I recently saw something on Facebook that had a lot of meaning to me. There were four frames in the post, and they went something like this.

A guy is looking up toward Heaven and says, “I wish God would speak to me.”

A lady responds, “Read your Bible.”

He replies, “I mean out loud.”

Her response is, “Read your Bible out loud.”

What a tremendous answer she had for him. Even many believers are wanting God to speak audibly to them when they have questions. I am not of the opinion that He speaks to us at all in the way we want Him to.

I do believe that God often comes to believers through dreams and thoughts. But the very best way for us to hear Him speaking is to read our Bible out loud.

First we must understand that every single word of Scripture is God breathed. In other words, every word was given by God to a man to write down for all future generations. In addition, it is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It never changes. Thus it means that it is God speaking to us down through the generations.

Second, it must be studied, restudied, and prayed over. This is where so many have their problems. Too many believers never open their Bibles, so obviously they don’t study them. How then can you pray over your studies if you haven’t studied? So, first things first. Open your Bible and read it. Cross check the references and other verses to make sure you understand what it is saying to you.

Then you need to set aside a specific time to pray and ask God to reveal the truth to you. I recommend right before and right after you study.

Third, when you do pray, don’t just finish the prayer, say “amen,” and go on with whatever else you need to do. Once you have ended that prayer, just remain there in the presence of God, quietly and calmly rejoicing with Him. You might just get an answer to your prayer revealed to you in some way right then. He will often use our thoughts to show us many things.

Pray, study, pray, remain quietly, and listen. That in a nutshell is how to talk to God and to hear Him respond.

See you in church.