Hearing GodSample

God Speaks through Patterns & Principles in His Word

God never contradicts Himself or violates His Word. What He says, He means. What He means, He does.

If we think we hear something from God that violates the consistent message of His Word, we can be certain it’s not God.

If you hear a voice in your head saying, It’s just business. It’s okay for you to break the law to close this deal because it’s so lucrative, it’s not God. You don’t have to pray about it.

If you hear a voice in your head saying, Your spouse isn’t making you happy. You fell out of love. It happens. This other person understands you, and you have real chemistry. You both married the wrong person, but if you come together, you’ll finally be happy! This isn’t God either.

Don’t follow your heart. Don’t live your truth. None of these feelings line up with God’s Word, so you know they’re not from Him.

The best way to grow in our understanding is to learn how to read, interpret, and apply the Bible in a healthy way.

Remember, the purpose of the Bible is to show us who God is. More than a series of disconnected stories and types of ancient literature, the Bible is one story that always points us to the person of Jesus.

For example, the Bible is divided into the Old Testament (or Old Covenant) and the New Testament (or New Covenant).

The Old Testament explains how God created human beings in order to be with them, how humans disobeyed and broke the relationship, and how God worked through imperfect people toward His plan to redeem and restore all of mankind. Everything in the Old Testament shows mankind’s brokenness and need for a Savior in order to be restored to God. It all points to Jesus.

The New Testament tells the story of how Jesus, the Son of God, the Living Word, came into our world to show us what God is like. He announced the long-awaited arrival of God’s Kingdom, served, preached, performed miracles, and came to seek and save the lost. He lived a perfect life in our place and died a criminal’s death to satisfy a payment we owed but could never pay. Through His death and resurrection, He restored peace between God and humans, entrusted His mission to His disciples, and established the Church as His covenant people in the earth.

One of the most common mistakes people make in misunderstanding Scripture is reading it out of context. They pull words, phrases, verses, stories, chapters, or even books of the Bible out of context to make them mean something other than what the Bible actually says.

The Bible does not give us every answer to every personal and difficult question we face in life. But a consistent and dynamic relationship with the Word of God will make us thoroughly equipped for every good work. In other words, God has given us everything we need to hear His voice, obey, and live the life we’ve been created to live.

Peter said it this way in 2 Peter 1:3: “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”

The “SOAP” method is a helpful tool for learning to study the Bible. It stands for Scripture, Observation, Application, and Prayer.

Scripture – Start with reading a small portion of Scripture. Remember, we don’t read the Bible as disconnected chunks, but as one big story that always points us to Jesus.

Observation – Ask simple questions of the passage: Who are the characters? What are the challenges they’re facing? What do they do? What does Jesus say to them?

Application – What does this mean to you? How does what Jesus says to them fit with the big story of Scripture? What would it look like for you to live this way?

Prayer - Talk to God about what you're hearing and ask Him what He's saying.