Tag Archives: hearing God

Hearing from God (part 1)

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Twenty three years ago, hubby and I were in Israel on a work party painting a hospital in Nazareth. Whilst there, we also toured around and since it was part of a subject for our theological degrees, we had lots of biblical input from various people.

Unfortunately I don’t remember it all. But the thing I most remember is walking down the hill from the place where Jesus may have given his sermon on the mount to the Sea of Galilee. As our group chatted away, we passed an old arab shepherd and his small flock of about ten sheep. Due to our noise, we frightened the sheep and they ran off in all directions. The shepherd quietly uttered a couple of arabic words and the entire flock of sheep immediately stopped and ran back to him.

I was flabbergasted.

I had been brought up on a dairy farm in Tasmania and we had some sheep from time to time (mainly for the freezer). Sheep in Tasmania never obeyed your voice.

These sheep did.

As I pondered this, I realised the main difference was the shepherd was sitting with these sheep all day. They knew they were safe with him. They knew his voice.

It made the passage in John 10 come alive for me that day “My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me.” (John 10:27)

Basically, to hear God’s voice, it requires us to be intimate with Him. To spend time with Him. To recognise His methods of communicating with us, His love languages, His voice, His nuances, His tone. I don’t know about you, but I want to hear clearly from God, to be able to instantly recognise Him.

If we want to become proficient in prophesying, we need to get close to God. Prophesying is communicating what’s on God’s heart to others. We can only know God’s heart when we are intimate with Him.

When I teach on this subject, I begin by giving biblical examples of God communicating His heart to His people and also a biblical perspective of God expecting that we will be intimate with Him and hear His voice. I then cover the three different voices we can listen to, the different ways that we can hear, sense or see what God is communicating, and then lead people through the practical steps of hearing God for themselves.

As Christians, part of our responsibility in our relationship with Jesus is to get to know Him, know His voice and follow Him.

In learning to begin to prophesy, we need to become proficient at hearing and recognising God’s voice.

Three Different Voices we can hear:

I believe that there are 3 different voices we can hear – God’s, Satan’s, and our own. (Sometimes we can also hear other people’s voice’s but I won’t cover that today.) It can be difficult to discern between them and it takes practice.

I find that children usually pick up God’s voice quickly because they don’t seem to have as much ‘junk’ in their thinking about whether or not what they heard or sensed was really from God or was it just their own thoughts etc.

What does God’s voice sound like?

God is always good. His voice is always kind, encouraging and uplifting. It never condemns. God is all about relationship and drawing us into a closer relationship with Him. He desires to share His secrets with us. He has great thoughts towards us. God’s voice is patient, loving, positive, comforting, safe, encouraging, peaceful, truthful and kind.

God will never trick us or contradict the Bible or go against His character and nature. He brings life. God’s voice will sound like the fruit of the Spirit (Galations 5:22-23) – love, joy, peace, patient, kind, gentle etc.

How do you know what God’s character and nature is like? Spend time getting to know God. Ask Him questions. He loves answering our questions.

Satan’s Voice:

Satan’s voice is full of condemnation, accusations and lies. He desires to bring us down and discourage us, to confuse us and make us feel guilty. His voice will not sound encouraging. It will make us feel worse. It is critical, negative, full of lies. It kills all hope. It is not uplifting. It sounds like his character (Galations 5:20-21) – angry, intimidating, jealous, bringing shame, guilt, doubt and fear.

Our voice:

One way we know when it is our own voice inside our head is if it is self focussed or if it majors on our desires. If the voice says, “How embarrassing” or “I want..” then it is most likely coming from myself.

One way I know if it is my own voice is that it will try and reason with human logic & what is already known. It may try and justify or be logical. It usually doesn’t contain any new information. It will speak what is best for us and our expectations and can go around in circles.

Sometimes we can confuse our own voice with God’s. Lots of times I believe that we give ourselves too much credit and spend time wondering if it was our own thoughts instead of God’s.

I love the idea of the first thought principle. Whenever you are asking God about something, grab the very first thought that goes through your mind. I usually find that it is a fleeting thought that rushes through. That thought is from God but this only truly works if you are in a healthy place with God at the time.

Different ways of hearing from God:

God is a creative God. He wants a relationship with us. Since He is creative, He hasn’t just created one way that we interact with Him. He has created a multitude of ways that we can interact with Him and hear His thoughts and desires towards us.

  • Auditory – loud voice, still small voice, songs, sounds
  • Visual – pictures, colours, symbols, vision, dreams, angels
  • Emotions/physical sensations
  • Other senses eg smell, taste,
  • Through reading the Bible
  • Impressions / ‘gut’ feeling
  • Spontaneous thought
  • Other – nature, music, numbers, and more

I like to bring it down to three broad areas of receiving something from God:

  • What is God telling me?
  • What is God showing me?
  • What is God giving me?

Another way of saying it is, “What does God want to show, tell, or give me?”

Our Imagination:

I find that God uses our imagination. He gave us our imagination in the first place. Usually though we have been exposed to movies, books, things that are not always helpful in keeping our imagination clean so that God can use it effectively.

To begin with, it’s great to pray a short prayer. An example is:

“Father God, I’m sorry for the things that I have seen, watched and read that are not of you. I ask you to come and please wipe my imagination clean. Can you please replace any images and thoughts that are not from you with your thoughts and images. Please cleanse my eyes so that I can see you and my ears so that I can hear you. I want to hear, see and feel from you. Thank you God. Amen”

How to hear God clearer: positioning oneself to hear more from God

  • Be intentional – desire to be more intimate with Father God, Holy Spirit, Jesus
  • Confess known sin
  • Worship Him
  • Spend time with God reading the Bible
  • Quieten yourself down and get rid of distractions
  • Soak – play some quiet worship music that allows you to sit / lie in God’s presence and meditate on Him.
  • Be open-minded – God doesn’t always work the same way. He loves trying new things and methods. God is creative. He wants to romance you with the unexpected.
  • Ask God what is on His heart for you and expect Him to answer.
  • Grab the first thought that goes through your mind (as long as you are in a healthy mindset). This ‘first thought’ principle is usually always God.

Today’s blog is part 1 of a 4 part series. Next week I will be covering the practical steps of how to hear God for yourself.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Grab some playdough and distribute among everyone at the table. Pair up and ask everyone to make the following for their partner out of playdough. Ask them to create what God sees when He looks at their partner.

2. Group Activation: Beforehand, place a number of various supermarket objects in a bag. Ask for 5 volunteers to go up the front. Blindfold them. Ask for 5 more people to come and stand one in front of each of the blindfolded volunteers. Get the blindfolded people to put their hand in the bag and select an item. Based on what that item feels like and reminds them of, get each blindfolded person to give a prophetic word over the person standing in front of them. At the end, ask each person who received a prophetic word to give feedback to their blindfolded person based on how accurate and ‘weighty’ the prophetic word felt and whether or not it raised any emotions within them ie how it ‘felt’.

3. Beginner Activation: Spend time with God asking Him to give you a particular song to encourage yourself with. Go with the first song that comes into your head (if it is encouraging). Then sing the song. Ask God why He gave you that particular song.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to highlight a particular person to you who needs encouragement. Ask God to show you a Biblical story or person from the Bible that reminds God of this person. Ask God why that person/story etc. Share this with your person who needs encouragement.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to reveal the name of a country to you that you don’t know much about. Craft/write a prophetic word for this country. Then pray it through. Pray a blessing over the country and its people as well.

Physical Words of Knowledge part 2

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Woman suffering from toothache tooth pain.Several weeks ago on a Sunday morning, I woke up with a horrific headache. I was a tiny bit alarmed as I lay in bed wondering what to do. It was cold and I didn’t relish the idea of getting out of bed but as I determined that this was not a normal headache, I realised I needed to get up and take some analgesia. The pain was not in a circle pressing in nature which is what I sometimes get if it is due to a demonic presence / witchcraft issue. It was not at the front like my normal headache symptoms or at the back like a neck issue. This was a boring type of pain right in the middle of my head, slightly to the right. The pain was strong and I knew I needed to deal with it. I prayed for God to take it away with no apparent effect. Thus I reluctantly hopped out of bed, went to the kitchen and swallowed the appropriate tablets.

The pain continued without relief which shocked me somewhat. I am used to neurofen taking away any headache and it was certainly not working this time. I ended up taking more tablets than is recommended as the pain was severe and didn’t ease at all with the medication. I needed to go to church that morning as hubby had only had his neck operation the previous week and was still unable to drive and our daughter was on duty in the children’s ministry. We live a 45 minute drive from church with no people nearby whom could take our daughter.

As I was standing in worship at the beginning of the service, I suddenly wondered if perhaps this headache wasn’t really ‘mine’ but a word of knowledge. Earlier this year I had prayed to God and asked if He would give me physical words of knowledge. Whilst on a mission trip to Cambodia earlier in the year, I received some physical words of knowledge but I hadn’t operated in this since then.

As soon as I realised that perhaps this may be a word of knowledge, I stopped and asked God what should I do next. Immediately two people came to mind. A close friend’s father had just been diagnosed with a tumour in his head that was positioned almost exactly where I was feeling the pain. There was also a member of the church who had been admitted to hospital with serious neurological issues and the doctors had been unable to determine the cause. Thus, since God had brought those people to my mind, I prayed for both of them there, just quietly during worship. As soon as I had prayed for them, my headache instantly disappeared. Wow – it was amazing. I must confess that I instantly wished that I had thought of that earlier and had not had to suffer the pain for over 5 hours!!

After further reading and reflection, I have come to realise that words of knowledge felt physically are quite common. We need to be able to discern, though, what ‘belongs’ to us and what doesn’t. For instance, if you normally suffer from an ear ache and you feel an ear ache whilst you are asking God to reveal words of knowledge to you, then that may well be your own ear ache and not a word of knowledge about someone else. The headache I suffered had a very unusual pain for me ie I had never experienced that sort of headache pain before.

The physical symptom will disappear immediately you ‘release’ that word of knowledge. Even if you don’t see a person healed, or no-one responds to the word of knowledge, once you have released it and done your part, then the physical symptom will usually immediately disappear from your body.

Please be aware that feeling a word of knowledge doesn’t automatically assume complete healing for the other person. It may well occur and it usually does but it may simply be that God is growing you or wanting to communicate His love to the other person through that method.

Some practical ideas to help you grow in the use of physical words of knowledge:

  • Step out in faith and try it by asking God.
  • Practice tuning in with God, asking Him to show you and catch the first thought through your mind. It may be a fleeting thought through your mind as a word or feeling and it may be easy for you to doubt due to the ‘vagueness’ of it.
  • The physical feeling may be a pain or discomfit that doesn’t go away and isn’t something that you normally experience.
  • Be as specific as you can be as the more specific you are the more it builds faith in you and in the other person.
  • Don’t add to the word of knowledge. Don’t presume that if you see a certain image then you say what you normally believe about it. Just state the facts.
  • Don’t use the words “God told me…” etc. Instead say something like “I sense that someone has a right knee pain that is on the outside of the knee…” Ask God if an injury or accident caused the physical issue, and share that if appropriate as the more specific the more it is harder to doubt.
  • Have the right character and the right attitude. If you are humble and compassionate, instead of arrogant, then even if no-one responds to the word of knowledge, it hasn’t offended anyone but God’s grace has reigned.
  • Just because no-one responds, it doesn’t mean that you have heard wrong. I can count oodles of times in the Healing Rooms situation when one of my team member’s has asked a question and the person receiving prayer has said that it doesn’t apply to them, yet I am cheering silently that my team member is spot on but the other person either doesn’t want to admit it or doesn’t realise it is true. People need a ‘way out’ gracefully so be gentle and careful with how you say words of knowledge.
  • Be accountable to someone to help you work through what is of God and what is of you.
  • God wants to give you words of knowledge because He wants you to use them. Don’t let fear rob you and also rob the receiver who might have been healed by what you could have shared.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Have sheets of paper prepared with an outline of a human body on it. Hand a sheet out to everyone present together with a pencil/pen/crayon etc. Ask God to show everyone any body part which God wants to heal today. Ask everyone to draw on that part of the body that they feel God is showing them. Usually children are very quick at immediately getting words of knowledge. Once that is finished, then look for people whom that fits and ask that particular child to pray for that symptom.

2. Group Activation: Spend some time in worship as a group and ask God to reveal to everyone present a physical word of knowledge about a medical condition/issue relevant to someone else in the group. Take it in turns to share what you felt and ask if it relates to anyone present. If so, pray for the person it applies to.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to give you a physical word of knowledge about someone you know and to show you who it is for. Contact that person, ask them in a caring manner if it applies to them, and if so, if you can pray for them.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to give you a physical word of knowledge for someone you will meet today in a shop. Be on the lookout for this person and courageously ask if it applies to them and if so, offer to pray for them.

5. Advanced Activation: Spend time with God asking Him to show you a prevalent current medical condition in your culture eg here in Australia, chronic fatigue syndrome plus also food intolerances and allergies are prolific. Ask God to reveal to you the root cause or background to this. Spend some time seeking God’s heart as to what He would have you do as a result of what He has revealed to you.

Words of Knowledge part 1

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litlle cute blond boy tired sad isolatedThe definition from Wikipedia is often defined as “the ability of one person to know what God is currently doing or intends to do in the life of another person. It can also be defined as knowing the secrets of another person’s heart.” In other words, it is a  supernatural revelation of information from the Holy Spirit.

The Bible talks about this in 1 Cor. 2:12-13 where Paul writes, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches”. Also in 1 Corinthians 12:8 “For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit”.

There are numerous occasions in the Bible when people received a supernatural revelation of information about another person or their situation. A couple of examples include: John 1:47 where Jesus saw Nathaniel approaching him and received a word of knowledge. Acts 5:1-11 with Ananias and Sapphira. 1 Samuel 9-10 with Samuel and the donkeys. I Kings 14:2-3 Ahijah’s prophecy against Jeroboam. 2 Kings 5:20-27 Gehazi’s deceit with Naaman.

An example of this is several years ago, our family was driving to church for our Saturday morning’s Healing Rooms. We had been encouraged to ask God to reveal to us any conditions or names of people whom God wanted to heal. Usually when we do this, we come up with a whole list of at least 10-12 conditions. My son, who would have been about 7 years old at the time said diabetes, hospital and a certain boy’s name. We wrote it down and pondered that perhaps someone was on the way to hospital or had just been discharged from hospital etc. At the end of the morning, we reviewed the conditions and realised that we had not seen this person. It was easy to dismiss this as he ‘got it wrong’. However several days later we heard that a friend’s son (with the exact name that my son had said) had been admitted to hospital and diagnosed with diabetes on that day. Thus, we made a visit to this boy in hospital. He wasn’t healed from our prayer. I do believe though that it communicated that God was caring for him and tried to show His love to him by this.

Words of knowledge are often used for healing but it is not an absolute for healing. In other words, when words of knowledge about a physical condition are given, you can expect that God wants to heal the person but it is not always the case. Usually a word of knowledge builds faith in the person who needs the healing and also in the person who received the word of knowledge. It is usually very comforting to the person with the physical complaint and communicates that God is aware of them and their need. It doesn’t always translate that this person will be healed then, but most likely. If the person is not healed then, it is no one’s fault. Please never start questioning whose lack of faith it was etc. Sometimes God just wants to communicate His love to this person and that He knows this person’s situation.

Words of knowledge don’t always have to relate to healing. It may be about a certain situation, or to travel to a certain area, or about a specific situation that a church is facing and the breakthrough required etc. God cannot be limited and will use whatever means He likes to communicate so as to achieve His purpose.

When a Christian receives a word of knowledge about someone who is not a christian who needs a certain healing and then sees that person, shares what God has shown them and prays for them on the spot and that person experiences healing, it often results in that person responding to Jesus. It is hard to dispute a physical demonstration of the power of God in the name of Jesus. It is an amazing demonstration that Jesus is concerned about them.

The more specific the word of knowledge is, the more faith it tends to build in the people involved. If the word of knowledge is received through feeling something physical eg pain, it is helpful if the kind of pain and its exact location is stated. The person receiving the word should be careful not to change it, not to add to it, and not to dismiss any little detail about it that may seem insignificant.

God can communicate words of knowledge to us in several different ways. There is never one prescription with God. He is supreme and can use whatever method He chooses. Several of those ways are:

  • Physical eg pain in a part of your body that is not yours. A sudden left knee pain when you have never had left knee pain before just before you pray for someone etc.
  • Empathetic feeling – feeling a strong emotion eg fear, suicide, loneliness which you know is not from you or how you feel.
  • Mental picture or see an image – eg a body part, a car accident, a picture of someone getting hurt or in a particular situation. You may read a word written (invisibly to everyone else) over someone’s head or see a newspaper headline.
  • An impression or just ‘know’ that you know – a sense in your mind that someone has a particular condition or is feeling a particular way.
  • A dream or vision of someone with a health problem or you with a new health problem which you don’t have etc.
  • Automatically the words tumble out of your mouth as if by the Holy Spirit whilst chatting or praying with someone about something you were totally unaware of.

In next week’s blog (part 2), I will be sharing more specifically about physical words of knowledge and how to recognise these.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3)

1. Children / Families Activation: Hand out blank cards to everyone and explain that as a group you will ask God to give you encouraging words and things from Him to write or draw on the cards. Ask God to show everyone what sort of car the person is driving to whom this picture/words are for eg blue station wagon, silver Ford, red Toyota etc. You will then go to a car park and find the cars you were shown or told about and put these cards on the windscreens of those cars.

2. Group Activation: As a group quieten before God and spend a few moments asking God to reveal words of knowledge to everyone in the group and listening to what He is saying and showing. Take it in turns to share what you felt/saw/perceived etc and ask if it relates to anyone present.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to give you a word of knowledge for someone at church or a Bible study group next time you meet. It may be a physical pain, an encouraging comment, a word of wisdom etc in relation to something someone is going through of which you have no knowledge of their situation etc.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to give you a word of knowledge about someone today and to show you who it is for. When you see that person, ask them in a caring manner if it applies to them, and if so, if you can pray for them.

5. Advanced Activation: As you are about to buy something today, ask God to give you a word of knowledge about the shop assistant. Then in a caring manner ask the shop assistant if it applies to them and then take the necessary steps required as a follow-on.

Surgical intervention is not inferior healing

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iStock_000003580930SmallThis blog post comes in the midst of a journey of healing that my hubby is going on and is written out of that experience.

At our church’s Healing Rooms last weekend, one of the team leaders came up to me and said, “You know Jane, surgical intervention is not an inferior healing to a supernatural spontaneous healing from God”. I knew that but now I really have grasped more of it.

A fortnight ago, hubby was experiencing tingling and extreme discomfit in his right hand and arm. This had persisted for several months. That Sunday morning when we were chatting in bed prior to getting up, I commented how hubby should book in to see our local Doctor. That afternoon, two medical specialists were at our home for pre-engagement counselling. Hubby commented how he wanted them both to pray for him as they have a supernatural healing ministry. They examined him, prayed for him, and strongly suggested he go to see the doctor and get an MRI.

The next day hubby rang the GP. The GP was fully booked out and was leaving in a couple of days for an operation herself and would be out of the office for several weeks. Hubby decided to ‘call in’ and see her at the end of her work and she saw him then. He then rang me at 7pm to say he needed to have an MRI but it usually takes about a week to get an appointment etc. I suggested offhandedly that he ring that night and see if he could leave a message. He rang and they told him that they had just had a cancellation for that night and could he come in immediately. Thus, another miracle.

The GP received the report of the MRI the following day and asked hubby to come in as it was quite serious and she wanted to refer him to a neurosurgeon. Again, was told there would be a delay in getting in and we are public patients and do not have private health insurance. For all this to be achieved before our GP went off for her operation was amazing.

He asked people to pray for supernatural healing of the C6 prolapsed disc and bony spur. He felt that there was enough faith in our home for healing but we also invited other members of the Healing Rooms to come and pray for healing. During this time, I saw a picture of bone being shaved away. Our 10 year old son heard God say that Gary would be totally healed. I had a dream where I saw Arthur Burk standing in front of me and he said, “Gary will be healed when he deals with his stuff”. Thus, Hubby was on bed rest and I just wanted him to ‘deal with his stuff’ and ask God what He wanted to show him during this time. Our faith for a supernatural healing was high.

The following Monday we were sitting in the neurosurgeon’s office. We had been warned that his bedside manner left a lot to be desired, but that didn’t concern us. His expertise was more what we were focussing on. During the appointment, this specialist shared about his heart of justice, his mother, his frustration with the health system and his patients. I silently released peace and God’s presence into that room. Hubby felt a spirit of fear leave him in that room, plus he also had an encounter with Father God sharing some stuff with him. The outcome was that no conservative treatment would be effective for his situation and hubby would need surgery but as we were public patients there would be a wait. The neurosurgeon organised tablets and a cortisone injection that may help whilst awaiting surgery.

We have a few friends who are doctors and physios so hubby got their opinion. He started physio but experienced no change. In fact, the symptoms were getting worse.

Just as the 10 day course of anti-inflammatories finished, I then received a phone call to say that hubby was booked in for surgery at a private hospital this Friday (tomorrow) at no expense to us. This is within a fortnight of seeing the surgeon.

Our response then was – does hubby go ahead with the operation, or does he wait for supernatural healing? Is God going to heal through surgery?

I rang my dad who said, “Jane – you yourself don’t believe in co-incidences. You always say that there are never co-incidences with God. It sounds like you just need to walk on through the open doors.” Another few friends then said that it was like the man in a flood standing on top of a roof crying out to God for help. A plane came, then a boat, and each time the man shooed them away and said he was waiting for God. The man then finally accused God of not helping and God replied, “I sent a boat and a plane. That was me reaching out to you.”

During this fortnight, we have also been on the team at our church’s Saturday morning Healing Rooms where the team members and the children prayed for healing. No change in symptoms. It was at this point that I received the word that surgical intervention is not an inferior healing.

Thus, we are going ahead and hubby is scheduled for the operation tomorrow. I would appreciate it if you were able to pray for him and the doctors operating and Gary’s recovery.

Another aspect is that Gary is self employed. We have a business doing garden clean-ups of which Gary cannot work at the moment and for at least another 3 months. We also do not have income insurance. Earlier in the year, I went on a journey of asking God if I should put the kids in school fulltime and go back to nursing to aid our income as we have had several very dry years. God clearly told me no in an audible voice with a ‘fear of God’ tone. Thus, finances are a concern for Gary, however he is learning to trust the Lord for this.

During this time, two people have very generously given us some cash and we can see that God has this in hand. We are totally trusting Him. If you would like to give financially or feel any prompting by God in that way, please feel free to use the paypal button on this website – www.unlockingthegold.com or contact us in anyway.

Thank you so much.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3)

1. Children / Families Activation: Ask if anyone would like prayer for healing or if they know anyone who is needing healing. Spend a few minutes asking God for a picture for that person and then each person draw what they see God saying or showing. Give that picture to the person and also declare what God showed them over that person.

2. Group Activation: Ask who in the room would like prayer for healing. Get everyone else to make two lines opposite each other and have a gap in the middle for anyone who requires healing to walk through the middle of the two lines. As the people walk through, those on the sides are to ask God for what particular words He would like them to declare over that person.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to show or tell you someone who is sick. Ask God what you are to pray and how you are to pray and prophesy over that person and their sickness, then do it.

4. Intermediate Activation: Throughout your day, ask God to help you see who is struggling with their health and whom you should stop and pray for. When God highlights a person, stop and ask them if you could pray for them and give them an encouraging word.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to show or tell you a particular illness or disease and the key to the healing of that illness or disease for a particular person. Communicate lovingly what you see or hear to that person.

Hearing God

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iStock_000000519933XSmallTwenty years ago, hubby and I were in Israel on a work party painting a hospital in Nazareth. Whilst there, we also toured around and since it was part of a subject for our theological degrees, we had lots of biblical input from various people. Unfortunately I don’t remember it all but the thing I most remember is walking down the hill from the place where Jesus may have given his sermon on the mount to the Sea of Galilee. As our group chatted away, we passed an old arab shepherd and his small flock of about ten sheep. Due to our noise, we fightened the sheep and they ran off in all directions. The shepherd quietly uttered a couple of arabic words and the entire flock of sheep immediately stopped and ran back to him. I was flabberghasted. I had been brought up on a dairy farm in Tasmania and we had some sheep from time to time (mainly for the freezer). Sheep in Tasmania never obeyed your voice. These sheep did. As I pondered this, I realised the main difference was the shepherd was sitting with these sheep all day. They knew they were safe with him. They knew his voice. It made the passage in John 10 come alive for me that day “My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me.” (John 10:27)

Basically, to hear God’s voice, it requires us to be intimate with Him. To spend time with Him. To recognise His methods of communicating with us, His love languages, His voice, His nuances, His tone. I don’t know about you, but I want to hear clearly from God, to be able to instantly recognise Him.

There are basically 3 different voices we can listen to:

  • God’s voice which is encouraging, safe, peaceful, comforting, bringing life and sounding like the fruit of the Spirit (Galations 5:22-23) – love, joy, peace, patient, kind, gentle,etc.
  • Our own self – reasons with human logic & what is already known, justifies, can be self seeking, tries to be logical and doesn’t usually contain any new information, speaks what is best for us & our expectations, can go around in circles,
  • Satan which is full of accusations, half truths, discouraging, condemning, killing hope, and sounding like His fruit (Galations 5:20-21) – angry, intimidating, jealous, bringing shame and fear,

There are some different ways we can hear God:

  • Auditory – loud voice, still small voice, songs, sounds
  • Visual – pictures, colours, symbols, vision, dreams, angels
  • Emotions/physical sensations
  • Other senses eg smell, taste,
  • Through reading the Bible
  • Impressions / ‘gut’ feeling
  • Other – nature, music, numbers, and more

How to hear God clearer: positioning ourself to hear more from God

  • Be intentional – desire to be more intimate with Father God, Holy Spirit, Jesus
  • Confess known sin
  • Worship Him
  • Quieten yourself down and get rid of distractions
  • Soak – play some quiet worship music that allows you to sit / lie in God’s presence and meditate on Him.
  • Be open-minded – God doesn’t always work the same way. He loves trying new things and methods. God is creative. He wants to romance you with the unexpected.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them.

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3)

1. Children / families: Everyone choose a person to give a prophetic picture to eg in a family, the person sitting on their left. If a big group of children, pairs might be easier and quicker. Ask God to show everyone how God wants to dress/clothe their partner. Ask God why those particular clothes/outfit. Then share with each other. If you are doing this as a family, you may all enjoy asking God for a picture of how He sees them dressed for everyone in the family.

2. Group activation: Everyone grab a paper and pen and sit in a circle. Everyone will write a prophetic word without knowing who they will give it to. Ask God how He sees that person, what His heart is for that person, how He feels for that person. Write it down. After 5 minutes, have everyone pass their paper to the 3rd person on their left. Everyone then reads what is on the paper in their hand.

3. Beginner Activation: Grab a journal and a pen and spend some time just with God. Ask God “What do you think/feel when you look at me?” Write down everything that comes to you, every thought, feeling, picture, impression. Everything no matter how seemingly small or insignificant. Later, spend some time reading over the list and taking in everything positive and encouraging that you wrote down.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to show you who to give a prophetic word to. Then spend some time asking God to show you a Bible character for that person. Continue asking God questions to ‘flesh’ it out more eg why that character, what specifically about that character, what character qualities is that person known for, what impact did that character have on their world and what impact are you seeing this person have on their world, etc. Then give that prophetic word to that person.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to show you a specific person you could sing a prophetic song over. If you are unsure, practice at home whilst you have a specific person in mind. Ask God to give you a new melody / tune and words that speak to that person’s spirit and ask if you can release it over them.

Practice, practice, practice

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iStock_000032521038Large women chattingRecently our daughter, who is 11 years old, was invited to have afternoon tea with the Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott. One of our first reactions as a family, after agreeing that we would do everything possible for her to attend, was to agree to draw (for the children) and write (for hubby and I) a prophetic word each for him. It was just natural to think that way, almost ‘second nature’.

Several weeks later, I was amazed at the number of Christians who had commented to me that they would never have thought to write or draw a prophetic word / picture for him. (Our children find it easier to express what they are hearing / seeing from God for a person by drawing a picture for them and writing a sentence or two of explanation.) This shocked me. Why wouldn’t you take the opportunity in person to do that. We didn’t include any Christian language. We were encouraging and strengthening in what we wrote and drew. We purely asked God, “how do you see him and what would you like to say to him?” and then we listened for God’s reply.

Reflecting on this later, I realised that several years ago, we would never have thought to do it either. The journey we have been on over the last three years has prepared us for this. We have specifically tried to take every opportunity that we can to write, draw, speak prophetic words over people. We have incorporated it into our daily lives so that it is part of us. We have grown considerably in our gifting because we have practiced. I encourage you to practice and take every opportunity you can.

We have stuck to the basics of it being encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting. We have tried not to use Christian language but begin by saying, “I sense that…” and not using “God says…”. We he never spoken or drawn negative things. If we ever did get anything negative, we would change it to the opposite and speak the positive, thereby giving life to what we said and to the other person.

We have looked for ways to practice. My first year at this, I used to write 3-5 birthday cards per week. At that time, I was involved in a group to help people who were struggling with life issues and I would write encouragement cards and birthday cards for these folk, as well as cards for friends and family. On the left hand side of the card, I would ask God what to write, listen to what I felt Him saying and then write it down. At the time, I was busy with young kids and would set aside the 30 minutes during the kids swimming lesson to do this, putting myself under pressure to finish them in this time.

Every time I went to the shops or had a coffee at a coffee shop, I would make a concerted effort to give the cashier or waitress a prophetic encouraging word. It was during this time that I noticed my gifting developing so much. I believe that it was due to my practicing and developing it.

Even last week, my daughter and I were getting our nails painted for free at the local shopping centre. The young lady doing my nails was an immigrant to Australia with her family when she was four years old. She shared some family stuff with me and then I had the opportunity to speak into her life about her dreams for the future and the effect that I sensed she would have on other people through her art (she had just completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts). Tears came to this young lady’s eyes and she came alive as I spoke encouraging words to her that resonated with her spirit and gave her hope. She was transformed. She thanked me profusely for what I said. What a privilege it was to witness this. As I later reflected back on it, I realised that it hadn’t cost me anything. I was sitting there for 15 minutes. What an amazing way to fill in the time and change someone’s life at the same time.

I encourage you this week to look for ways to practice. Look for the hidden ‘gold’ inside a certain person and try to bring it to the surface by asking God to show you how He views them and what they need encouragement in. Then speak it kindly and gently to them in an encouraging and uplifting way. Remember to only speak words that are encouraging, uplifting and comforting, not negative at all. Use plain, everyday English. A great way to start the sentence is to say, “I sense…” or “I have a feeling that….” or “You are a … person who…..”

  • Whilst in line at the supermarket, ask God to give you a few words to say to the cashier that will encourage and speak into their situation.
  • Ask God for people’s names and then write an encouragement card/email to them.
  • Leave a card with a prophetic word on it for the postman.
  • Drop an encouraging prophetic letter into your neighbour’s letterbox.
  • Every phone conversation you have this week, determine to pause and ask God what He wants you to release to the caller.
  • Find creative ways of writing and drawing prophetic words for your family / housemates. Leave them where they can discover them and be encouraged.

Go for it. Make it a part of your lifestyle. Enjoy!!

Prophetic Activations / exercises to incorporate into your week:

1. Children / families: Around the dinner table, or in small groups of 4-5 people, ask God to show or tell you what kind of animal could represent each person and why? Look for special characteristics of that animal that match the people. Give everyone a couple of minutes to hear or see from God and then share with each other.

2. Group activation: Play the game, duck, duck, goose. People sit in a circle with their eyes closed. Walk around the outside of the group and tap one person on the shoulder. That person is receiving the prophetic word. People are to ask God what to say and then give a prophetic word to the person, not knowing who the actual person is. Reveal the person who was receiving the words at the end and have them feed back to the group how accurate the words were, how they made the person feel etc.

3. Beginner activation: Ask God to highlight a person to you. Ask God  to show or tell you what sort of vehicle that person would be if they were a vehicle and why. Tell the person, encouraging the person with the why part.

4. Intermediate activation: Determine that whoever you hand money over to this week, you will give them an encouraging word at the same time. In a queue, ask God for a specific more indepth prophetic picture or word to share with the person.

5. Advanced activation: Write a prophetic card to the Duchess of Cambridge for her unborn baby who is due to be born this month. Then send the card/letter to : Duchess of Cambridge, Clarence House, London, England SW1A 1BA.