That God speaks to all of us,
we just need to learn to recognise and obey his voice. God cannot do it without
us, he is spirit we are the flesh that his spirit inhabits. We cannot do it
without the Holy Spirit.
The way God communicates with
us not always in the expected way, and hearing his audible voice is only one
way.
There’s a scripture in Joel
Joel 2:28 And it shall come to pass in those
days, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall
see visions:
Do you often remember your
dreams? Well neither do I, then I got to thinking that everybody day dreams,
what’s the difference. So often we see Gods heart and so often we exclude what
we see there because it is too fantastic and far outside of what God could
possibly want, in our eyes. But the thing I have come to know is that God
communicates to each of us in an individual way.
Do you know
the voice of the saviour: If you know Jesus you will know his voice. As his children we come to know his voice,
the same as we recognise the voice of our natural parents, the same as we
recognise the voice of the ones we love, we will know the voice of our
Shepherd.
Mine, and I am known by those who
are mine.
Communication: Is an important part of relationship, so often we see
our relationships with wives, husbands and friends become stressed or fractured
because of lack of true communication.
Most marriages end because Husband
and Wives stop talking, maybe they have hurt each other or done something they
think unforgivable, but the communication stops and a breach occurs in that
relationship, and like the wall of sin between man and God, there comes a
divide that they cannot cross. Most wars start because of mis-communication
between the two sides, and we all know that it’s a bad sign when negotiations
cease.
So God communicates to man in
many ways on many different levels, he has many different ways of getting
through to us.
For some it is the heard voice,
for others it is dreams and visions, for others it is through the creative
process, or through their gifting.
But God is always speaking, we
often blame him for silence but most of the time it is because we are not
listening to what he is saying because we do not want to hear it.
Just like children sometimes
have selective deafness and won’t hear certain things that he or she is told,
we are no different.
One thing we must know is that
God made us the way we are, for a reason and purpose, we have been fashioned as
different keys to reach every man, woman and child on this planet, and what one
finds hard another will find natural.
God consequently talks to each
of us in a different way.
Creative gifts
and callings: Do not discard or ignore these, for many years I thought
that what used to well up in me with such passion was just my own vain
imagination. No if we are Gods then he uses this to speak to us and it is for
the benefit of the body, yes it needs testing but most of the time if we are
obedient and LISTEN the holy spirit will soon sort the grain from the chaff.
But dreams and visions, these
again can be dreams that we dream at night or have during the day, many times I
have had what we flippantly call day dreams, do not discard these because what
are these but waking visions.
God’s dreams can only come to
earth and become real through us, God dreams through us.
We must learn to look outside
the boxed confines of our conditioned expectations. God is in the miracle
business because this is the place where man cannot go, miracles are Gods turf
and his way of saying, “ this one is not you, this is
Jehovah the lord God and I am here.
Quite
simply when we stop daring to look over the edge of our own confines we
eliminate, faith, hope and the miracle working power of God.
Mark 10:27With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all
things are possible.
King David dared to dream the dreams of
God, and through out his life he worshipped and dreamt of restoring the Glory
of God to
Moses saw Gods dreams; he saw the
salvation of a nation and the dream of the promised land.
John the Baptist dreamt and longed
for the coming messiah.
Isaiah saw the rebuilding of the
Noah dreamed of a new beginning
washed clean by a mighty flood.
Jesus Stood in the place no man
could go to bring to pass the dreams of his Father.
All these mighty men have one
thing in common and that is they dared to believe the dream or vision, they
staked their lives, reputation and every thing they were in making Gods dreams
come to pass.
Through
dreams and visions God gives men and woman the strength of faith to pull down
the impossible and make it possible.
God knows how to get our
attention what drives us and what it takes to open the torrent of his spirit in
us to flow into this land, he created us.
God is spirit and we are his
tools to make his dreams come to pass, through us, these humble imperfect
vessels. All the time the Holy Spirit is talking to us, giving us pictures and
visions, words and direction, but do we act on these or dismiss them as
fantasy.
I can hear you say but some
things I think about are completely not of God I know it. Well there you are,
it’s called discernment, not everything is of God, but our discernment must be
accurate it must not be tainted by preconception, opinion or preference.
Test the
vision,
hold it up to the word measure it against the Holy Spirit plumb line that God
has placed in each of us.
John 15:26 And when the Comforter has come,
whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from
the Father, He shall testify of Me.
Does the vision or dream bring
life or death, does it glorify God or man. If the answer to these is yes it
brings life and glorifies God then we better start rolling our sleeves up
because its not vain imagination, it’s God’s dream.
We must not discard dreams that
run outside what we think as possibility, we must be
prepared to step out of the box.
God lives out his dreams
through us.
Let me say this if God has given you a dream or vision and you are still
waiting for it to happen, do not despair. If you have not seen any
indication of it happening and are, beginning to doubt and wondering, “ did I really hear from God” hold fast, be patient.
Hab 2:3 For
the vision is still for an appointed time, but it speaks to the end, and it
does not lie. Though it lingers, wait for it; because it will surely come. It
will not tarry.
This is the grounding; this is
the point where dreams and visions become reality. It is here that the dream
becomes flesh.
God does not lie, the appointed
time may not be yet, but it will be fulfilled.
But wait for
it, because
it is here in the anticipation
that we can go to the left or right of Gods will, it is here that Gods holy
spirit target can be missed if we let our humanness override Gods plan.
When I was working as an
electrician I had one of these really powerful electric drills that has the capacity to go through just about anything. But
keeping it on target was another matter, sometimes when I would be drilling
through a concrete wall for example, all would be going well then suddenly the
drill would hit a piece of flint or something buried in the concrete and in an
instant it would deflect off target into the easier softer concrete.
This is like birthing the
vision that God has given. The power to drive it through is incredible, that is
why we are given the dream, but keeping straight and true and not going to the
left or right is difficult.
Interestingly if when drilling
through, I did go off target, by the time I got through the wall guess what? I
would along way from where I wanted to be, and in most cases I would have to
start again.
Moses had a vision of the promised land but never saw it fulfilled, why because he got
frustrated at Gods timing and tried to push it through in his own strength. He
had kept on target for 40 years but then like the drill he hit flint, and
veered off target. The pressure of the peoples need drove him off target and in
his frustration he hit the rock instead of speaking to it.
In his frustration he tried to
break the rock with his own strength and not be obedient to God. At the last
moment, he lost his ticket to see the dream fulfilled and God gave it to Joshua
to finish the task.
Num 20:12 And
Jehovah spoke to Moses and Aaron, because you
did not believe me, to sanctify Me in the eyes
of the sons of
there fore you shall not bring this congregation
into the land
which I have given them.
Abraham and Sarai were the
same.
They desperately wanted a son
and heir; God had said this would happen
The had waited and waited but
no child had come, and now they were old and
all
hope seemed lost. They had kept the dream on target, but now they had hit
flint
and veered off target, they now took control and pushed it through in
their
own strength.
female slave, an Egyptian, and her
name was Hagar.
Gen 16:2And Sarai said to
Abram, Behold now, Jehovah has kept
Me
from bearing. I pray you,
go in to my slave woman. It may be
that I may be built by her. And
Abram listened to the voice of
Sarai.
Gen 16:3 And Sarai, Abram's
wife, took Hagar her slave woman,
The Egyptian, and gave her
to her husband Abram to be his wife
(after Abram had
lived ten years in the
Gen 16:4 And
he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when
She saw that she had
conceived, her mistress was despised in her
eyes.
Gen 16:5 And
Sarai said to Abram, My wrong be upon you. I have
given my slave woman into your bosom, and when she saw that
she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes. Jehovah judge
between me and you.
The result for Abraham and Sarai was Ishmael the son
of Hagar. This was not
Gods best because its result created more strife and
pain than Abraham would
ever have guessed.
Sarai was despised, because she felt Abraham’s
affection toward Hagar was
greater because she was bearing his child. Abraham felt the
guilt of her pain
and his weakness to stand firm.
When we move off target into the realm of our own
flesh, we birth flesh and it
Will always oppose Gods will and there will be a
cost.
S0 if you have been waiting do
not give up, if God has spoken something into your heart do not be overwhelmed
or in fear, because God will work it.
It may require us to remain in
position, it may require that we are bruised by the needs of the people we are
called to love, but God does not lie and the vision will come to pass, God will
make a way where there appears to be no way.
God will divide the sea, still
the storm, bring manna in the waiting, God does not lie.
There will be those that say
you haven’t heard from God, there will be those that take great joy in your
distress because it comforts them to see you are in pain the same as they are.
Jesus said let thy will be
done, Mary said let it be to me according to your word.
What God has promised he is
faithful to fulfil, let no man call God a liar.
Rom 3:4 Let it not be! But let God be true,
and every man a liar;
as it is written, "That You might be justified in
Your sayings, and will overcome when You are judged."
Act 1:4 And having
met with them, He commanded them not to depart from
Wait for the
promise, wait for the vision, it will come