Genesis 1:27-31
God created man and woman in His image. That is in the 27th verse. God has many blessings with Him and He wants the people whom He created to receive all these blessings. God made the earth a beautiful place and created all things for man to enjoy and to live for Him. God always loves to speak to His people. Right from the beginning we see so much of God speaking to man. The New Testament is full of God speaking to His people. God is not a respecter of persons. He likes to speak to every man. He speaks to women also. The New Testament starts with God speaking to Joseph and Mary and Zacharias. In Noah’s life God spoke to his children also. Coming to Abraham, God spoke to Abraham. God gave him promises, and God wanted to fulfill them. He did not stop there. He wanted to bless his children and his children’s children. In our Fellowship, we have learnt that God speaks. God spoke to Abraham. God spoke to Sarah. God spoke to Hagar. He spoke to Isaac. He spoke to Jacob and blessed Jacob. He gave him promises. There is a fear in me that God speaking to individuals is decreasing in the Fellowship because people are getting satisfied with hearing God’s word preached. When prayer goes down, then our faith grows weak. Then our hold on God’s promises will become weak. There must be enough prayer every day. There must be enough of the study of the word of God also. We must be receiving promises from God. Then only the spirit of prophecy will function in our Fellowship. Receiving clear guidances will be our common experience when our contact with God is very close.
Right at the start of the New Testament we see God speaking to Joseph, to Mary and then to the wise men. Angels were visiting God’s people in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. An Angel spoke to Abraham and to Sarah and to Hagar. God speaking and angels coming with messages from God must be our experience. God wants His children to be in close contact with Him. The foundations of our Fellowship were laid in prayer and by God speaking to us. God gave us promises also. We should not lose such contact with God. You must read Genesis carefully. We have much to learn from the New Testament, beginning with the birth of Jesus. Walking with God and making our own plans cannot go together. It is not easy to get God’s thoughts when we have filled our minds with worldly thoughts. God’s thoughts and our thoughts get mixed up. Then we get confused. When we obey the Word, walking with God becomes easy. Prophets preached saying that our thoughts are very small and God’s thoughts are very high. God’s children can all vouch for this. Jacob received a new heart and blessing from God. But he had trained his mind to think his own thoughts. When he had to meet his brother, he did not get God’s thoughts and instructions. He divided his family into two groups and planned to send them one well behind the other. He was sure his brother would harm his family. If the first group was attacked, the second group could flee. That was man’s plan. But God blessed him and guided him correctly. When both the brothers met, they embraced each other and wept. They were very happy. That was God’s plan. Our thoughts are always small thoughts. How then are we going to discern God’s thoughts? I do not know how many are making their own plans. God’s plan is to give us the spirit of discernment.
I want to share this humbly with you. Last year God gave me a small promotion in spiritual discernment. I am able to understand to discern between my thoughts and God’s thoughts. The first thought is usually my thoughts. Immediately another thought comes and I am able to see that it is of the LORD. It has made my walk with God easy. What is God going to give me this year? I was praying about it. The Lord has given me a longing to read His Word carefully. I have learnt in the "School of God’s children" that what I learnt from the Bible I should put into practice. When I came into God’s work leaving my job as a teacher, I used to read about ten chapters every day. But the number of chapters is not the criterion. How much of the Word we read are we living? We must read God’s word and we must live it. What we live we should preach.
I hear some of you praying, "Lord, raise up prophets and prophetesses among us." Prophets and prophetesses spoke what God spoke to them. So God’s speaking must be our portion. God wants to make us very fruitful. The Bible tells us how much God spoke to His people who were engaged in His work. We see Moses and prophets constantly hearing God speak. Thus they proclaimed the mind of God.
We must discern between God’s voice and the devil’s voice. People can easily slip into pride. Then what they speak they do not know. One senior servant of God was learning from the Lord and God was using him. When pride came into his heart he said, "I am God." After that he began to cause division. Thus the devil used him. Even young people can become proud of their preaching or their talents. Then they will be caught by Satan. One Bible student last year said, "I am Christ." When I got on the platform people look at me because "I am Christ." The devil troubled him very much. We have to discern humbly what is of the devil and what is of the LORD.
God wants to bless His people. He wants to talk to them, He wants to give them promises. He wants to bless them and bless all their folks. If they are humble people, God wants to bless their children, and their children’s children and for ever. Some people talk about dreams. "Joseph had a dream; I too got a dream", they say. We must discern if our dreams are of the spirit. Only then you will get strength to obey. God wants to give us the spirit of discernment. Many heavenly blessings are with God for us. He wants to bless us with His Holy Spirit—the Spirit that will guide us into all truth. The Spirit will guide us. God will speak and guide us. Angels will come and guide us. In whatever manner God chooses to guide us, we must understand His message carefully. God will give us all His blessings, if we pray humbly and with clean hearts. He will bless our Fellowship and make it a blessing to all. We should not be those that diminish this blessing of God speaking to us in this Fellowship.