Hearing God (2)

In our attempts to understand how God speaks to us and guides us, we must above all hold on to the fact that this is to be sought only as a part of a certain kind of life, a life of loving relationship with the King and his other subjects within the kingdom of heavens… We must therefore make it our primary goal not just to hear the voice of God but to be mature people in a loving relationship with Him. - Dallas Willard Hearing God

Love relationship with God

What do you do when you love someone?

Marriage relationship

God is ordering us around

Hearing God cannot be a reliable and intelligible fact of life except when we see his speaking as one aspect of his presence with us, of his life in us. Only our communion with God provides the appropriate context for communication between us and him. And within those communications guidance will be given in a manner suitable to our particular lives and circumstances. - Dallas Willard Hearing God

Marriage relationship example

How do we Believe the Bible stories

They just aren’t human

Moses

David

Elijah

Paul

Peter

Jesus Christ

To understand the Bible we must read it as if what is recorded there are basically of the same type of experiences as ours would have been if we had been there.

Failure to read the Bible in this realistic manner accounts for two common problems in Christian groups that hold the Bible central to their faith. One is that it becomes simply a book of doctrine, of abstract truth about God, which one can search endlessly without encountering God himself or hearing his voice. - Dallas Willard Hearing God

John 5:38 ESV

and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.

We stop reading the Bible altogether

We take it in doses, because someone told us it is good for us.

Marriage relationship example

If we are to hear God’s voice ourselves and on an individual basis, we must above all else observe how his word came to those people described in the Scriptures. How did they experience God’s communications? what was it like for them to hear God? We must prayerfully but boldly use our God-given imaginations as we read the stories of people who encountered God. We must as ourselves what it would be like if we were Moses standing by the bush, little Samuel lying in his darkened room, Elisha under inspiration from the minstrel, Ananias receiving his vision about Paul or Peter on his rooftop. We must pray for the faith and for the experiences that would enable us to believe that such things could happen to us. Only then we be able to recognize, accept and dwell in them when they come. - Dallas Willard Hearing God