How Do You Know if God is Speaking to You?

[Praxeas]

In Christianity there is no end of people claiming God told them this or God told them that. Is it always God when someone thinks God spoke to them? I ask this because a poster said God told her that it would be ok to use a cuss word if she wanted to.... Are we prone to thinking God is speaking to us when He really is not and perhaps we are led more by feelings and over active imaginations? Just curious and BTW I've wondered this for a long time so the other post just sort of reminded me. This is not meant to be a reflection on her

[hometown guy]

1Jn 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

[OP_Carl]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

How Do You Know if God is Speaking to You?

You'll hear the voice of George Burns or Morgan Freeman asking you to do crazy stuff you'd NEVER do otherwise . . .

Originally Posted by Praxeas

In Christianity there is no end of people claiming God told them this or God told them that. Is it always God when someone thinks God spoke to them? I ask this because a poster said God told her that it would be ok to use a cuss word if she wanted to.... Are we prone to thinking God is speaking to us when He really is not and perhaps we are led more by feelings and over active imaginations? Just curious and BTW I've wondered this for a long time so the other post just sort of reminded me. This is not meant to be a reflection on her

This is why it is important to allocate some of our prayer time to listening, so we become more accustomed to that still, small voice.

Using just logic, easily less than one-fourth of actions taken by people believing they were spoken to by God are truly divine orders.

First, look at the actions and see if they align with scripture or not. The half that don't were performed by people who were obviously not hearing from God.

Of the remaining group of actions, it can be further divided into various categories:
Conscience
Guilt
Worry
Peer pressure
Random dreams
ulterior motives
the true voice of God

I am probably overly cautious on this subject. There is a cultural imperative to avoid anything that even remotely appears to be similar to the latter rain movement.

A lot of it has to do with our own preconceived notions. God can use anybody - ANYBODY. Somebody could come up to you with a true word from God for you, and you could reject it because they don't "look the part" in your eyes. God looks for availability, not ability.

[MrsMcD]

I believe we blame God for too much stuff that he had nothing to do with.

[PraiseHymn]

Its a matter of checks and balances. If and when you think God is speaking to you, it will clearly line up with His Word. Anything you want to know, is found in the Word of God and if you can find what your hearing in the Word, then you KNOW its GOD!

[Timmy]

Had a discussion of this in Deep Waters, a while back: When God speaks.

A snippet:

How likely is that God, who is a lot smarter than you and I, would use a method of communication that is unreliable, filled with potential for abuse, and is in fact abused all the time? I submit that there is no way to know whether any potential message from God is really from God or not. It's not just difficult to know. It's impossible.

If it's impossible to tell, what is the point?

This was after some of the verification methods were discussed, like lining up a message with Scripture (which may eliminate some false messages but doesn't prove any true ones) and knowing it "deep inside" (yeah, that's always reliable ).

[ILG]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

In Christianity there is no end of people claiming God told them this or God told them that. Is it always God when someone thinks God spoke to them? I ask this because a poster said God told her that it would be ok to use a cuss word if she wanted to.... Are we prone to thinking God is speaking to us when He really is not and perhaps we are led more by feelings and over active imaginations? Just curious and BTW I've wondered this for a long time so the other post just sort of reminded me. This is not meant to be a reflection on her

But it will always be a reflection.

[ReformedDave]

The sure way is that Scripture is the voice of God today. What He reveals to me is in direct correlation to what I've hidden in my heart.

[Timmy]

Originally Posted by ReformedDave

The sure way is that Scripture is the voice of God today. What He reveals to me is in direct correlation to what I've hidden in my heart.

Sure way? You mean if a possible message agrees with Scripture, that proves that it literally came from God? That message, at that time?

[Elizabeth]

I have heard it said-

God sounds like his word and his word sounds like God-