Spiritual As You Want To Be

We just finished our first full week of teaching here at YWAM Orlando. The amazing, incredible and anointed John Bills was teaching us on Hearing the Voice of God. It was the perfect first week of teaching to launch us into this training experience. Being able to hear God’s voice is crucial for any Christian, but someone considering missions? It’s necessary. So John spent 5 days, about 3 hours a day, instructing us and leading us on this topic.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually been taught on hearing the voice of God. I had heard people talk about hearing God’s voice, but no one has ever taught me how. Or what to expect. Along with the teaching this week, I read our first required reading assignment as well, Is That Really You, God? by YWAM founder, Loren Cunningham. Through this book I discovered how influential hearing God’s voice was and is in launching YWAM. Through Loren’s story, John’s teaching, and my own personal desires, I was inspired to dive headfirst into this teaching and see what God had for me.

And God did not disappoint. I discovered that God is always communicating to us, we just have to stop and listen and ask Him to speak for us. He longs for conversation with us. It’s like the anticipation that builds when you haven’t talked to a loved one in awhile. That’s God. Just waiting for us to wake up, or stop what we are doing, and communicate with Him. Such a different heart perspective that I had on God previously. I always saw prayer as my chance to confess everything I’ve done wrong and tell God what I need. I never used it as a tool for Him to speak to me! That’s probably the most exciting thing I took away from this week of teaching. But I’ll try to give you a few more nuggets, just so you can have an idea of the depth of this week.

- Jesus doesn’t need to be made Lord in our lives. He already IS Lord. All we need to do is accept His Lordship.
- There are 4 distinct voices that we hear: voice of God, voice of the enemy, voice of others, and the voice of self. We must be vigilant in distinguishing which voices we are listening to and obeying.
- The primary way God communicates is through His Word. Other ways include an inner voice, an audible voice, peace, daily devotions, leadership, other believers, visions, dreams, angels, songs, and even more! The key to recognizing what is from God is to check everything against Scripture and by knowing the character of God. He is not of confusion and fear. His words bring life and peace.
- The enemy knows the damage we can cause to this world, and his greatest tool against us is apathy. He does not want Christians in active communication with our God. Because that leads us to action.
- Intercession is standing in the gap for someone or something. By being an intercessor, we are praying just a little bit of God’s heart.
-We will be as spiritual as we want to be. God isn’t holding himself back from us. He longs to be in close relationship. It’s our diligence and willingness that brings us into that close relationship with Him.

Obviously, there’s so much more to these thoughts than what I’ve listed. I have pages and pages of notes from this week. If you want to know more about any of all this, let me know!

I seriously can’t believe this is only the first week! I’ve said it several times already, but if EVERY WEEK is like this week, I’m not gonna be the same person who leaves Orlando. Seriously. I’m getting wrecked.