whatever you choose is not always god speaking to you there's the human element involved there's the
human will so you have to come to the place where um you learn to hear god but here's the great news
you can't because you're a sheep you were born with disability
we have a man in our church that is the general manager and um part owner of texas motor speedway
his name is eddie gossage and i've asked eddie if i could use this example
he and another man are owners of eight nasty speedways around the the country
that where you have nascar and things like that so eddie comes to our church and
asked me to go to lunch with him and so we went to lunch one day and we're talking and he said
um pastor i i need you to help me with something and i said okay how can i help you and he said
well you talk about that the lord told me this and the lord told me that and he said i um
i don't know how to hear god if you could help me if you could teach me if i could learn to hear god
that would be great and so i said to him well um and i'm gonna we'll go into this in a lot of depth
as i do other messages on this but i said to him okay here's some things i want you i
want you get alone with god i want you to put on some worship music so that your mind can
focus and get off of everything else you have to do focus on god um i want you to pray talk
to god about what's on your heart give him your burdens for the day it's hard to hear god when
you're burdened about something so you have to give it to him prayer is an exchange of the burden
if you pray and you're still burdened then you didn't pray you just griped
prayer is when you give him the burden okay and then i said to him i want you to read
somewhere in scripture and then i want you to write down what you think god is saying to you
through that scripture and i i know that the scripture has a contextual meaning i know it
has a historical meaning um that's that's where we get the word exegete it comes from a greek word
and it means to draw out like you draw water out of the well so there's a contextual exegesis a
historical exegesis a literal exegesis there's even a revelational exegesis holy spirit since
god's word is alive what are you saying to me so that's what we're that's what i'm asking you to do
so he began to do that and a few months later we got back together for lunch and he said i want to
tell you something and i remember there was this big smile on his face and he looked at me and said
i'm hearing god i'm hearing god i'm doing what you said and i'm writing down what i believe god
is saying to me and he said many many times what i wrote down is exactly what i needed for that day
and i think a lot of us have had that experience
where god's led us to a scripture and we needed that scripture that's god speaking to us so um
point number one it's innate and when i say it i'm talking about
the ability to hear god so the ability to hear god is innate in other words we're born again with it
it's learned so we learn how to hear god like we go to classes at church and we learn about
hearing god or our spiritual gift but number three is it's matured in other words we mature
in the gift so let me go back to the illustration of children learning to speak but they also have
to mature in what they say when you think about it a child will say i mean whatever comes out
just whatever comes to his mind like man that guy's fat you know we say no no we don't we don't
say that you know we don't tell people they're fat uh or here's one how old are you grandma
we don't ask grandma how old she is nobody knows how old grandma is we just we just
know that she knew noah but we don't know how old she is so okay so so we have to mature
in in it so let me let me tell you a few ways that i think um few ways that people talk about
hearing god that i think they're immature okay one of those is uh a message a minute
now this is those are dallas willard's word from a book he wrote called hearing god but
i like the way he said it a message a minute you've probably been around
people like this they're always hearing god god just told me not to put salt on my food
well you you could have read reader's digest last month and figure that out you know
so god told me this god told me that okay well think about that even now when we talk about
relationship do we want god speaking to us all the time yes when we talk about relationship
but when we talk about instruction or even correction
do you want god speaking to you all the time now hold on uh let's again take children
uh do you want to still be giving your children instruction every day when they're 40. i mean
don't you want to mature yeah so yes god wants to communicate with us but this you know you know god
which which which way do i turn here you know every street you know i mean turn your gps on
come on you know mature in it that that's what i'm saying so it we have to mature so this message a
minute thing i just i don't think that's the best way that's not the mature way to hear god
here here's another way is i call it the point and hope philosophy now you've heard this
people say well when i want a word from god i just open the bible close my eyes and point okay well
that might work every now and then it might uh but i have a friend of mine that was um his business
was struggling and he'd heard someone say that so he thought okay i need a word about my business
so he closed his eyes he did his bible put his finger down he looked down and said chapter 11.
um the other thing as i've told you about dallas willard be because i read his book and one of the
things he said in there was that he heard this preacher one time say that god has a
life verse for every person and the way you find out what your life verse is is the year
you were born well there's a couple of problems with that most people were born 19 something
and when you go to the 19th chapter of every book of the bible that has 19 chapters some
don't even have 19 chapters the highest verse is joshua chapter 19 verse 51.
that's the highest verse so if you were born after 1951 no life verse for you you know uh and but but
uh dallas was born in um 1935. so he thought well i'm gonna see what my life verse is he
just went to the first book of the bible genesis 19 35 says so they got drunk and slept with him
that's his life verse okay so there are more mature ways to hear god here's the third
immature way i think of hearing god is what i call the case syrah philosophy casarossura
was written by an american we don't know if he took it from spanish or italian
it actually doesn't work in either language but what his translation is whatever will be will be
you know if you're my age or older you remember doris day used to sing that song whatever will
be will be well there's a problem with that saying that that's god's voice
because we make mistakes and whatever you choose is not always god speaking to you
there's the human element involved there's the human will so you have to come to the place where
um you learn to hear god but here's the great news you can because you're a sheep
you were born with disability so let me tell you something happened to me recently
it was earlier this year i have three grown and married children and my son middle child son
and his wife have two boys and they were praying about whether to try for another child for a girl
the reason they were praying is because she'd had difficult pregnancies and they had had two
miscarriages and so they were praying and we did a 21-day fast at the first of the year
and fast however god leads you you know things like that so some people are doing vegetables
only or some did all the way to water but some just whatever well she prayed and said god if
we're supposed to have another child have someone give me a word who's close to us
during this 21 days so we did our fast january 10th through january 31st so on january 31st
it was a sunday i'm standing there about to speak and she's on the worship team
and i look up her name's bridget and the lord said to me bridget's pregnant just like that and
that night we were having like a family meal you know everyone come together at my house
and so i said hey i have an announcement to make and they were like uh really you know uh
so what's your announcement and i said uh bridget's pregnant and they everyone kind
of laughed you know and james my son and bridgette they say hahaha are you serious
i said yeah i'm serious bridget is pregnant the lord told me this morning bridgette's pregnant
and i could see the look on her face because she had asked god for someone close to them
to give them a word and this was the last day of the fast and we were actually breaking the
fast at this meal that night you know and um so james my son said well she's not pregnant she's
i can just say right now she's not pregnant it's impossible she's just she's not pregnant
and i said well um she is pregnant and he said well she's not pregnant i said well she's pregnant
because i don't care what you say god said she's pregnant so she's pregnant well it was so strong
and they even got with me later before they left the house they said how serious are you about this
well some various years god said she's pregnant and james said well she hammered her prayers she's
not pregnant i said well she has spread it and uh so because it was so strong they decided to go to
the doctor now on the way home by the way she told james my uh son she said about her prayer she said
i was praying that if i was we were having another child someone give us a word who's close to us
during the 21 days and james said why did you pray that you know i said you know my dad and you know
so why would you do that so they go to the doctor well the doctor says well she's not pregnant
as a matter of fact she she could not get pregnant right now because her progesterone is so low she
couldn't get pregnant it'd be medically impossible now that's the reason she had the two miscarriages
is because her her progesterone was so low and so they decided since your dad's got this word
and it's so strong we should start he said if you're thinking about you should start taking
progesterone so they started taking progesterone then that day they went back about a month later
to check her levels and the doctor came in and said uh you're pregnant and they said
really and uh he said yeah and uh when you came to see me last time apparently you were pregnant then
uh and so they counted up because you know you count the days there she was had been she was
pregnant at that time four weeks and six days and i gave her the word four weeks and five days
before she'd been praying one day now it's great that god spoke that word but here's what's
amazing god spoke that word to save that baby's life because she started taking the medicine
that's a it's a natural hormone that your body should produce that her body was not producing
i'm just telling you god speaks here's what i'd like you i'd like you just to close your eyes
just for a moment and if you're watching home just just close your eyes for a minute i want
you to just pray a very short but very simple prayer say lord thank you that i'm a sheep
just tell him that in your heart and thank you that you as the shepherd speak
to sheep and lord i pray that all of us will realize we have the ability to hear you
and we will learn and mature in hearing god in jesus name
amen friend with the support of heroes like you tbn is beaming the hope
and grace of jesus around the world in multiple languages
this month for your gift of support in any amount we're excited to offer best-selling author dr
david jeremiah jeremiah's book forward take a moment to visit tbn.org go forward god bless