VISIONS AND DREAMS

Have you considered that God may speak to you in visions or dreams? Throughout the Bible God appears or speaks to people in visions and dreams. On the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:17 Peter quoted from the end-time prophecy of Joel.

“And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”

This is beyond my comfort zone even though I admit that God has spoken to me in dreams. But I have never heard a voice like the boy, Samuel. I have never had a vision like Zecharia or Mary in Luke 1. Actually, I am not sure these should not be called appearances rather than visions. For the most part, the Bible does not make a distinction between a waking vision and a dream in the night. In Genesis 46:2, we read,

“And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, “Jacob, Jacob.” And he said, ‘Here I am.’”

In Numbers 12:6 the Lord says,

“Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream.”

There seem to be two types of dream by which God speaks to people. The Lord, or the Angel of the Lord, may appear to someone in a dream. As Paul was led into the city after being confronted by Jesus on the road, the Lord spoke to a man named Ananias in a vision, saying he was to pray for Paul’s eyes to be opened. In the shipwreck in Acts 27, Paul told the others on the ship, “This very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship. He said, ‘Do not be afraid.’” We cannot know whom God will speak to like this. And although the Bible clearly teaches that God speaks to His children in many ways, He is sovereign over how and when He speaks.

God can also speak in riddle-like dreams as He did to Pharaoh in Genesis 41 or to Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel. In Numbers 12 God told Miriam that He spoke to prophets in dreams that were like riddles. But He spoke to Moses face to face. A complicated dream is not necessarily a bad thing. When God speaks in this kind of dream you have to struggle in prayer to understand what God is saying. In Genesis 41, Pharaoh said to Joseph, I hear that you can interpret dreams. Joseph answered, “It is not in me, but God will give Pharaoh the meaning.” God gives the meaning of dreams. Daniel said the same thing to Nebuchadnezzar. “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show the king the mystery, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.” God uses our struggle to understand to develop faith in us.

I would not put dreams on the same plain as Scripture. Nor would I put God speaking to me in a book or a sermon, or in my prayer time, on the level of Scripture. But the Bible teaches us about these things. God is in charge of how He speaks.

I am not sure God speaks to us in every dream. But I believe He will let you know when He is speaking to you. As you sense His presence and hear His voice, He will grow your faith. There is no limit to what God is able to do through you as you listen and learn to trust Him.

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LISTENING IN CIRCUMSTANCES

This is the 4th entry on developing faith by listening to God, adapted from my upcoming book, FAITH, Risking and Resting on The Word of God.

God is not limited in the ways He speaks to us. Hebrews 1:1 says that in the past, God has spoken at many times and in many ways. Sometimes God speaks through circumstances. Like the other ways we hear His voice, this must be prayerful. In John 5:19 Jesus told us something about the miracles He did.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”

Jesus saw His Father at work all around Him. And He joined His Father in His work. He explains this a little further in the next verse.

“For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing.”

As you come into situations, already praying for people around you, already praying for God's hand in the circumstance, God will show you what He is doing. 

I think it is important that I keep each of these brief. So I will stop here. Feel free to ask questions or make comments on this. I am anxious to get to the next and final blog in this series. To be honest it has been the most difficult for me to write. It will be on God speaking through visions and dreams.

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LISTENING IN PRAYER

This is the third in a series of blogs on developing faith by listening to God, adapted from my upcoming book, Faith, The Infinite, Ultimate Love of God.
We sometimes think of prayer as a monologue where we tell God what is on our hearts. But prayer is far more than that. Prayer is crucial among the ways that we hear the voice of God.

We listen to God by PRAYING THE WORD.

Listening to God in Scripture cannot be severed from listening in prayer. If you wish to hear God's voice in Scripture, you need to read prayerfully. We need to understand that God is present with us. He personally speaks to us through His word and prayer.

We listen to God by PRAYING TOGETHER.

Much prayer in the New Testament is corporate. Wouldn't it have been wonderful to join one of those power-filled prayer meetings in the Book of Acts? I sometimes call praying together, "Fellowship on Fire," or simply the fellowship of the Spirit. Everything we do as the church gathers should be the fellowship of the Spirit. Our services should be bathed in continual prayer. You will discover that God speaks to and through His children when we pray together. I often have the sense of God speaking to me as others around me pray. That is especially true in small group prayer meetings.

We listen to God by spending TIME IN PRAYER.

The lack of time can be a major barrier to prayer. In the garden before the cross Jesus asked His disciples if they couldn't even pray for an hour. Some of the power and blessing of prayer needs time. We are only given so much time. And other things swallow up time we could spend in the presence of God. How much time do you spend watching television, checking your email, playing video games, or in some other recreational activity? If you are serious about developing faith that will move mountains, you will have to replace the time invested in other things by spending more time with God.

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HEARING GOD IN HIS WORD

Listening to God begins with the Bible. God will speak personally to you through His word. James 1:21 calls us to receive with meekness the word of God grafted into us. God will graft His word into your heart.

Let me suggest 4 disciplines that are essential to developing faith from God's word in your life. First, READ it. Read it prayerfully. Read it hungrily. Read it consistently.

Next, MEMORIZE Scripture. You may begin by memorizing verses that stir your heart. You could start trying to memorize chapters systematically going through whole books, first of the New Testament and then of the Old. If you could memorize a chapter a week, you could memorize the entire New Testament in less than four years.

All of my adult life I have encouraged and helped adults memorize Scripture. I have helped quite a number who were convinced they could not memorize. Let me give you several steps to memorizing a verse or a passage.

1. Commit to memorizing. If you are determined, you will succeed.
2. Ask God to help you memorize. 
3. Read it aloud. It is much more difficult to memorize something silently.
4. Repeat it over and over until you can say it without looking. 
5. Continue to review what you have memorized. I mark the day when I memorize a verse, and review it every day for a month.

The third discipline in listening to God in the Bible is to THINK about it. After you have memorized a verse you will be amazed at new things you come to understand from it. I recently memorized a passage whose meaning puzzles me. I meditate on it some everyday. I still do not understand much about this passage, but God ministers to me through it.

The final discipline for opening the word of God so that God can speak to you through it is, OBEY it. A major key to understanding the word of God is a willingness to obey. As we learn to obey small things in Scripture, He will reveal greater things to us.

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LISTENING FAITH

In the next few weeks I would like to share with you something that I wrote in my soon to be released book, FAITH, Risking and Resting on The Word of God.

LISTENING FAITH

Jesus made it clear that there is absolutely nothing that God cannot do through you when you trust Him. He repeatedly told us we could do things like casting mountains into the sea.

Of course one important question is, “How do you develop miracle-working faith?” We Cannot begin by using our imagination. Don't try to imagine what great and wonderful things you could do for God. Instead, learn to listen to what God is telling you. Isaiah 55:3 calls to us.

“Incline your ear, and come to me;

hear, that your soul may live.”

The main reason we do not hear the voice of God is that we are not listening. This week our pastor ask me to lead the Call to Worship in our Sunday morning service. I began by asking people to pray something I think we should pray every time we enter a worship service. “Father, let me hear your voice this morning.” I went on to say I don't think it offends God for you to pray something like, “God, if you are real, let me hear your voice.” Are you listening for the voice of God?

We must lean in to hear His voice. That is what God meant in Isaiah by “Incline your ear to me.” You already incline your ear to the world. You watch TV, listen to the radio, and surf the internet. You may even read books from time to time. Do you ever listen for the voice of God? In the next few sequential blog posts I will deal with how God speaks to us. And I encourage you to begin to listen as He speaks to you through His Son who walked upon the Earth and changed all of history. Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes from hearing the word of Christ.

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