Hearing The Voice Of God Series

Through constant prayer and worship, we can hear God's voice.

The more we hear Him, the more we receive fresh instructions from God for daily living.

We need to hear Him speak to us on how we should act and what we should say to people.

We need to hear Him how we should budget our finances well.

We need to hear Him how we should react to criticism and conflicts.

We need to hear Him how we pray for our nation.

There are a lot of things that we need to hear God speaking to us.

It is only those prolonged periods of prayer and worship and reading His Word that we can hear from God.

And of course, we need to make sure that it is God's voice we are hearing and NOT the voice of the adversary.

And when we know that God is talking to us, we had to make sure that we listen very, very carefully or else, we could miss his instructions.

It is really that important to hear the voice of God.

That is why today, we are going to talk especially about Hearing the Voice of God.

You see, ministry, which we talked about last week and hearing God's voice are two important aspects of the Christian life.

We cannot be able to minister well if we do not hear God's clear voice giving us His daily instructions.

The more we hear Him speak to us, the more our ministry will be meaningful and satisfying.

When we cannot hear from God, we will have difficulty ministering to God and to others.

Rick Warren, the pastor of Saddleback Church said, "We often miss hearing God's voice simply because we aren't paying attention."

That is true.

Let me also say that we often miss hearing God's voice simply because there are others things that occupy our minds.

And when our minds are fully occupied with other things, we could not hear His voice.

And so, I encourage you to hear God's voice loud and clear.

And of course, there is another important barrier we need to clear if we want to hear from God.

John 8:47(NIV) 47 Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

If you belong to God, you can fully hear and receive God's Word clearly right now with ease and joy.

Why, because of the Holy Spirit living in your life.

However, if you do not belong to God and the Holy Spirit is not in you, I assure you that you will have great difficulty comprehending everything we are going to talk about.

And so, open your hearts right now and receive the Holy Spirit so that you will have the comprehension and the understanding of God's Word.

God wants to accomplish great things in your life.

Receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

Repent from your sins and embrace His forgiveness.

And so, today, we are going to look at the way the little boy Samuel had received God's call but experienced some difficulty of comprehending the source.

God called him several times but he thought it was the priest Eli who called him.

Then, we are going to look at how he was able to clearly hear and receive God's Word and how it completely affected his thoughts and his entire life in the process.

Finally, we will look at the difficult task that Samuel faced when forced to unveil to priest Eli the Word of God that he received from God.

Our goal for today's message is to individually allow each one of us us to hear God's Word, process it in our minds and hearts so that we can be able to share God's Word to others.

I assure you than when you allow God's Word to enter deep in your soul, into your very being, the change and transformation into Christlikeness will be very evident and will have an eternal benefit.

Again, I would like to inform you that you need to make a personal response of this morning's message.

Do something about what you are hearing.

Because at the end of this message, I will challenge you to take a step of faith and come forward so that I can pray for you and anoint you with oil.

My prayer is that you will receive clearly God's Word and bring forth fruit into your life.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE THIRD CHAPTER OF 1 SAMUEL

1. SAMUEL HEARD THE CALL OF GOD

I Samuel 3:1-4 (NIV) “The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions. 2 One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. 3 The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the Lord called Samuel. Samuel answered, “Here I am.”