Jesus.

Carlie: 10 minutes with Jesus.

Ashley: Then “Oh, no I’ve got to catch up 50 with Jesus’s just to keep on track.” One of those devotions.

Carlie: Then you get behind, the problem with the daily reading plans is you get behind.

Ashley: You get behind. And you give up.

Carlie: And then you feel like you got to like cram 50 chapters into one day to get back on track otherwise you’re going to get into condemnation.

Ashley: And then you read so fast, you’re not even paying attention.

Carlie: Right.

Ashley: That’s not great way to do it.

Carlie: That’s not good.

Ashley: But reading the Bible, our pastor reads the Bible every year. He just reads through it.

Carlie: He just reads through it.

Ashley: About three or four chapters a day-

Carlie: And that’s fine.

Ashley: Whatever you want to do.

Carlie: Whatever ministers to you and you get revelation from, that’s fine. But I like, personally, I like to start out my day and just like, “Lord, where do I need to begin in this book? Everything is good. Everything is for my, for my benefit but where do you want to start speaking into me?”

Ashley: Do you do the old flick and…

Carlie: You know I tried that.

Ashley: It’s pretty dangerous.

Carlie: The problem is I did this when I was younger. And I’d open it to Leviticus, things to do with mold.

Ashley: You don’t want to read about mold first thing in the morning.

Carlie: And you know, not first thing in the morning.

Ashley: Maybe the Lord was speaking to you.

Carlie: Maybe I was just being unspiritual and he could have spoken to me about mold.

Ashley: I’ve noticed we’ve got a little tiny patch growing in the corner of the bathroom, I’ve got fixed that.

Carlie: Anyway, so when I’m, when I’m reading the word I really like to ask Lord where to start. And sometimes he’ll give me a specific verse to start in or other times he’s like read the book of Acts, or it will be a whole book that he gives me or a passage that he gives me. But for me, that’s not just about reading [inaudible] reading the word. That’s an opportunity to exercise hearing him. When I asked him a direct question, where should I start? And I just sit and I listen and I wait for the response. It’s an exercise in hearing as well.

Ashley: See, this is where we’re different. And this is where I want to include everyone in this-

Carlie: Yeah.

Ashley: …because I’m very different. This is me. When I say “God, speak to me.” Do you know what I hear?

Carlie: Crickets.

Ashley: Crickets, nothing. I mean, silence. In fact, there’s been times when we’ve had major decisions to make one of them. One of them I’m thinking in 2006, we had to decide, was we going to give up our business? Was we going to move to the other end of the country? Was we going to change our children’s school, move house and get a Bible school? That was in 2006. And Carlie said to me, “Go and listen to God. Go and spend a day.” And I knew Carlie was serious because I was halfway through remodeling our house.

Carlie: Yeah.

Ashley: And she said, stop remodeling the house and go in and spend a day with the Lord.

Carlie: Go and sit on the beach and listen to Jesus.

Ashley: And I drove out to the beach, and I went out to the Lord and I said, “Lord, speak to me. Should I go to Bible college? Shouldn’t I go to Bible college? Speak to me. I’m here, Lord, I’m listening.” And guess what I heard? Sea gulls, nothing, crickets, Nothing. So were different. Carlie can ask God, speak to me and you hear him right away. When I ask God to speak to me, I don’t hear him like that. I hear God through the… well there’s lots of ways we hear go down. I’m going to show you. But for me, I hear him through the word. I hear him later on during the day, I’ll be doing something and I’ll have an impression or I’ll have a picture or I’ll have a hunch or something like that, desires. We’re going to cover some of those, we’re getting ahead. But anyway, I just want people to know. Because some people think, “Well, Carlie and I, she just sits there and God speaks to her.”

Ashley: I’ve tried sitting there and I hear nothing. So God speaks to us in different ways.

Carlie: That’s because you don’t listen.

Ashley: I don’t listen enough? I speak too much? That’s what it is? My wife says I don’t listen to her or something like that.

Carlie: Or something like that.

Ashley: I can’t remember now. Something like that. Anyway, what’d you say? Anyway, God speaks to you like that with me it’s a little bit different. So the word of God is what we’re talking about. The word is alive. It’s living now. Sometimes you’re going to read the word and it doesn’t seem like it’s living. It’s just going to be like a book. That’s fine. Be faithful. Read the word of God. Think of Jesus speaking, “The word became flesh.” Jesus is the word of God. The word of God is living. It’s not like any other book and I’m all into, you can read other people’s books and biographies and all these things. That’s fine. But that does not replace-

Carlie: People’s commentaries.

Ashley: …commentaries. It doesn’t replace the word of God. The word of God should be the authority in your life. The word of God should be your go-to all the time. And it’s amazing how God will give us a word for something specific. It’ll be very particular from the word of God. And it’s amazing how even though it was… most of it was written two, 3000 years ago. He can tell us something specific for today through the word of God.

Carlie: And I-

Ashley: It’s the most up to date book.

Carlie: I find actually the word of God is a great benchmark for testing. Sometimes we feel like maybe the God is speaking to us about something but we’re not a hundred percent sure it could be God, it might just be we’ve eaten too much cheese. You know, it’s just an idea that’s kind of popped into our head. I’ve gone to God in those times and I asked him to show me in the word, to bring confirmation in the word. When God speaks to us, he’ll always confirm his word. In fact, actually just last night, I had a dream last night and the Lord spoke a scripture to me in my dream.

Ashley: You haven’t told me about this.

Carlie: Didn’t I? Oh well, anyway.

Ashley: You had a dream last night?

Carlie: That’s pretty cool. Last night, fresh revelation right here. Right.

Ashley: It’s that what was fidgeting and woke me up all night.

Carlie: Probably.I was kind of excited. So anyway, he spoke to me Jeremiah 33, verse three. So what I did when I woke up in the morning was I got my Bible out and this is what it says. It says, “Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things, which you did not know.” I mean, that’s powerful.

Ashley: That’s a good word.

Carlie: God’s saying call to me.

Ashley: Fresh revelation.

Carlie: Talk to me. I want to have relationship with you because when you’re in relationship with me, I’m going to answer you. And I’m going to show you things that you didn’t know.

Ashley: That’s awesome. Praise God. We love the word.

Carlie: Right there.

Ashley: The word is somewhere you’re going to be camping at and nowadays we’ve got no excuse. We have technology. I’m sounding old right? “We have technology.” Most of us have smartphones, we can have the Bible right there. We have tablets and things like that. I mean when we’re waiting somewhere in line or something, there’s no reason why you can’t be read in the Bible. There’s no reason why he can’t be in the word wherever you are. There’s audible, I’ve got the audible Bible. The complete Bible on audio. Sometimes I’ll listen to it when I’m on an airplane or when I’m driving and things like that.

Carlie: You even have the Bible on your watch, don’t you?

Ashley: Yeah, there’s a Bible app on my watch. So I can even read the Bible on my watch.

Carlie: There you go.

Ashley: And mind you it’s a little bit, I mean you won’t want to do a whole… read a whole book. But you can have verses come up on there. But nowadays with technology, in fact, you know, it talks about write them on the tablet-

Carlie: That’s it.

Ashley: …of your heart.

Carlie: See, God knew.

Ashley: “Write on the tablet, bind them to your wrists.” I think it’s bind them to your wrists. And then Google glasses is probably going to be “Put them before your eyes.” See, I mean, it’s the Bible. So anyway, we’ve got no excuse to keep the word of God in front of us. And that’s why the Hebrew said, “Keep the word of God in front of you wherever you go.” In fact, this is a great verse. I love this.

Ashley: This is Proverbs six 22, Proverbs six verse 22 puts it this way, talking about the word of God. It says, “When you roam, they will lead you.” So the word of God will lead us. IT says, “When you sleep, they will keep you did that.” You slept and the word gave you words, spoke to you. “When you sleep, they’ll keep you. And when you are awake, they will speak with you.” The word of God will speak with us. It will commune with us, it’s Jesus. It’s a living word. It will speak to us. So the word has got to speak to us and it’s these the best or authority on anything is the word of God.

Ashley: In fact, I would ask you if you’ve got something you’re not sure about, if you’ve got a decision to make. I’d say ask God for a word. Say to God, show me in the scriptures a word. And even if it’s something specific now, he will pull out a scripture. He will show you something confirming with his word. So the word of God is the most clear, what’s the right word? Reliable way that God speaks to us is through his word. Through the word of God.

Ashley: And as Carlie said, he will never contradict his word. We’re getting ahead of ourselves a little bit, because we’re also going to spend some time helping you to decipher between God’s voice, your own voice and the devil. And that’s something we need to work out. You know, when is it us? When is it the devil? And when is it God? When’s it just our flesh or our soul. When is it the devil? When is it God’s speaking to us? We need to discern those things. And that’s what the word of God does. The word of God can decipher those things and separate those things and show you what’s you. And what’s the devil and what’s… because I’ve convinced myself it’s God speaking to me before now, I’ve had a few times where God said this and it hasn’t been. But when I’ve gone to the word, God’s shown me that it’s not that case.

Ashley: So the word of God also talks about the word being a lamp to our feet. I love that, it’s a lamp to our feet. The word is like our lamp. And if we’re trying to walk somewhere, we can hold a lamp up and it will illuminate our path. We call them torches in England, but I guess you call them flashlights here in America.

Carlie: Man that can get you into a pickle pretty quickly.

Ashley: So a flashlight here, is what they say here. I said to one of my American friends, “I let my kids… I gave my kids each and I told them-”

Carlie: They thought we had given them like a burning stick or something.

Ashley: …and walk on the pavement. And they said, “You told your kids to walk in the middle of the road with a burning stick fire. And they’re like four years old?” I said, “No, no. Walk on the sidewalk with a flashlight.” So we can interpret. We learning how to speak American.

Carlie: And we need to learn how to listen carefully.

Ashley: I know. We’re learning how to speak in American. So the word of God is, is your lamp to your feet. So if you like you’re stumbling around in the dark, you don’t know what direction to take. You don’t know which way to go. You need to get into the word of God. And just like you said there in that proverb I read it. It will lead you there. The word of God will lead us. It’s a lamp to our feet. The word of God is going to sustain us. It’s going to lead us. It’s going to give us what we need, it’s going to encourage us. So I want to encourage you, when you want to hear God’s voice go to the word of God first. That’s the best place.

Ashley: And however a busy you are every one of us should be spending a daily time in the word. This is no condemnation. This is nothing to do with that. God sees you. God loves you. He’s made his mind up. When I first got born again, I was very legalistic. I didn’t understand grace. I didn’t understand that my salvation was a free gift and I thought I had to earn God’s approval. So I would read the word out of law. “I’ve got to read the word. I’ve got to spend time in prayer.” In fact-

Carlie: What happens if you missed it?

Ashley: Well if you missed it, then you’re not quite as worthy as you was when you had did it. It’s all about you, and that’s not the case. We don’t want anyone to be under condemnation or anyone feel like they’re under obligation to do this. We just want you to enhance your relationship with God. God’s already made up his mind about you. But if you get in the word daily and spend time with him daily, even if it’s five or 10 minutes a day, we can all find that time. Then you can actually… you’re going to be able to hear his voice clear and you’re going to get to know him. The Bible is really… it’s God’s story. It’s God’s character. It’s who he is. And as we read that word, we’re going to understand more and more about God.

Carlie: All right so I believe that God is speaking to us all the time in many different ways.

Ashley: Amen.

Carlie: Whether that’s in words of wisdom, words of knowledge, whether that’s telling us the future, that’s warning us about things to come. That’s helping us to make good decisions. He can speak to us through different people. He’ll come speak to us through the scripture, through dreams and visions. All the different ways that God can speak to us, he is speaking to us all the time. But often times I think we miss it, miss listening, we miss hearing him because we aren’t listening to him. And so what we’re talking about here is developing some healthy habits that will benefit you in your relationship with the Lord.

Carlie: And we want to be able to hear God. We know that God’s desire is for us to be led by his voice.

Ashley: Amen.

Carlie: Amend. And so he’s speaking to us all the time. But our part, our response… Ashley mentioned a John 10, 27, “My sheep, they hear my voice.” We are made to hear God’s voice. “I know them. And they follow me.” If we want to really know God on an intimate level. And if we want to really follow the plans of God that he has for our life, that means first by hearing him.

Ashley: Yeah.

Carlie: Right. And that’s talking about developing a listening relationship.

Ashley: Yeah, it really does. How many of you know God only has good things for us. He’s trying to lead you into good things. There’s so many times I could look back on my life and think, “Man, if only I’d listened to God. If only I’d done what the Lord told me, it would have saved me this heartache or that heartache.” In fact, many times Carlie’s had a word from God like, “I’m not sure about this.” And I’ll be like, “No, it’ll be okay.” And then disaster and terrible situation. Then I look back and I was like, “Man, should have listened to God’s voice.: God knows best. And he’s trying to lead us in his ways. And he’s trying to get good things to us and lead us into good things. He’s got the best plans for you. He knows best. He created this world. He created you.

Ashley: He knows exactly how you work and what’s best for you. So that’s why we need to listen to his voice. So this is going to be a series on how to hear God’s voice more clearly. The first thing we’ve covered here is that you can hear God’s voice through his word. That should be the one of the main ways you hear God’s voice.

Carlie: I mean, you can hear God’s voice.

Ashley: And John 10:27 start believing that promise that you can hear God’s voice. That’s the truth. He made you and you can hear his voice stop. Confessing that you can’t hear it because the truth is you can hear his voice. And as you start stepping out in faith and believe in it, you’re going to start hearing it more clearly. We want to give you some practical tips on how you can hear God’s voice more clearly.

Ashley: So be sure to join us next time. We’re out of time right now.

Carlie: Wow it goes so fast.

Ashley: We want to pray for you before we let you go. So father God I thank you for everyone watching and listening today. I thank Lord that as your children, your sheep, we can hear your voice. And I thank God, everyone listening can hear your voice today. And I thank you Lord, you’re just speaking to us, you’re talking to us and you have good things to show us, good things to lead us into. And we trust you, and we want to hear your voice more clearly. So help us Lord, as we look at these things in Jesus name. Amen.

Carlie: Amen. Thank you Jesus.

Ashley: Isn’t God good?

Carlie: Yeah.

Ashley: God is so good. Thanks for joining us today. We’re going to be back real soon, but until next time, remember don’t just settle for living a normal life when Jesus paid for you to be able to live the abundant life.

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

Ashley: I don’t know about you, but I want to be able to hear God’s voice clearly. God’s got good things for us. He wants to lead us into good things. And I believe hearing his voice is essential to do in his will and to walk in the victorious life that he’s given us. So I want to encourage you, we have some products available, they’re on the screen. Get these resources. We’ve only covered a very small part of this today, but if you get these resources, they’re going to teach you practical ways that you can hear God’s voice more clearly. So get the resources and we’ll see you next time.

Annoucer: Call us at (719) 600-3344. We want to thank the friends and partners of Terradez ministries. Your faithful financial support enables us to produce the Abundant Life program and spread the good news of God’s love around the world. If you have been blessed by this program, we invite you to donate and partner with Terradez ministries. Visit our website, terradez.com and become partner today. Coming up next on the Abundant Life program.

Ashley: Jesus turned around and corrected Peter and said, “Get behind me Satan.” Why? Because the enemy was using Peter to speak to Jesus. Now-

Carlie: He was planting a suggestion.

Ashley: He was planting a suggestion.

Carlie: That would be wrong.

Ashley: And it was tempting, Jesus.

Carlie: He’s have to consider it.

Ashley: If it hadn’t tempted him, Jesus wouldn’t have been so strong to rebuke it. In Isaiah, it talks about every weapon formed against you, you shall condemn. Every lying tongue that comes against you, you should condemn.

Carlie: Isaiah 54:17.

Ashley: Isaiah 15:17. So this word came from Peter. It was actually the enemy tempting Jesus not to go to the cross because Jesus had the choice. And because it was tempting, Jesus turned around and rebuked it. He quickly silenced that voice and said, “Get behind me Satan” so he wasn’t calling Peter Satan. He was just calling that word that Peter said Satan. That temptation was from the enemy. So the enemy can use people sometimes.