Hearing from God should never be a peripheral or throwaway subject in the life of a Christian. By and large, the traditional evangelical church in America and Europe has shied away from this subject — and I understand why. Sometimes the only examples we have seen of people who try to hear from God are poor ones: people of little character; people who have not heard from God and thought they had; people who take authority or manipulate others; people who have made a colossal mess in their own lives and in the body of Christ with this subject.
If you are reading this and thinking, “Yes, Graham, I have seen all of those things,” I completely agree with you. Yet the antidote — the response to somebody hearing from God poorly — is not to back away from the subject. It is to press into the Bible and say, “Some people do this wrong, but I want to learn how to do it correctly. I want to learn how to do it well.”
Poor Examples Do Not Cancel the Gift
As written in 1 Corinthians 14:1, “Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy” (NKJV). The entire thrust of New Testament teaching on the supernatural — really the main area in the epistles that addresses spiritual gifts, prophecy, and related matters — is found in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14.
Paul is writing to a church that famously loves the supernatural — and that has real problems: sexual sin within the fellowship; people getting drunk at the communion table. This is not the star church. This is the black sheep of the family. From the context, they love speaking in tongues, and they seem to be abusing that gift.
Paul’s response is not to abolish tongues. His response is: I want you all to speak in tongues; I speak in tongues more than all of you — but let us do it correctly. Let us not allow it to overtake everything else. It is one gift amongst many, yet not the most important. It is to be operated in the context of love.
Paul begins in 1 Corinthians 13: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal” (NKJV). He does not say do not do it. He says do it out of love. Do not do it to puff yourself up and show, “Hey, I speak in tongues. I am more spiritual than you.”
The answer to a poor example of something is the right example of something. When I am taking an offering, I will often say the antidote to the love of money is not the lack of money. The antidote to the love of money is the love of Jesus. Can you solve your love-of-money problem by getting rid of all your money? No — because the love of money has nothing to do with your bank account. It has to do with the current state of your heart. Freedom from the love of money does not come from having none. It comes from having Jesus ruling and reigning, from seeing Him for who He truly is — the desire of the nations.
We need to learn to do this well. You might disagree with me. Maybe you are in a different stream of the body of Christ and they are rocking with this one. But I would say by and large, if we look at the entirety of the church, where are we on our journey of hearing from God? I do not think we are doing very well. I really do not think we are doing very well.
A Conversational Fatherhood Relationship
As written in John 10:27, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (NKJV). I believe the vast majority of the body of Christ is not anchored in a conversational fatherhood relationship with God — where He is constantly saying, “I love you”; where He is affirming, correcting, telling us off, declaring His righteousness, and leading. Most people simply do not have that conversational relationship.
I have been involved in a situation that was heartbreaking: somebody stepped into real and serious sin. The spouse made the comment that this person never really knew the reality of God’s love for them. It was a concept. It was a doctrine. They were not anchored in that. I think the body of Christ is terribly about that.
Most people do really poorly when it comes to having God lead them through the decisions of their lives. Ask about major decisions and sometimes you hear spiritual hocus-pocus: “I am praying about it. I am waiting on the Lord.” A few years later, they are still waiting. They live in the waiting lounge of life instead of on the plane going somewhere.
I think many churches are not hearing from God in terms of the decisions they are taking — the direction, the strategy. I would also say the same of the wider body of Christ. I am an American. I live in America now. I think it is fair to say that in America we are not in a great place when it comes to nationwide voices hearing from God. The last time a whole group of people tried to raise voices, they prophesied who was going to win an election and got it completely, utterly wrong. Some of them repented. Some of them twisted themselves into a spiritual pretzel trying to explain it away.
My point is not to critique, criticize, belittle, bemoan, or put down anybody. It is actually to say: great. We are where we are. Let us learn. Let us grow. Let us arise. Let us believe God for key things, for big things. Let us allow God to take us into some new places. Let us learn from our mistakes.
Hearing Alone Is Not Enough
As written in 2 Peter 1:19, “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (NKJV). It is vital the church learns to hear from God. Yet hearing from God is not enough. When we hear from God, what do we do with what we hear?
So often we get attracted to the supernatural — the revelation, the manifestation of what the Lord does. I do not think we always do a great job of interpreting that, of applying it. The bottom line with the prophetic is that it has to be useful. We do not have place for things that serve no purpose.
I have had many times — literally many times — people give me a word, literally write a word down, and I look at it and go, “Yeah, okay, that is nice. But what do we do with it? What difference would that make in my life? What does do look like with this?”
So often people will give words that are very generic: “You are moving into a new season, and a door is opening, and God is going to raise up some and set down others, and transition is coming. There is going to be a new anointing for a new equipping for a new season.” Is that false prophecy? Is it wrong? Is it of the devil? No. It is just so generic and so low-level that it can actually never be wrong.
Sometimes somebody will give me a word, and I will say, “Hey, come on, let us interact with it a bit. Bring your paper in. Do not just leave it in my office in-tray. Bring it in and talk to me.” I will often ask them: What would the world look like if that were true? What do we need to do to prepare if that were true? How would I know if that word was not true? What utility is it?
I think the Lord wants to give people words like the seven years of plenty and seven years of famine — words so that Joseph, who is hearing from God, could get ready and do something and act on the word he received.
Tested Words That Then Test You
As written in 1 Thessalonians 5:20–21, “Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good” (NKJV). The Bible itself is a prophetic word, as 2 Peter 1 teaches. That word has been purified. It has been tested. You do not test God’s Word. God’s Word will test you.
With a prophetic word — like you and I hearing from God, or another person — we need to test it. We need to judge those words. After you test them, if they really are from God, they will test you. Joseph learned to hear from God, I think at times by getting it wrong, when he learned to hear from God — like with his dream about his brothers bowing down before him.
We can grow. We can develop. We can learn in this area. Revelation is hearing from God. Interpretation is how we understand and process what God has said. Application is what we actually do with what we have heard from God.
Conclusion
The antidote to hearing from God poorly is not silence. It is learning to hear correctly, to judge wisely, and to act usefully. The church that loves the supernatural without love, without testing, and without application will keep making the same messes. The believer who presses into Scripture, who wants a conversational fatherhood relationship with God, and who asks of every word, “What does do look like?” — that believer is on the path Paul pointed the Corinthians toward.
Let me challenge you: do not back away from hearing God because you have seen it done badly. Press into the Bible. Learn to do it well. Seek revelation that can be interpreted, and interpretation that leads to application — words like Joseph received, that prepare you to act.
Scriptures for Study
John 10:27, 1 Corinthians 12:1, 1 Corinthians 12:7, 1 Corinthians 13:1, 1 Corinthians 14:1, 1 Corinthians 14:39, 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21, 2 Peter 1:19-21, Genesis 41:25-32, Genesis 37:5-11, Proverbs 3:5-6, Isaiah 30:21, Jeremiah 33:3, Psalm 32:8, Psalm 46:10, Romans 8:14, Romans 8:16, Acts 2:17, Hebrews 5:14, James 1:5, 1 John 4:1, Revelation 2:7, Habakkuk 2:2-3, Amos 3:7, Numbers 12:6
10 Questions for Reflection
- Where have poor examples of hearing God caused you to pull back rather than press into Scripture?
- How would you describe your conversational fatherhood relationship with God — concept, doctrine, or lived reality?
- In what major life decisions have you lived in the “waiting lounge” instead of moving forward with the Lord?
- When you receive a prophetic word, do you ask what do looks like, or do you stop at how it made you feel?
- Which generic prophetic phrases have you accepted that could never be wrong because they say almost nothing?
- How does Paul’s handling of tongues in Corinth reshape your view of correcting misuse without quenching the gift?
- What would change if you treated the antidote to poor prophecy as right practice rather than retreat?
- How do you currently test a word before you hold fast to it?
- Where might God want to give you a Joseph-type word that requires preparation and action?
- What one step will you take to grow in revelation, interpretation, and application?
