Hearing God’s Voice Made Simple 2015 271 pgs. By Praying Medic (Dave Hayes) For Christians, weather a seasoned saint or new believer, this book will help you hear better from God and open new pathways for this. Hearing is also about fostering our personal relationship with God and Jesus. Chap. 1 His Testimony. He was a busy Paramedic and atheist; in his youth he was raised a Catholic. A coworker gave him a christian book Left Behind and he started thinking about God; he had thought he was a good person, then God started giving him thoughts he was prideful at work and some grumpy and his life was a bit of a mess. As he rested the thought persisted and the book reminded him that Jesus died for his sins and loved him. He said to himself- he may give God a try, but need to hear from God and wanted His help. He went to sleep and woke up in the morning feeling different and at peace. God kept giving him thoughts he knew were not his own. He wondered – who is the voice and how long will it continue? As he went to work he was reminded to say something nice and not be sarcastic, like usual. He knew God or something was transforming him. This was that start of his christian journey. Chap. 2 My Sheep hear my Voice. There is a debate among churches-does God speak to us, other that just through the bible? He began attending a fundamentalist church, that taught- God no longer speaks to us or does healing miracles; he questioned this and started attending a Charismatic one, that believed we can hear from God and He does miracles today. As lady guest speaker came to this church and said she heard from God and than prophesied to some church members- Words of wisdom. She held a workshop on this. The members sensed her words were true, as did the author. She was a guest from out of town and knew none of the members. It became apparent to the author, her teaching was correct. John 10:2-5 “The one who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The doorkeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought all his own outside, he goes ahead of them. The sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. They will never follow a stranger; instead they will run away from him, because they don’t recognize the voice of strangers.” The stranger’s voice is the devil. As mature believers we need to discern God’s voice, from the devils. Angels or demons can speak to us. Chap. 3 Misconceptions vs. Truth. Some churches teach God does not speak to us, and fear It’s the devil, thus we are to rely on only the bible to speak to us. They also believe there are no miracle healings or gifts to us. The author says this belief is false. Most churches believe we are given the holy spirit. The spirits is to teach us, and help us discern. Most believe we need a personal relationship with Jesus. So is our communication only one way?- us praying to God and learning from the bible? The author says no, we are to hear from God and the Holy Spirit, that a personal relationship and fits with John 10:2-5 above. Also Paul was taught much by the Lord via the spirit as in Gal. 1:11-12. What we hear from God should not disagree with the bible. Many supernatural healings have been done by prayers, proving miracles do still occur as in 1 Peter 2:24. Some churches hold God speaks to us via his leaders or priests, but not personally. The author says leaders do help teach us, but we also can be taught directly via the spirit; this is especially true for mature believers. Peter was given a new revelation in a vision in Acts 10:9-16.-20. of communicating and eating with gentiles: this went against his prior teaching by church rabbis. He preached to the house of Cornelius saving them. This was also true for Paul who was an expert in the Old Testament(OT) scriptures. He got many revelations from Jesus and the Spirit, some appearing to be different from the OT. In Acts 13 Paul was commissioned and told to do many things by the HS as a missionary. Also the early church leaders met and discussed many spiritual things and adopted some as new church doctrines. Each of us may have different views of God and doctrines based on the christian books we have read, our understanding of the bible, our prior teachers, and our life experience. When one gets a new revelation from the spirit, at times we need to check it with our church leaders and pastor. Chap 4. God Speaks to Everyone. He says God does speak to everyone, but not in a way for you to say it was Him without question. God has given us free will and we can listen to Him and follow Him or not. God has good plans for us. We have some awareness of Him through our conscience as in Rom. 2:14-15 ”Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.” It tells us if we have done wrong or right. Still we area free to ignore Him and this. Many ignore Him as they want to live out their sinful desires. 1Tim. 4:1-2 “Now the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared.” By disobedience, having our conscious seared, we become more insensitive to God’s voice. Being insensitive is also called hardening our hearts in the bible. With this habit you will not hear much from God. Thus Jesus first preached- ‘Repent” for the Kingdom of God is at hand, as in Mat. 3:2. Here, repent means change their mind and thinking. The truth is that God loves you; and when you fully realize this, it also changes our hearts. Chap. 5 Be Still. In a typical day there are 1000’s of things that scream for our attention. Our every interaction with the media or with other persons leaves and impression on us. That is why Jesus said we should, with all diligence, guard our hearts. If we are not hearing from God, the problem is likely other things had taken our attention and been given a higher priority. We need to set aside a quiet time to hear from God. We need to hear to be able to pick out the voice of the Holy Spirit from the other possible voices and reduce distractions. The psalmist wrote- Be Still and know that I am God. One can do this in a comfortable chair or with a quiet walk. One can meditate on God’s word or on oneness with Him, or praise songs, as in Ps. 100:2-4. You may get thought impressions, images, or words. You may feel at peace doing this. Chap. 6. Faith and Hearing God’s Voice. We need to expect that when we turn our attention to Him, we will hear from Him. Everything that we do that pertains to God is done by faith. Faith is trusting it’s Him, confidence and expectation. We also need to sincerely want to hear from Him and follow what He tells us. God desires to reveal his mysteries to us, but only to those who desire to hear them willingly, and act upon them. He said the parable of the talents applies here: To those who make good use of what is given, will be given more. God will not give us more than what we can handle. Be persistent in your asking as in Luke 11:9-13. “So I say to you, keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” You may not get much at first, but keep trying. Many get messages from God in different ways. For the Author to get visions, it took some time and practice. He first got thoughts. If there are questions you have for God, ask them and then wait for an answer. Chap. 7 God’s not so Audible Voice. God is a spirit and does not have physical structures like ear drums or vocal cords. We may think we hear God’s spirit, but this is done mainly by transmission of thought impressions. This is the common way of God speaking thoughts to us. My note: Occasionally God does make audible voices that certain people hear, like Paul on the road to Damascus. Our thoughts are usually in words, as its difficult to have a thought without words. The author says spirit beings also have the ability to give us verbal thoughts and appear in visions, that others may not see or hear. Spirits can also send signals to our other senses, and emotions, if they wish. It may take us time for us to develop these senses. It is common for God to first speak to us gently through our conscience. Chap. 8 Is it God or is it Me? One concern you may have about hearing God’s voice is that is it from my mind or from God’s? It is possible God will message us though visions, dreams, emotions, smells, skin sensation, or thought impressions. The next chapters will look at each of these individually. We need to know our own thoughts well, and they will be different than God’s; God’s will be full of love, life, wisdom, compassion, and mercy and be more sublime and at times in symbols. At times we need to seek confirmation that it is from God. The message should line up with the scriptures. However at times, the scriptures may not help in a decision about a new job, a purchase, or duty to pursue. One confirmation is that the decision begins to bear some godly fruit. It’s is possible a friend or our pastor may confirm it to us. My Note: So if God created us for fellowship with Him, wouldn’t 2 way communication be favored. Chap. 9 Spiritual abilities vs. Gifts. Our spiritual senses do not require God’s empowerment, but they do need our recognition and development. As you begin to know that God is speaking to you, you will want to know what he is saying.. Our spiritual senses help our spiritual gifts to function well. For example, the gift if discerning spirits is aided by the sense of smell as some can demons. Others can see angels or demons. If you ignore your spiritual senses they will be undeveloped. Heb 5: 13-14 ”Now everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced with the message about righteousness, because he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature—for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil.” Chap. 10 Visions. Visions are a spiritual sense that needs to be developed. We often attributive visions to our imagination; Our imagination does aid, but visions can be from God. A vision can be in symbols or in vivid color; that would differ from our imagination. To practice visions one needs to close their eyes and be at peace and attentive to God’s lead. It may take sometime to develop this skill: If there are symbols or figures, ask God for their meaning. Chap. 11 Dreams. Muslims respect their dream sand some have come to Christ because of them. Job talks of dreams in Job 33:14-18 God often conceals his affairs, and expects His people to seek Him out as in Prov. 25:2 “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings to investigate a matter.” He wants fellowship with believers and not to be so obvious to others so as not to overcome free will. Thus He speaks to us in dreams that we need to try to interpret. The bible gives many example of dreams being important. Joseph, husband of Mary, had important dreams noted in Matt. Chap. 1,2. We need to ask for dreams from God and then write them down in a notebook. Dreams come from 3 different sources: 1 from God- usually instructive and encouraging 2. from our soul-processing our daily activities; 3. for the devil- dark and fearful. Dreams are highly symbolic; so write them down immediately and later you can seek interpretation I numbers occur look up the meaning of the numbers. If it is of a person, seek the meaning and it could be you are to follow a similar path to them. Emotions may occur in dreams and if of death, it could be your death to the old and birth to the new. Peaceful dreams are likely from God, peace is a fruit of the spirit. Chap. 12 Nature. God can speak to us via nature, sights and sounds and can be relaxing. His creation in places often full of beauty, peace and order. Chap. 13 Circumstances. These can confirm or deny God’s direction in our lives. Chap. 14 Art. God does create things for beauty We created in His image appreciate beauty, imagination and creativity. He gives a lesson on art from C. S. Lewis. We seek art for an enlargement of our being and to gain other’s perspectives. We need to be open to receive and use our imagination. In great literature words and wording is important and convey images. Rhyme , meter, grammar and punctuation is important. Art wasn’t meant to convey obvious ideological messages. Such art is not pleasing, but trite and boring. Good art with God’s message bubbles up in subtle ways. Art that is pleasing can speak to anyone. Art that is created to convey an overt christian if often of low quality. To that end he wrote the Chronicles of Narnia, which is good art; it captures your attention but has symbolic meanings. Until Rowling penned the Harry Potter Series, Lewis’s books on Narnia were high selling. Sometimes fairy stories say well what is to be said. As with the parables of Jesus, they are easy to understand, but have hidden meaning. Paintings, literature, music and movies of high quality, with subtle messages can and have touched people in powerful ways. Chap. 15 Film. A popular science fiction film was the Matrix. Here a cyber-world of intelligent machines subdue humans and harness them. There are characters that are villains who want to trap us and noble people who want to save us from the trap. This has subtle christian messages and AI truths. It had innovative visual effects. The film won 4 academy awards. (My note: this is quite applicable today). This film and the American Sniper (although filled with profanity and killing) strongly influenced the author Hayes. There are parallels of the actions of the Nary Seals and the kind of warfare believers need to wage against the kingdom of darkness. Chap. 16 Music. God frequently speaks to people through music. The beauty and rhythm of music moves people and encourages their praise. The authors friend Todd and his wife played with a small band for people with mental-emotional disorders and many experienced emotional healing via the music and lesson. Many have heard of the now famous J. S Back, who was mostly unknown in the German towns were he worked and played. More than 250 yrs after his death, his music still lifts the hearts and energizes the souls of many. In Japan where less than 1% of the people are christians, Bach’s music has started a spiritual awakening. Bach’s music and other christian music has helped in converting many in Japan to Christ. Chap. 17 Emotions. In his paramedic work he often transported people who were addicted to drugs and alcohol; the were often verbally abusive. So, at times he remained quiet with them, to avoid a confrontation. But then God started have me feel compassion and sadness for them. I knew these were not my own feelings. So I at times I would ask them if I could pray for them and they said yes and there would be a good result. So if God gives you some unusual feeling with a person, it may be a lead for you to respond. In the same way God can give you a sense of pain in the knee or other body part, and it can be a tip for you to respond to a person in pain. We can develop this sense of empathy for other persons with God’s help. We can even be open to sense the emotions of a group of people. We can also transmit our feeling peace to other people, As in John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.- Your heart must not be troubled or fearful.” We can do this and the author did it. One day he transported patient who had chest pain, was anxious and had a headache. He wasn’t open about it but his wife brought it out. So the author took a seat by him and asked him -can I pray for you? He said yes. “I prayed for his headache and chest pain to be gone” I asked him how are you now? he said much better; My headache and chest pan is gone and I feel more at peace. I‘ve noticed, often when I pray for people they feel at peace, even if they don’t receive a complete healing. Jesus was called the Prince of Peace. Jesus lives in us believers. Still we must be at peace to give it to others. Exercise: Take note of how you feel before entering a room of people, and note again after you enter the room. If your feelings have changed, ask God if there is someone you need to talk to about these new feelings. Then go and talk to them, be friendly, but than ask them about this feeling and if they would like prayer. Chap. 18 Angels. Angels often appear as messengers who impart instruction or news to people in dreams or in visions. At times, they have other duties. The author has had direct messages from them in dreams and indirect, or subtle communication with them about healings. You can ask one to send you a message in a dream. Chap. 19. Face to Face. At times, he and his wife have had dream messages from Jesus. You can ask Him to show you in a dream, what your calling is. Chap. 20 the Gift of Tongues. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are discussed in 1 Cor. 12-14, and Tongues is one. There are good benefits to those who practice this gift. Jesus said in Mark 16:17 ”And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues” In Tongues we may speak in both know and unknown languages as in 1 Cor. 13:1. On Pentecost all the believers present spoke in tongues, Acts 2:4. Researchers at the Univ. of Penn. Found that the part of the brain using the language centers is not active when speaking in tongues, indicating we don’t have much control of it. This fits with God having some control of the words., p. 144. The gift of tongues is not intended of only a few, as Paul says in 1 Cor. 14:5 “ I desire that you all speak in tongues, but even more that you prophesy. For greater is he who prophesies” 1Cor. 14:4 “He who speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.”When an interpretation is given of the tongues its of words of encouragement. Our tongues can help us pray for what we need from God as in Rom. 8:26-7. God is our helper, counselor and intercessor. Chap. 21 The Gift of Prophecy. Here God revels something about another person to you and, If positive you can share it. It is controversial because it borders on fortune telling; However, fortune telling is done by psychics and may not be by the Holy Spirit. 1Cor. 14:1 ”Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, and above all that you may prophesy.” 14:31 ”For you can all prophesy one by one, so that everyone may learn and everyone may be encouraged.” Chap 22. Three Gifts from God. Here are 3 related gifts. Word of Knowledge, Word of Wisdom, and Discerning Spirits. Some like to use standard methods for healing and deliverance, but each case is different and its good to ask God about the best approach. That’s where the words of knowledge and wisdom come in. Knowledge is facts and wisdom how to apply the knowledge. We need to discern the spirits whether heavenly of evil. At times they may have names or areas of specialty. Some spirits are of despair or of tempting us with sin. Some can notice the scent of the spirits. Chap 23. The Greatest of these is Love. as in1 Cor. 13:1-3 Our greatest calling is to love others and we do this because of his great love for us. We call on Him to fulfill our needs.