How to Hear God's VoiceSample

Way #1: The Word of God

The first and most important way God speaks is through His Word.

This is why it’s so important that we prioritize reading and meditating on Scripture. How can you hear what God sounds like if you’re not reading what He has said? How can you discern what’s of God and what’s of the flesh if you’re not familiar with His Word?

Many people overlook a critical truth about Scripture. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword” (AMPC, emphasis added). This is what the Word of God does—it “speaks” and “is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective].” The Word has power in and of itself.

Hebrews 4:12 (AMPC) goes on to say, “It is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.”

God’s Word is energizing and sharper than a two-edged sword, having the divine ability to separate soul and spirit, joint and marrow—the very thoughts and intentions of the heart. Just as it is nearly impossible to divide the bone from the marrow, so it is with dividing the thoughts of the mind and the intentions of the heart, or the soul and the spirit. You cannot do that on your own but would need a supernatural influence.

This is exactly what the Word of God is. It is the only influence that has the ability to cut that deeply and profoundly. It’s able to divide the joint and marrow. The Word is able to separate the soul—your mind, will, and emotions, the emotional part of you—from the spirit, which is the part where the Spirit of God resides. When you prioritize studying and meditating on the Word, it will cut you. When you analyze the Word, it will analyze you. The Word will reveal what’s really in you.

The greatest way to discern the voice of the Holy Spirit is through the Word of God because the Holy Spirit will use it to expose and sift what is truly Him from what is just you. It is tremendously effective at distinguishing God’s voice from your own.

How does this apply to the everyday believer?

Let me make this practical. Perhaps someone thinks, “God has left me, because I cannot hear Him anymore.” We can discern that is a lie because Hebrews 13:5 says God will never leave us or forsake us. The Word of God exposes that thought as a fleshly, soulish response to His desire.

We must seek to harmonize with the Spirit through communion. Harmony is agreement. When we prioritize the Word of God, we come into harmony, into agreement, with what He says. When we purpose in our hearts to agree with God’s Word, we will receive that which He speaks to us.

So, the primary, most effective way God will speak to us is through His Word because it is sharp and exposes our true intentions. There is no way, other than the Word of God, to effectively discern what comes from the spirit versus the soul.