Ministry in Peru has been FULL of so many different and wonderul opportunities! One of those has been getting to be a part of street evangelism through dance, dramas, and testimonies. So we got to learn some of the dances the teens already knew and got to dance along with them at the town square by the beach. We also were asked if someone would want to prepare a message for the youth service. I had been working on writing one over the past few weeks, because God had laid something on my heart during my Jesus time. So I felt like God was leaning for me to share with the youth here in Peru.
At first, I thought I was going to be preparing a message for a youth service of about 30-40 minutes. Long story short we ended up staying at the square and I was asked to share a shortened version of it down there! I am not going to lie I was a bit more nervous to be sharing it with approximately 100 people that were there. Here’s the neat thing about God though! He immediately took those fears away as soon as the microphone was in my hand and I was able to clearly communicate what He had put on my heart weeks before! So I wanted to share with those who read my blogs as well!
What channel are you on?
Tonight’s main focus is about how God speaks to us and the many different ways God can speak to us.
Hearing God’s voice requires tuning into the right channels to make sure that you’re getting His voice over yours or the enemy. This take practice through every day trying to connect to hearing God’s voice through prayer or mediation.
Here’s the first thing we must know about God’s voice, that it’s powerful.
Some examples:
-God spoke creation into existence
-God spoke in a burning bush Exodus 3:1-6
-God spoke out a storm Job 38:1
-His word was made flesh John 1:14
God’s powerful voice comes in many forms and there are plenty to pull out of the Bible
-He spoke through a whisper 1 Kings 19:12
-He spoke through visions
-He can speak through peace in your heart
-He speaks through angels
-He speaks through signs and rainbows
-He speaks in parables
-He speaks through dreams in Genesis 37:5
-He speaks through creations in Romans 1:19-20
So we now know that God speaks to us, His voice is one of power, and that He has many forms of how to speak to us. Now the real question is how do we train ourselves to hear Him? Who likes to listen to music on the radio? Sometimes when you’re driving long distances you notice that one of your favorite channels begins to crackle the farther away you drive from your town. The channel will either become a new channel of music all together or it will turn into making a fuzzing noise all together. This is how it can be listening to God’s voice. The farther away you get, the harder it gets to hear His voice. You have to get close and tuned into the right channel hear His voice, so are you on the right channel?
When we are walking in relationship with God and we are studying His word each day. When we are pressing into that every single day we remain on a channel that is directly aligned with hearing the voice of God. Then something distracts you…like maybe you start only reading the Bible once a week or even less. Or maybe you start getting side tracked with keeping your days so busy that you forget to pray. Now all the sudden your channel begins to shift slightly to the right. And then let’s say after that you end up going to a party and are tempted to drink alcohol or try drugs for the first time. And now you are skipping youth group or church on Sundays because you’d rather be out partying and doing other things. You are now 6 notches away from God’s channel and are becoming more and more misaligned with it. And then you wonder why you can’t hear God talking to you?
This is how I lived my late teenage and college years. I turned away from God and began to get involved in all the wrong things. I was drinking and partying heavily on the weekends. I was getting into unhealthy relationships with guys. I was just wanting to live my life how I wanted and yet I felt so empty inside. I constantly felt misaligned and like I was missing out on something greater. It wasn’t until I hit the lowest point in my life that I ran back to the Father.
I had to completely realign my life back up with God’s in order to be on the right channel, in order to hear His voice. I needed to build that firm foundation so that it didn’t matter what trial came my way, I would stay planted on the channel of God.
There’s a great example in the Bible of someone that no matter what trial came his way, he stayed focused and tuned into God. God spoke clearly to this person through dreams and because of his determination to press into God, he was given so many more blessings.
Genesis 37:1-8
“This is the account of Jacob and his family. When Joseph was seventeen years old, he often tended his father’s flocks. He worked for his half brothers, the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. But Joseph reported to his father some of the bad things his brothers were doing. Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph a beautiful robe. But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn’t say a kind word to him. One night Joseph had a dream and when he told his brothers about it they hated him more than ever. “Listen to this dream, he said. We were out in the field, tying up bundles of grain Suddenly my bundle stood up and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine! His brothers responded So you think you will be our king do you? Do you actually think you will reign over us? And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them.”
Jospeh continues to have another dream and told his brothers and father. When his father sent him out to check on his brothers who had went out to the pasture, his brothers decided they were going to kill him and throw him in a cistern. Rueben came up with a new scheme to not kill him, but to just throw him out in the empty cistern and let nature have it’s way. So as Joseph approached them they threw him in the empty cistern. Right after that, a group of Ishmaelite traders passed by, so they decided to sell Joseph for twenty pieces of silver. Joseph was sold to Potiphar, and officer of Pharaoh.
It picks up later in Genesis 39 of the rest of Joseph’s story. Even though this time could have been a time of great sorrow for Joseph and a time to question God, instead he remained faithful. In verse 2 it said “the Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master. Potiphar noticed this and realized that the Lord was with Joseph giving him success in everything he did. This pleased Potiphar, so he soon made Joseph his personal attendant.”
Things were going well for Joseph here until Potiphar’s wife tried to come after him in a relational way. She continued to pressure him but he refused. His refusal sent a false accusation that ended up with Joseph in prison. Again, this is a time that Joseph couldn’t have turned from God, hurt and confused. He remained aligned with God’s channel and how he wanted to use him, and he was blessed for this. He was given great authority in the prison, interpreted two dreams for the cup bearer and chief baker of the pharaoh, and two years after that was able to interpret a dream for the Pharaoh. Joseph became in charge of the entire land of Egypt as second-in-command.
Joseph had so many times God used the channel he had with Joseph to communicate to him, through dreams and encounters with others. Because Joseph’s faith didn’t waver and he chose to keep pressing into God, God returned an abundance of blessings to him.
So how can we continuously choose God’s channel?
-Make a daily choice to have a non-negotiable time in the Word every day
-Set aside time each day to fine tune into hearing the voice of God
-Ex. Meditation on God’s word, finding a place you hear His voice best
-Figure out in the different ways God speaks, does He speak to you best?
-ex. Dreams, visions, creation, whisper, peace, others
I will close with this challenge. How different would your day to day life look if you heard from the voice of God every day? I encourage you all tonight to align yourself with the channel of God. To fill your daily life with Him so much that He is in every part of it. I also challenge you to when you hear the voice of God, to listen to his promptings, because anytime people in the Bible encountered God’s voice it altered their life.
