One of the greatest benefits of the gift of speaking in tongues is the ability to hear from God. While many have received the gift, hearing from God remains a challenge for some believers, especially those who yearn to hear from the Father.
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of being able to accurately hear from God as we journey with Christ.
Often times, we have this perpetual desire to receive directions on how to navigate our day to day life, understand our purpose and fulfill our calling. The good news is that God is able to bring us to the revelation of not just the aforementioned, but every other knowledge that He desires to bring to our attention concerning our lives.
He does this through the power of the Holy Spirit when we speak in tongues. In this article, we will cover 3 major keys to hearing from God.
Purity
The basis of God speaking to us comes down to purity. Without question, God is pure and only speaks to us when we have kept our main channels of communications (Ear-gate, eye-gate and mouth-gate) pure, with the aim of preserving our hearts.
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
Proverbs 4:23
If the channels are defiled, it becomes difficult for the voice of God to get to us. Just to give an illustration, when you put your headphones on, you block out other voices and sounds around you, limiting your level of awareness.
The same principle applies in the spirit. When your ears are uncorrupted, it is easy to pick up signals from God; but when defiled, we block out the presence of God. You may ask, ‘How do I keep my ears clean?’.
It is simple. Anything that is ungodly, be it a friendly chatter, music, movies; whatever thing that is not pleasing in the eyes of God should be avoided like a plague. Reason being, it leads to a slippery slope that alters the state of our hearts, making it hard to hear from God.
You must stay away from people who involve themselves in irresponsible worldly talk, curse words, arguments and all manner of defiling words. The bible warns us against these kind of destructive idle talk.
Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.
2 Timothy 2:16
Listening to gospel songs and messages on the word of God keeps our spiritual antenna up.
How God speaks to you
But how do I know God spoke to me? There goes another question asked one too many times. The truth is, when God speaks to you, you will automatically know. In the book of John 10: 27, Jesus says ‘My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.’
This is how to hear the voice of God.
In most instances, God speaks to us in two major ways; through our thoughts and emotions. Before making a move, some of us rely on their thoughts, while others rely on gut feeling.
Our heavenly Father knows precisely how each one of us functions and the best suited way to communicate to us depending on our inclination to either thoughts or feelings.
If you lean more on your thoughts, God will plant a message in your mind when you pray in tongues. And, how do you know whether the thought is actually from God?
The message will always be backed by scripture, necessitating a good understanding of the word of God. On the other hand, if you are a person who mainly counts on your gut feeling, typically God uses His servants who rely on thoughts to reveal His message to you, confirming your intuition.
God’s training
It is worth noting that God is usually reluctant to open our spiritual senses because the spiritual realm is a very delicate space where there is a thin line between the knowledge of good and evil. In this realm, if your ears are open, you are able to hear God and at the same time hear the devil.
The devil is also very good at mimicking the voice of God, so unless your spirit is really sharp he can easily deceive you.
That’s why God will first train you, ensuring that you can accurately tell apart His voice and that of the devil before he allows you to hear from the realm of the spirit. This could be the explanation behind most believers’ inability to hear from God despite having a sincere desire to hear from Him.
One can differentiate between the voice of God and the evil one because the voice of God is aligned with scripture while the devil’s is not. Unless you understand the scriptures well, it is easy for the devil to deceive you and for this reason, God sees to it that you’re grounded in His word and you can verify your thoughts and feelings. Once you get the hang of this, you’ll begin to hear from Him.
In the beginning of hearing from God when speaking in tongues, God will start with light messages that may not have severe consequences if you get them wrong. However, the more you grow in speaking in tongues, God reveals more sensitive messages as He gives you the grace to handle them.
In summary, hearing from God is not as difficult. The heavy-lifting lies in the grooming process orchestrated by God to enable us to correctly perceive His voice so we don’t go astray. I hope you find this helpful as you open up your spiritual ears.