TGIF Today God Is First Volume 1 by Os Hillman
Wednesday, June 15 2011…”The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” – Judges 6:12
Has God ever spoken directly to you in such a way that you knew that it was actually His voice speaking to you specifically? I don’t mean just an appropriate verse of Scripture, or a circumstance that seemed probable that it was God. I am talking about a situation that you know that you know it was the God of the universe speaking directly to you.
In the book Experiencing God, authors Henry Blackaby and Claude King say that one of seven important steps to experiencing God in everyday life is how God speaks to us. “God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.” [Henry Blackaby and Claude King, Experiencing God (Nashville, Tennessee: LifeWay Press, 1990), 225]
You can examine the life of every major character in the Bible and see this principle expressed in the way God worked in each of their lives.
One of the ways God speaks is through others. God often used others to speak to individuals, especially in the Old Testament when God often spoke through the prophets. This is still one of the ways He speaks today.
Several years ago I was in a church on the west coast that I had never been in before. I was in the midst of a tremendous trial. Three people prayed for me, and as they did, they began to describe a picture that was reflective of my life since I was a young Christian. It was a very accurate picture of my life. About a year later a man from Virginia prayed with me in my office. After our prayer time, he began to describe what he had just seen as a picture of my life. It was the same picture that had been described a year earlier. A year after that I was on a trip overseas and a man from England whom I had never met before came to me. He and I had a time of prayer together, and at the end of our prayer time he described a picture he had just seen in his mind while we were praying. Again, it was the same type of picture as the two previous encounters. Only this time, one element was added that was important for me to know related to what God was doing in my life at that time. When God chooses to speak into our lives through others, it can be an incredible blessing. He speaks in many ways. This is just one of them.
God desires to encourage us by speaking to us. He does this in many ways. The next time someone speaks into your life, prayerfully consider whether God is using that person to convey something important He wants you to know.
Related articles
- Speaking Out for God (chosenvessel26.wordpress.com)
- God’s Paintings (ptl4.wordpress.com)
- How to Read and Study the Bible (michaelelynch.wordpress.com)
- IGNITE: Day 1 (thoughtsthatmatters.wordpress.com)
- Being Led by God (wdednh.wordpress.com)
- Importance of the Old Testament in New Testament Study: The Holy Spirit (dawnmarie4.wordpress.com)
- When the Holy Spirit moves. (churchinaction.wordpress.com)
- The Submission of Listening (jeffsdeepthoughts.wordpress.com)
- True Hunger and Faith as a Child (elishagen.wordpress.com)
YOU DECIDE 
My experience with Baptist/evangelical theology can best be described as a wild Roller Coaster ride: a lot of great psychological, emotional, and spiritual highs and a lot of deep psychological, emotional, and spiritual lows. Why?
In Baptist/evangelical theology, your Justification and your Sanctification—your essence as a follower of Christ…if you boil it all down…is really dependent on you and your feelings. Your salvation is based on you performing an action: making the correct decision… for Christ. And your assurance of salvation is based on you maintaining a sufficient level of feeling Christ’s presence within you that confirms that your previous “decision for Christ” was done correctly and sincerely. Why else would so many Baptists and evangelicals report having multiple “born again” experiences?
Do I feel saved? Do I feel I really repented in my born again experience? Do I feel that I truly had faith when I made a decision for Christ; when I prayed a version of the Sinner’s Prayer? If I am really saved, why do I feel at times that my faith is so weak? Maybe I need to do the born again experience again; maybe I need to pray the Sinner’s Prayer again, just to be 100% sure that I am saved. I want to know without any doubt that I am saved, and if I do not feel saved, I begin to doubt my salvation.
Baptist/evangelical theology tells me that I will always feel Christ’s presence and strength inside me…if I am a true believer. But what if I don’t feel him there sometimes? If it is true that I should always be able to hear God speak to me, in an inner voice or feel his inner presence move me/lead me to do his will, what is going on when I don’t hear anything or feel anything? Have I committed some unknown sin and he is refusing to hear me? Or is the reason that I don’t hear or feel him present within me… is because I’m not really saved!
I was so incredibly happy to find orthodox (confessional) Lutheranism and find out that my feelings have nothing to do with my Justification, my salvation, nor with my Sanctification, my walk with my Savior and Lord! My salvation was accomplished 100% by God. He placed the free gift of salvation in my “lap” before I even considered asking for it. He wrapped me in the “blanket” of salvation without my assistance. I am God’s by his choice, not mine!
http://www.lutherwasnotbornagain.com/2013/09/tired-of-baptistevangelical-roller.html
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And I assume you are now living the “picture” presented to you by these people? God has helped me with tough situations–and the solution is always something I could never have derived at on my own and it”s often a bit of a surprise. When it comes to “big” things, I don’t believe in coincidence or “right place, right time”. It’s God’s hand. And he does use people–often without them being aware.
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Regardless of what is going on I have come to learn that Only God is in control, and once that was learned the rest is only gravy 🙂
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