If you wanted to become good friends with someone, what would you do? Spend time with them? Talk to them? Ask them questions? Engage in fun, challenging adventures? These are all the things that our King Jesus wants to do with you.

 

King Jesus' Apprentices are already hearing His voice. Distinguishing His voice from our own, internal voice takes time and practice and is prone to error. Follow these four steps to plug into our Good GOD to build strong, trusting relationships with Holy Spirit, then King Jesus and Papa GOD:

 

1. Set an appointment with GOD daily and then show up. If you are short on time, ask Him to make extra for you. He's GOD. This is not a 'big request' for Him to accomplish

2. Get into a happy mood by playing worship music (or Motown), walk in His creation, or admire something beautiful. All good things come from Him, so anything delightful is definitely from Him!

3. Read the Bible, journal your questions, confirm that you understood what He told you yesterday. GOD interacts with us daily through His Creation, numbers, letters, signs, videos, and other people. Ask GOD what the patterns mean. If you can't figure it out, ask GOD for X to mean Y and build a vocabulary together. This is all plugging into our Good GOD and it is amazing that the Creator of the Universe is personally communicating with us!

4. Build your relationships with GOD. Listen and write down what you think you hear our Good GOD is saying. If They ask you to do something to care for someone else, just do it. If They give you information that is completely different than what you understood the Bible said, don't reject it out of hand. Write it down and let our King Jesus backfill your understanding of the Bible so it agrees with Him. We have been playing a game of telephone for 2,000 years, so many things have gotten muddled

 

Don't get discouraged when things don't work out as you thought you planned with King Jesus. He is prioritizing building His trust-filled relationship with you rather than our success. The success is easy for Him and will come later. He can’t reward us and lift us up before others if there is a chance we will abuse them when they expect us to have our King Jesus’ strong, loving character. This mutual trust is hard-won.

 

You may hear that GOD doesn't speak to us today, that you need to test GOD'S voice against the Bible, or that you need to agree with sound, Biblical doctrines that everybody agrees upon. Think through how that would work. Can our King Jesus correct us when we get stuff wrong if we reject His corrections because He doesn't agree with us? That’s a Catch-22 situation or a no-win situation for Jesus and us. What would happen if your boss was fired for being incompetent then you refused to do things like your new boss asks because she disagrees with what your old, fired boss taught you?

 

Test the voice you are obeying by how much better you are able to love others. As you follow GOD'S voice, you will love and care for others better and better. I’m convinced we get extra credit if we love and care for our enemies and the jerks really well.

 

Hearing GOD & distinguishing GOD'S voice from our internal voice takes practice. You will make mistakes, but anything of such immense value is worth every bit of our effort. Remember, the Creator of the Universe wants to become your most trusted friend.

 

XO, Royal