God speaks. Before there was time, God spoke within the holy trinity. Since the beginning of time, God has spoken. He spoke heaven and earth into existence. The moment he created woman and man He began speaking to them. He has never stopped speaking. It is in His nature to speak.
God conversed with Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden. He spoke to Abraham. He dialogued with Moses. He set up a tent where the people of Israel could come and interact with Him. He spoke to His prophets, of whom there are too many to list. He spoke to David and Solomon, His kings.
Jesus is known as “the Word.” Before the Word came to live on this earth, God spoke to Mary, Elizabeth, and Zechariah. During Jesus life, the Father was in constant conversation with Jesus as an example of what our lives were meant to be.
After Jesus ascended into heaven, God spoke to Paul and Ananias. God dialogued with Peter, the disciple of Jesus, and with Cornelius, the first non-Jewish person to receive the fullness of the kingdom. God continues to converse with His people today. He will never stop speaking and dialoguing with us because conversation is essential for God.
Think about how God has spoken over the centuries. He speaks in a single word, or in full sentences. He declares truth, or he dialogues with His people. He speaks through his written word. He speaks with an audible voice. He speaks to the inner man. He speaks through angels. He speaks through dreams and visions, signs and wonders. He speaks any way He pleases. He is God. It is in His nature to speak.
Just as it is in God’s nature to speak, it is in our nature to speak, to converse, to dialogue. We know this to be true because God made us in His image.
Genesis 1:26-27 tells the story…
26 “Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
From the very beginning, God put His image in us, His likeness. It is beautiful how this description in the book of Genesis includes two Hebrew words that help us understand what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God. The poetry of the Hebrew language does not offer a precise meaning, it offers a melody, sung by God when He created us. It offers some semblance of the mystery of God’s image in us.
First, the image of God in us separates us from all the rest of creation. No other part of creation was made in the image of God. The rest of creation demonstrates God’s glory and is emblazoned with the fingerprints of their creator God. Only womankind and mandkind has this immortal likeness to God engraved in our hearts.
Second, the image of God in us empowers us to be agents of God’s authority. All authority flows from the throne of God in heaven. The King sits on the throne and dispenses all power. As those made in God’s image, we can receive instructions from the King and carry His authority. In the beginning, we were given dominion over all the earth. As those made in the image of God, we are agents of the authority of the kingdom.
Third, the image of God in us enables us to be in relationship with God. God is a person, and we are His people. As people made in the image of God we exercise dominion. We also think. We communicate. We create. We speak freely. We act freely. We flourish. We love. And at the core of our relationship with God is conversation and dialogue.
The starting place for our dialogue with God is listening. This was at the core of the relationship of God with His people, the nation of Israel. In fact, hearing the voice of God was essential to unleashing the blessings of the kingdom of heaven on those who followed Him. This remains true today.
In Deuteronomy 28:1-2, the Bible says…
"Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the LORD your God…”
This promise from God is followed by the most extensive list of God’s blessings recorded anywhere in the Bible. It includes blessings for every area of our lives. There are blessings for provision and protection, for family and farm. It is a description of the abundance that God loves to provide for His children.
This beautiful promise of abundant life also comes with a condition. The Hebrew word, SHAMA, is key to understanding how our conversations with God unleash the supernatural blessings of God from heaven. The word SHAMA means to listen diligently with the intent of obeying whatever God speaks. God invites us to come to Him and listen with an intent to obey.
The expectation is that when we listen, we will hear His voice. Deuteronomy 30:9-14 explains a second aspect of our conversations with God, hearing to understand…
9 "Then the LORD your God will prosper you abundantly in all the work of your hand, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle and in the produce of your ground, for the LORD will again rejoice over you for good, just as He rejoiced over your fathers;
10 "if you obey the LORD your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and soul.
11 "For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach.
12 "It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?'
13 "Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?'
14 "But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.”
This passage begins with a reminder of what was spoken in Deuteronomy 28:1-2, that God will abundantly bless us when we listen diligently with the intent to obey. It is always good to remember that our God is a God of abundance. That His blessings always go over above and beyond anything we could think of or ask. His blessings overflow.
Yet, to receive the blessings, we must hear His voice. Hearing God speak sounds ominous or difficult. But God intends the process of hearing and obeying to be within our reach. He wants us to hear and understand. He designed us to hear from Him. He desires us to go beyond hearing to comprehending what God has said. So, He makes it clear that it is not too difficult, it is not out of our reach. In fact, it is very near to us.
It would be easy to think that the concept of a conversational relationship with God is for some brand of super-Christians, or for the great men of the faith who have believed God for mighty acts of power. But this is not true. It is for ordinary people like us.
God’s rhema and instructions are not off in some faraway place called heaven where we need someone else to make the journey and bring it back for us. It is not so far away in heaven that we need someone to go there, hear it on our behalf, and speak it to us in a way we can finally understand and obey. It is not in some faraway land where access is limited, or where we might have to explore and journey for days or years to somehow find what we fear we have missed.
The rhema God speaks is right here in our mouths and in our hearts. It is as close to us as our own voice. It is as near to us as our own breath. It is near to us in time. It is right now, today. Not tomorrow. Everyday God has something to say to us. It is near to us in space. It is right here within us, in the deepest places of our hearts. When God speaks to us, He does not just speak to our ears, He speaks to our hearts. We hear it with our ears. We understand it in our minds. We believe with our hearts.
We can feel God’s words surround us, as if they were His arms wrapping around us and holding us tight. They are near to us because they are personal. There is nothing more personal than our relationship with God. Behind every word God speaks to us is His intimate knowledge of our lives. He knows our experiences, our hurts, our dreams, our desires, our passions, our fears and even the motivations of our hearts. He knows everything that we do not know about ourselves. The nearness of God’s word is here, now, and perfectly fit to who we are and where we sit in life today.
Therefore, we dialogue with Him.
In Hebrews 10:22, we are invited to draw near to God
“Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
Can you imagine being near God and not having a conversation with Him? We have the opportunity to come into the presence of God, in His holiest place in heaven, and converse with Him. What an honor!
Ephesians 1:20 and 2:6-7 describe how God even has a special seat for us with Him in heaven…
“He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places…”
“…and [He] raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…”
Can you imagine being seated with Christ at the right and of God and not having a conversation with Him? God not only desires a dialogue with us, He invites us into the courts of heaven, where He sits on the throne, so we can better understand His judgements and the words that He speaks there. He invites us into intimate and deep conversations with Him.
So, how do we go about this conversational relationship with God? First, in our conversations with God we seek His will by letting go of our own. My mentor, Rich Case, taught me to start with a general question to allow God to speak into the different areas of my life. So, I usually start by asking, “Father, what do you have to say about this?”
To hear God’s voice in the matter, first I must completely surrender my will, just like Jesus did in the garden of Gethsemane. In order to hear clearly, the Spirit must give me Jesus words from the night before He went to the cross, “Not my will, but your well be done, Father.”
Second, in our conversations with God, we process together with Him. When God speaks to me, I do not always immediately understand what He is saying, so I ask, “What do you mean by this?” And even when I think I understand, I like to ask, “Father, what else do you have to say about this?”
When my wife, Michelle, and I first went to Italy for a one-month discovery trip, we were in agreement that God had told us to go, but we did not know why. We sought God for an answer but did not hear anything. I finally realized that we needed to go back to that simple, open-ended question for the Father. So, we asked Him, “What do you have to say about our trip to Italy?” I immediately heard the words, “Go, and I will guide you.”
God’s answer was exactly what I needed to hear. I had been learning about how God’s revelation and guidance are often progressive. He reveals a part of His instructions for us as a test of faith and obedience. He wants to see if we will receive it, believe it, and walk in it. We knew we were supposed to go and so we did.
On the trip, God began to reveal more of His plan for us in Italy. We spent several days praying through the streets in Florence and experiencing people He wanted us to meet on the way. He showed us how simple ministry in Italy could be as we walked with Him. We were also introduced to a family that owns a piece of land that has already been blessed by God. This was one of the desires of our hearts for a possible retreat center in Italy someday, something we are still pursuing. God’s revelation is always progressive.
God also loves to explain what He means when He speaks to us or gives us a sign. Before my trip to Italy last Fall, Michelle and I were out walking when we saw a double rainbow. I immediately had a sense that there was something there from God. So, I asked Him, “What do you have to say about this?” I immediately heard, God say, “I showed you two rainbows because I have two seats for you on your upcoming flights and you will fly first class.”
An acquaintance of ours, a pilot, had provided us with two standby tickets for our trip to Italy, and we were asking the Father to provide seats for us. God revealed to us what was to come, so we could relax and enjoy the trip.
As you can imagine, when we arrived at the Denver airport, we were given first class seats on our flight to New York City. It was when we landed at John F. Kennedy Airport, that things started to go sideways. There was another flight that had been cancelled, so the airlines had rerouted 25 of their employees on our flight. There were no seats available.
Our pilot friend was tracking the flights, so he called us to see if we wanted to fly to Nice instead of Milan. It would have meant a 5 hour drive to Lucca from Nice. He assured us that all the seats were taken, and we would not be on this flight.
However, since we had heard from the Father, we decided to wait. He called back again, about 30 minutes before the flight, urging us to change flights. But, since God had already shown us that He had seats for us on these flights, we waited for Him.
After everyone had boarded, the gate agent finally called us up to the podium and handed us our printed tickets. We later found out that just moments before we got our tickets, 17 seats opened up on the plane. No one could explain how those seats opened up, they just did. Of course, we knew that God had done it because that is what He said He would do. What a great testimony to the power of God’s spoken word.
He had shown us the double rainbow. We asked Him what it meant. He spoke the word regarding what it meant. And in the moment where He spoke the word, it was done. All we had to do is walk into it.
What an exciting journey it is to be invited into divine dialogue with the Almighty. He made us for conversation with Him. He invites us into His presence in heaven to converse with Him. He has prepared a seat for us in the courts of heaven to hear his voice and process His judgments and instructions. And as we walk into the instructions and rhema He gives us, we experience the supernatural and abundance of the kingdom of heaven. Heaven comes to earth.
WORSHIP: Worship God as the one who created us for conversation with Him. Bow humbly before Him and listen for His invitations, one to draw near, to be close to Him; and another, to have a seat with Him on His throne in the courts of heaven. What kind of God would do this? God wants you to be near Him, every day, all the time. Worship that God.
PRACTICE: Journal about an area of your life where you need God’s guidance. Then take some time to listen and see what God has to say about it. He may lead you to Scripture or speak instructions to you. He often does both so that what He is saying is confirmed by Scripture. Write down whatever He speaks and begin the dialogue. It is ok to ask, “Is that you God?” Feel free to inquire about what it means or to ask God, “Is there more?”
MEDITATION: The idea of conversation with God is foreign to most people, so do not be alarmed if it seems strange to you. Take some time to mediate on the different places in Scripture where God has spoken and the different ways in which God has spoken. Meditate on them long enough to let it sink in that God is a conversational God who loves to converse with you.
ABIDING: By this time, it is very possible that the Father, your Spiritual Director, has led you to a place in Scripture where He wants you to abide. As you go back and read through this teaching one more time, ask the Father if there is anything in these passages specifically for you. Look for the things that reinforce what God is teaching you at this time. Write down anything you hear from Him. Spend some extra time listening to see if the Spirit has anything more to say to you or if there is a deeper teaching for you today. Write down whatever you hear. Ask the Father if there is someone, He wants you to share this with and follow through with His assignment.
© John Santaferraro, 2020