God Speaks Through Human Messengers

In our series on Hearing the Voice of God, we now transition to one last way God speaks to us: through human messengers. Yes, this is the most common way He speaks, because we are surrounded by people every day in the workplace, at home, in the neighborhood, and in church. A wise and discerning leader will carefully listen to human messengers.

The Lord can use anyone, anytime, so we must be listening. However, the most common messengers are those within the church that preach, teach, prophesy, counsel, pastor, etc. In charismatic churches we often give greater credence to a prophecy than to teaching, simply because the one who gives the prophecy says ‘thus saith the Lord’. However, the spontaneous, momentary word of prophesy and the thirty minute pastoral message carry equal weight in God’s eyes. He gave gifts to the church. These gifts are listed in several places but the short list can be found in 1 Cor. 12:1-12 and Eph. 4: 11-14. Whether a word of prophesy or a message from the pastor, you must apply the same test of validity we discussed in last week’s posts.