Devotions

Those who truly know God have learned how to recognize his voice above all others. He wants you to be convinced that he desires to talk to you and tell you things you’ve never heard before.

The Lord recently showed me that I was still wavering about hearing his voice. Oh, I know that he speaks, but I doubted my ability to hear him. I kept “checking” the voice I heard, and when it seemed too mysterious, I thought, “This can’t be God. Besides, the devil and lying spirits and the flesh speak, too. Voices come at us all the time. How can I know it’s him?”

I believe three things are required of those who would hear God’s voice:

1.    An unshakable confidence that God wants to speak to you and wants you to know his voice. What he tells you will never go beyond the boundaries of scripture, and you don’t need a Ph.D. to recognize his voice. You only need a heart that says, “I believe God desires to talk to me.”

2.    Quality time and quietness. We must shut ourselves in with God and let all other voices hush away. True, God speaks to us all day long. But whenever he has wanted to build something into my life, his voice has come only after I have shut out every other voice but his.

3.    Ask in faith. We do not obtain anything from God unless we truly believe that he can convey his mind and will to us.

Jesus says, “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?” (Luke 11:11-12 NKJV). If you ask your heavenly Father for a word—a clear direction, a godly correction, a particular need—do you think for a moment he would let the devil come and deceive you?

God is not a tease. He will not allow the devil to deceive you. When God speaks, peace follows, and Satan cannot counterfeit that peace. If you are in a place of quiet and rest, you have an assurance that never changes. You can go back to God a thousand times, and you will receive the same word every time. Trust in him!

Does doubt make us stronger? Is it ‘Christian’ to have doubts? There is very little I don’t doubt. Throughout my life and its many twists and turns, I have often been filled with doubts. The good news is that doubt isn’t going to rob you of the goodness of God. He won’t withhold himself from you just because your faith is mixed in with questions and uncertainties. Jesus still healed the child of the father who cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (see Mark 9:17-27).

God is a holy God, and we should always approach him with reverence; but doubt is not irreverence, and God understands our questions. He doesn’t diminish his relationship with us or his miracle-working power in us if our faith is sometimes mixed with doubt.

Believe it or not, doubt can promote a greater revelation of God within us. We can see more of God’s glory when we are willing to wrestle with our conflicts and get to the other side of our questions with a more solid faith and deeper knowledge of him. 

There are three steps to working through doubt. First, approach your doubt with an honest heart. If we say, “I want truth and life,” we will find truth and life. If we’re trying to simply prove a point or avoid obedience to God, we aren’t being honest.

Next, take time to meditate and study the scriptures. We live such busy lives that many of us are holding on to doubts that we have simply ignored for years. We don’t take the time to quietly contemplate and enter those doubts. I use a notepad and write down things that I'm wrestling with. I reach for my Bible and seek out the harmony of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.

Finally, find a good Christian friend to talk to. If you're in a church environment where you can't express your doubts, you need to find a person of faith who will listen with an open heart. Even pastors face doubts, and they especially need a trustworthy friend or counselor.

Don’t be afraid to take your questions to God. He loves your honesty, and he has provided a clear path from doubt to faith. It’s a lifelong process of meditation, searching the scriptures and seeking God; but it will always yield a stronger, more robust relationship with him. If you're like me, you’ll enjoy the journey.

People who are spiritual leaders can look and act in very different ways because God made his people with enormous variety — we’re called the body of Christ for a good reason — but they will all share certain qualities. All spiritual leaders also have the same starting point, and this is key because the starting point is where those qualities are planted.

Let’s start with a familiar story. It’s the beginning of Paul’s journey with Christ. “Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’” (Acts 9:3-6, ESV).

Some people have an experience with Jesus, and others have an encounter with Christ. What’s the difference? People who experience Jesus are the ones who take a selfie with the Savior. People who encounter Jesus fall to their knees, and their lives are never the same afterward. Paul’s response to Christ is the essence of an encounter. He didn’t ask Jesus, “What’s my calling? How do I achieve this dream I have? What’s my next step?”

Paul, and every spiritual leader throughout history, asks, “Who are you, Lord?”

Brothers and sisters, we have to grasp the significance of this. We must capture this in our hearts. How often do we go to the Lord and pray, “Show me what it is that you want me to do. Help me be obedient to my calling.” Nothing wrong with those prayers. Jesus promised Paul that he would tell him what he was meant to do. We jump to that step too quickly, though. We need to start with “Who are you, Lord?” God’s presence will change us and give us the strength to do things that we could never do on our own.

Scripture says of Israel, “Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel” (Psalm 78:41 NKJV). Israel turned away from God in unbelief. Likewise, I believe we limit God today with our doubts and unbelief.

We trust God in most areas of our lives, but our faith always has boundaries and limits. We all have at least one small area that we block off where we don’t really believe God will take care of us.

For example, many people will pray for the healing of a well-known person who is a perfect stranger to them. But often, when it comes to healing for their own loved one, they limit God. I limit God most in the area of healing. I have prayed for physical healing for many, and I have seen God perform many miracles. When it comes to my own body, though, I limit God. I am afraid to let him be God to me. I douse myself with medicine or run to a doctor before I ever pray for myself. I’m not saying it’s wrong to go to the doctor, but sometimes I fit the description of those who “did not seek the Lord, but the physicians” (see 2 Chronicles 16:12).

Do you pray for God to bring down walls of oppression in other countries, but when it comes to the salvation of your own family you don’t have an ounce of faith? You think, “God must not want to do this. He doesn’t seem to be hearing me.”

If this is true, you are not seeing him as God. You are ignorant of his ways. God desires to “do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (Ephesians 3:20).

Israel asked constantly, “Can God…? Sure, he made a way for us through the Red Sea, but can he give bread?” God spread a table for them in the wilderness. “But can he give us water?” He gave them water from a rock. “But can he give meat?” He gave them meat from the sky. “But can he deliver us from our enemies?” Time after time, God provided in every area, yet they spent forty years saying, “Can God…? Can God…?”

Beloved, we ought to be saying, “God can! God can!” God can and will do all that we ask and believe him to do.

Jesus said, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:9 NKJV). We must see Jesus not as man teaches, but as the Spirit reveals him to us, as God wants us to know and see him! We are to get God’s vision and testimony of Christ, then we will know God as he desires to be known!

Here is how I believe God wants us to see his Son: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17).

Jesus was a gift! God wrapped all his resources up in Jesus. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Christ is God’s good and perfect gift to us, come down from the Father. Do you see Jesus as God’s perfect gift to you? Do you see him as all you need to live joyfully, victoriously, righteously, full of peace and rest?

Ages ago, before you were created, God saw what your hurts and needs would be. He knew ahead of time what you would need to solve all your problems. He did not wrap up his answers and send them to you as a rule book or as an army of “answer men.” No, he gave us all one solution to all our crises and needs: one man, one Way, one answer to everything we need in Jesus Christ.

God says to you, “I don’t want you to live for tomorrow. You’ll only look back and see that today could have been your very best time. Jesus can’t be any better or stronger to you than he is right now. Why won’t you let me be God to you today?”