How to Receive Guidance from God

Last week we talked about Recognizing God’s Voice.

• Thoughts that come to us can originate from God, from ourselves or Satan.
• We are called to TEST the spirits in 1 John 4, to check these impressions and thoughts.

How do we do that? We went through 4 ways to test an impression:

1. Does it agree with the Bible?
2. Does it make me more like Christ?
3. Does my church family affirm it?
4. Do I sense God’s peace about it?

Today we want to end the series with this – how to receive guidance from God.

• We want to look at the experience of a prophet Habakkuk – 5th last book of the OT.
• This book is unique in that it has to do with the prophet conversation with God. Usually prophets proclaim God’s messages to the people, but this book record the prophet’s complain to God and God’s answer to him.
• You see the subtitles in your bible – Habakkuk’s complaint and the Lord’s answer; his 2nd complaint and God’s answer. Chapter 3 ends with his prayer of praise to God.
• He was upset at the violence and injustice he saw in his own nation Judah (Southern Kingdom). The Northern Kingdom, Israel has already been destroyed.

Read Hab 2:1-3

Learning from Habakkuk, there are 3 attitudes we can adopt, if we are serious about receiving guidance from God.

1. Believe God cares about you.
   (MULTILINE REVEAL BIG)

2. Ask God for specific request (question).
   (MULTILINE REVEAL BIG)

3. Expect God to answer.

(MULTILINE REVEAL BIG)

1. He WITHDRAW to the watchtower – a DESIRE to hear God

(MULTILINE REVEAL BIG)

2. He wants to WAIT for God’s answer – an EXPECTATION of God’s response.

(MULTILINE REVEAL BIG)

3. He was told to WRITE down God’s answer – note what He says, be SERIOUS about it

(MULTILINE REVEAL BIG)

Conclusion:

(MULTILINE REVEAL BIG)