Priscilla Shirer: Learn How to Recognize God’s Voice

So really the first step, especially if you grew up in an environment where this concept is sort of um unique and different and new for you.
It’s to believe that as a as a privilege of being a son or a daughter, you can hear from God, it is the deception of the enemy to cause us to think we have to have a seminary degree degree.
We have to have some special hotline connection with God. Like somebody we may admire that.
We as regular men and women can’t hear from God. That’s what the enemy wants you to think.
He doesn’t want you to know. It’s your birthright.
And so believing that you can is the first step to hearing God praise comes to you today right here in beautiful southern California.
Our guests are jerry and priscilla shire Priscilla.
Um our gift offer this month in part is your book discerning the voice of God today we’re gonna unpack that.
So why is this subject matter? Something that is really important?
It is important because this facet of our faith is what separates our faith from every other.
So called faith on the face of the earth that our God lives, he’s alive and he speaks to us, we have an actual relationship with him and that that so casually thrown around this whole relationship thing.
But what good is any relationship if nobody’s talking to each other, if there’s no communication, if there’s not a connectedness that is ongoing and continual.

That is the voice of God.
We have discounted I think the power of scripture because if we say we want to hear from God and we never actually read the love letter that he wrote to us.
We don’t want to really hear from God.
And we rarely will because the canon of scripture is not only it not only provides the boundary into which everything God says to us will fall because he’ll never say anything that manipulates the scriptures or his character as review in the scriptures.
So it not only gives us the boundary, but it also provides for us the number one mechanism through which we have the privilege to hear him in the first place.
Beautiful. You know, we’re discussing with Priscilla Shar and and her not often seen husband jerry.
Uh jerry, thank you for being on by the way, give me a little there you go.
Alright, I’m glad you’re here. All right now.
Um the um our part of our love gift monthly love offer, monthly gift offer here uh this month in March um is your book discerning the voice of God.
Let me let me tell you a little bit about the way a I believe the way the Lord has communicated to me, I have been sitting or standing in a place before and from one moment to the next uh you know, I hate to be so secular.
But remember that, remember that that moment in on tv back when we were kids remember remember um the I dream of Jeannie where she kind of do like that, you know?
Okay, so uh I have from one moment to the next, I mean this is like one heartbeat to the next heartbeat.
I’m remembering some kind of conversation that was a longer conversation for instance, and I felt like that was something that got communicated to me a big subject matter communicated to me in a blink.
So what the voice of the Lord sometimes feels like to me is like I’m remembering a conversation, not like I’m talking and and going, hello Lord.
And he says, well, hello Matthew, it’s nice to have you here with me today, you know?
Okay, so I’ve never had any kind of an experience like that at all.
Every time I felt like volumes of information get communicated in a, in a, in a snap of a finger and then it just feels like you’re remembering when we’re done with this conversation today and we’re out of this studio, we’ll be able to remember this conversation and we will be able to ultimately think back on it.
That’s, that is a way that Lord is communicated.
I have heard the still small voice say one word to me or two words, one time Hillsong Channel, six months later, the Hillsong Channel was on the air, okay, we’re sitting here today, Laurie and I, you know, have often heard the story, but just just because of what we’re talking about and I wanted to set a little bit of the stage and by the way, what a thrill to have you guys seriously.
I mean, it’s been like, I’ve known your parents and I was like, what’s the matter with us, man?
I mean, so we met actually at T D jakes church not long ago that behind us and made us laughter the whole, I’m sorry for that, I was cutting up and thank you for sharing, thank you for that because they were like, when is this gonna be over?
You realize you’re making fun of a td jakes service.
It was a fantastic service kids in church for three hours.
They were, they were glad matt was sitting uncle matt and just so that they wouldn’t freak out.
I gave a little money kind of bribe.
So, Okay, so one of the things that I think is pretty interesting about discerning the voice of God again it’s our love gift uh this month gift offer this month is my mom and dad were working for somebody else in the 60s.
It was a T. V.
Station and after one very successful night they were leaving the parking lot and the Lord said I’ve released you from your work here.
Now my parents believe it was almost like one of these moments where you look in the back seat, make sure that somebody got in the backseat.
But they were in their car and my dad I didn’t recall it as being an audible voice but it might as well have been because he looked at my mom and said you’re not gonna believe what the Lord just said to me and she said no I will.

He said the same thing to me. He’s released us from our work here. Very very unique thing.
They quit that job. I’m 11 years old. My dad doesn’t go to work anymore.
This is you know here in southern California in the early 70s.
And then a few months later praying the Lord said had to say these words somehow because my dad heard call Angel Lerma was a gentleman that owned a tv station here in Socal he called and he said uh he said to Angel he said I’m just calling you today checking on your channel and there was a long pause on the phone paul.
I just came from the boardroom, we just had a board meeting just now.
We just voted to sell this channel. Did you know that? And he said no, sir.
I didn’t know that. But based on that, I’d like to come see you by the end of that day, there was a deal worked out which was the birth of TvN, which was this channel here in Los Angeles channel 40 channels actually changed now because of digital, but that was Channel 40 back in the day.
So here’s the here’s the thing.
We’re sitting here today because of a couple of moments that the Lord was wanting to communicate to someone to see if they would respond to it.
Okay. So now, 40 something years later, We’re sitting here, there’s 31 television networks on the air in 13 or 14 different languages.
And we are literally ultimately uh, now communicating to the globe as we’re sitting here. Okay.
So if everyone can I realize it’s kind of an important subject that we’re talking about. Okay.
And so if everybody moved on something that God spoke to them there it is, you know, take another generation, what would that become, what God had done if we would have obeyed at that?
And we’ve had that we’ve had that and all I’m thinking about when we first got married babe, where you’ve had these, these moments where like you said, there is almost like a huge conversation that has already happened and the wealth of it just downloads to you in an instant.
Um, and and one of those things happened when we were married for our very first year of marriage, we were at a family reunion on my father’s side of the family.
And I remember one of my cousins said jerry, do you realize that if you and Priscilla don’t have any boys, Sharon will die with you?
I’m like, and I looked around, I’m like, wow.
And at that moment I felt like Laura said to me, you have nothing but boys.
And so I looked at Priscilla and I told her what I said, you have nothing but boys will have nothing but boys.
And I remember when our first son was born, Jackson, a boy, the second son jerry jr a boy.
And it was so funny. The third child, everybody, you know, oh, the way she’s carrying it, it’s a girl.
It’s a girl. I’m like, no, it’s not. It’s a boy.
And everybody asked me how confident was I that I knew that it was a boy.
And I told him years ago, the lord told me I had nothing but boys.
Because what he’s doing is starting a new generation of Shireman.
And I remember being in the delivery room.
And uh, when, when, when jude was coming out and his head was out.
Uh I said, oh boy, that’s a boy. The doctor said, we haven’t seen everything yet.
I said, if that’s a girl, She’s gonna be with me for the rest of her life? That’s a boy.
You know what some of the details of that that you have to know is that some of the, well, most of the men in jerry’s legacy, um, did not live well.
They didn’t honor God, They didn’t stay with their wives. They didn’t honor their kids. Nothing.
And so in that moment where he felt like the Lord said that to him, he really felt like the Lord was saying, I’m doing this on purpose.
I’m going to I’m going to change what it means to be a shire man through this legacy.
And he looked at me just barely into our first year of marriage and said, we’re gonna have boys.
God’s doing this on purpose. And here we are 18 years later with our three boys.
And so we have high expectations that God’s got a plan for them and you don’t have any plans for any more kids.
We actually do not. No.
She says, you know, she always says, she always says from this stage, our youngest as jude because that’s as close as she can get the revelation because it is finished.
It is finished. That’s the end of the line right there. Oh gosh, okay.
So start us out on because I know so many people wonder, oh, how can I hear God’s voice for herself and I know, trust it or trust or trust it?
How can I trust God’s voice when I do hear it, is that really him, is it me, is it?
Well let me let me just start by putting a little grace over this entire situation.
The reality is that sometimes you do not know until hindsight that what you heard was the voice of God and the reality is that there is grace and mercy to cover our missteps and that the Lord in his graciousness toward us, his knowledge of our frailty and our humanity for the willing heart who desires to do his will, even when we make mistakes, he allows them to become our greatest teachers for hearing him correctly in the future.
He does not hold it against us because we’ve missed stepped along the way, so um just grace for those of us who have ever heard God wrong and I wish we could get it, get it right.
One of the people I sort of interviewed when I was first writing that book many, you know, over a decade ago now, I interviewed Henry Blackerby who wrote experiencing God and I, you know, had my notebook out, pen, I was gonna take a seminary class from Henry Black, a.
B you know, and I said how do you know when you’re hearing God?
And he gave me lots of incredible answers to that question, but really he summed it up this way, he said the more you know God, the more clearly you can hear God, there was really nothing for me to write down because it boiled down to priscilla, it’s simple, he said, the more you know him, the more clearly you can hear him.
So the reason why we go to the scriptures, the reason why we have quiet time.
The reason why we fellowship with other believers who are gonna help us remain encouraged in our faith is because we’re just trying to get to know God when you know his character, when you know the nuances of what he does say and what he wouldn’t say because of how he spoke to our forefathers, because of how he handled circumstances previously with people in the scriptures who were going through some of the same scenarios we’re going through.
Now, when you see his personality and his character, then, you know, when you hear the voice of fear, uh that don’t sound like my God, when you hear the voice of your ego, pride, jealousy, divisiveness, stepping in all of that stuff.
That in our flesh is also trying to get a word in edgewise, we can quickly quickly pinpoint the voice of a stranger.
Because if we know God, the more clearly we can discern and divide his voice from a stranger.
Okay, now, you talked about seeking God’s provisions and his blessings on our life and then knowing who what his character is, talk about that, because I found that fascinating.
Yes. So God’s blessing. Um, and I believe his provisions are corroboration of his word to us.
So in other words, while in the old testament, there were external means as a primary way for folks to hear God in the new testament.
And now in this time frame as well, we have something they didn’t have. We have the Holy Spirit.
So the primary way he has speak to us is that he speaks to us has changed.
But his goal hasn’t. His goal is still for his kids to hear his voice.
So he’s chosen the Holy Spirit of God to be the the way that we uh here and know what it is that his will is for our life.
But he still uses external means, his provision, his blessings, his aligning of providence.
Some people would call it luck or coincidence. No, it’s the aligning of God’s handiwork in our life.
To confirm that what we’re sensing on the inside is indeed how he’s aligning the direction for our life to just F. B.
Meyer’s a great theologian. Put it this way when a big 7 47 is getting ready to land on a runway.
Well, well, the plane better not just be looking for one light somewhere to land.
Better not just look for two lights somewhere to land.
There better be several lights that are that are lining a runway.
So that that 7 47 knows exactly where land.
The bigger the decision that you have to make, the more you need to trust in the mercy of God’s external confirmation that aligns for you where to land that plane in your life.
Um And and so that’s important that we have external bless blessings provision, coincidence that really shows us the sovereignty of God aligning, I’ll give you an example.
I was just telling you guys before we started um Aaron that I that I started to look at this, discerning the voice of God book, the material that we’ve been privileged to be able to develop through the years on the topic.
And I just started, you know how the Lord puts layers of maturity on a message, the more you grow in him, aren’t we?
So grateful that he lets us grow and mature and learn from our mistakes.
And I thought I was just starting to feel like, you know, it might be time especially with the video series that we’ve done In regards to this, it was taped 11 years ago.
So it kind of looks dated now and I thought we might need to do something different with that at some point this was gonna be my lazy year where I just kind of sat down and didn’t write too much.
Um but at the same time I started to sense that on the inside maybe we need to do that at some point, one of my publishers called to say, you know, let’s redo the discerning the voice of God bible study then the publisher of this particular book called and said, hey, you know what maybe we’re gonna put a re face this and go ahead and freshen up the material here in the new insights that the Lord has given you.
So there were two things, two lights there that kind of corroborated what I was already sensing on the inside and then matt and Lori Crouch called and said, you know what Priscilla?
We think that we would love to offer this to to people who want to know how to discern God’s leading that third light was the confirmation for me that what it was I was sensing on the inside.
The Lord was very clearly clearly giving me a light bulb to let me know this would be his direction for me.
Which ultimately means that discerning the Voice of God is a is on the heart of God.
So I didn’t call you publisher, your publisher didn’t call us.
We didn’t, you know, Yeah, there was no person kind of trying to stir that, you know, soup there.
Uh, and so this is the month of March. It is our gift offer this month.
And what a great story to be able to basically hold this book and let you know that we want this coming into your home.
And that’s why it is chosen. That’s why we have jerry and Priscilla here and we’re gonna be unpacking this.
Let me let me tell you what the kindergarten course to hearing and discerning the voice of God is you know what the yeah the for for the the kindergarten entry level person a number of years ago um when laws were different um today um if we’re hiring somebody here at trinity broadcasting we can say by the way your you know, TBN is a christian organization might have noticed um are you a christian?
We can say that that is.
But there if you wind the hands of clock back about 30 years, you couldn’t say that.
You couldn’t make somebody tell you whether they were Christian or not in in the application process is a different rules.
Well my dad uh when he in the early days somebody called and trinity broadcasting is you know under the authorization of the Federal Communications Commission.
We have employees here that make sure we stay in tune with those policies and procedures and rules and all that kind of stuff.
We have different sets of employees that do lighting and sound and this and that.
But my dad was of course the general manager and and somebody called and my dad’s on the phone mr crouch, you have to be a christian to work at your channel.
He had the phone in his hand, he went and wanted to say yes and the discerning voice of God at that point was literally he couldn’t say the word yes.
So he went, yeah and tried to say yes again and couldn’t. And he said, hold second.
Put the call on hold and said, you know, just kinda went, what? You know, Lord?
And he clicked the button back and went, well, sir, I suppose you don’t have to be a christian to work at our channel, but you might wanna be uh, you know, much like if you were applying for a spanish language channel, you might want to know how to speak spanish.
And the guy went, well, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, I get that.
Oh, by the way, if he’d have said yes, I was gonna file, uh, you know, against your license at the Federal Communications Commission.
So my dad’s, you know, hit over the head with a ball peen hammer from the Lord.
That moment was that was God having a conversation by literally not allowing him to make a mistake.
And see here’s the thing that I love about this story about your dad and the story about your parents at the very beginning of this, what I love is their willingness to not push past those moments of restraint when they sense the that that warning, that conviction to not put the call on hold.
But then pick it back up only to get that yes.
Out that they wanted that he wanted to get out.
And that’s the problem with most of us, that rebellious streak that we all have, that when we sense that conviction.
That warning don’t say that to your spouse.
Not right now, that’s not the time to say that to your you had to say the spouse thing thing is, you know, when you’re in heated fellowship with your spouse and you you know, sometimes his wives we get ready because we know what we’re gonna say.
It’s gonna shut this whole thing down and we’re gonna win this battle.
We plan to win the battle, and then we feel that warning.
That conviction, that’s not that’s not going to be healthy for the longevity of your marriage.
The question is when we sense that, well, we push past it and say what we want to say anyway, or will we submit to the leadership of the Holy Spirit?
And the moment, it might seem a little bit uh limited losing. Yeah, it might seem like your limit.
You’re losing. But really, the outcome of obedience is always freedom and victory.
And it’s hard to see that from this perspective.
But if you trust God, if we trust God, then when we sense that conviction of the Holy Spirit to not say this, to not buy this, to not eat all of this, to restrain ourselves, it’s because there’s freedom and victory that he’s trying to lead us to.
Okay, so, I’m gonna personally hold you to that when the butter cake is served a little bit later.
So there’s this thing called butter cake that both of you, that both of you talked about, Okay, we ain’t gonna be talking about the holy spirit with butter cake is on the table.
So when it comes to this kind of discerning the voice of God, we’re unpacking this all our with jerry and Priscilla scher.
Um Let me, let me just let me let me say this one thing when it pertains because I want to jump off of something you’re saying about marriage.
Um I was running one day and the Lord said I didn’t call, you seem to be pointing at me, okay, this is like a daydream.
This isn’t like, you know I mean it’s like you’re just trying to sound weird.
I’m not sounding weird because I don’t want to sound weird but it felt like the Lord was pointing at me with one finger, you know, I didn’t call you, I called you and then he had two fingers pointing and Laurie was next to me in this kind of daydream.
Yeah. I knew I was running and I was on the side of the road and all that Came home and told her and and let me tell you something that got more important the years later that this happened 20 years ago because I’ve always loved her.
But the idea that he didn’t call me, he called me, I didn’t call you, I called you and she’s there.
So I wouldn’t be the me that God sees without her. And so that’s a good man right there.
So I have to remind him of that on it.
Honestly, she doesn’t I’ve always known that, you know, So let me tell you bickering in marriage pales to comparison of just making this one statement.
If the Lord said that to me and he did or I, you know, again, it wasn’t this conversation then if I divorced her, I wouldn’t be divorcing her, I’d be divorcing my destiny now when in in in light of that, who cares?
You know, what, what kind of what kind? Yeah, let’s go there immediately.
So the idea the idea that um you know, the voice of the Lord changed my dynamic about what marriage was 20 years ago or so, I’m different.
You know, I’m different. Why is it important to hear God? Because it changes you changed me? Why? That’s right.
It does change you. You know what it does, You know what it does.
It ruins you for church as usual, ruins you.
That regular old, mundane christian re diversity to keep the devil away. Sit in church go.
Because my mama went, my grandmother went, this is what we do.
All of that goes away because you’re hungering for what, you know, you’ve experienced before actually sensing the voice of God his presence near you.
Listen, sometimes hearing God is less about having a specific word and more about just the nearness of his presence, just knowing that he’s near.
I’m talking about where your physical body responds to the presence of God.
There are times when, you know, he’s not because he’s omnipresent there times where he manifests himself in a way where the, the hair on the back of your neck stand kind of goose bumps.
Yes. And in those moments, once you start sensing the nearness of God, in that way, you’re ruined for all just doing stuff because it’s what you’re supposed to be doing and you want more of that.
And I think what a lot of people need to understand that he also speaks through his silence very much so, you know, I’m not saying anything, you know, think about the years in the world where where, you know, from the old to new testament.
He was just silent and his silence means stay still. Don’t move. I got you.
Does somebody your size ever feel goose bumps that ever happened to you? Ever?
Hey, you know, you know, I’m gonna have goose bumps right now. Hey? Yeah.
How much time we have left in the show? They’re needing to get out okay.
Um, and by the way, we’re gonna unpack this. So get right back into the subject. It’s important subject matter.
Even the idea of the way the publisher and all that kind of stuff.
This is, this is on the heart of God right now. This is people being dissatisfied with the mundane.
Yeah, we are wanting to hear God’s voice, wanting to know, you know, I don’t, I mean, you know, not what to eat today necessarily, but needing to know to help their kids to their jobs, their, you know, in every area of your life.
I believe God is speaking or wants to speaker wants to have a say yes, and I want to say to that, just that sense of dissatisfaction that that someone may be feeling, that we all feel when we’re going to be launched into the next level in our relationship with God.
Sometimes that dissatisfaction makes us so upset and so frustrated because we just wanna know the answer.
We want to get to the answer, but the dissatisfaction itself is a sign of God’s spirit working within you and the dissatisfaction, the journey that it is going to lead you on the lessons that are meant to be learned, they’re going to be learned because the dissatisfaction sent you on a journey.
The journey itself is not a waste of time discerning.
The voice of God is never something you’re going to arrive at.
It is never something you’re going to be successful at.
It is going to be a journey with God as you walk in the rhythms of Grace, you will be on your deathbed.
Still wanting to know whether or not you have clearly heard the voice of God because we are human, he’s mysterious, he’s God.
And aren’t we glad that he’s not just a big version of us.
I don’t want God to just be about me, I want God to be so far beyond my imagination that I I can never arrive at the knowledge of him that I have to constantly and consistently be growing well.
Because it takes faith it takes faith to say okay you know what That’s why I always say if we step out in faith no matter what it is but if we walk in faith how can we ever fail in that?
That’s right. That’s right. If we’re believing that we’re doing what God’s called. Yeah. Yeah.
Even when we’re when we’re unsure and were unsteady in the book I list several of these but I’ll tell you just a couple of them.
I believe that he allows us to have the mercy of confirmation. I call them the five M. S.
Of hearing God when you sense that God is imparting something upon you um impressing conviction.
Um Just a push toward something or away from something. Ask him for the mercy of confirmation.
He knows you’re just a human.
He knows that you need to make sure that his fingerprints are on this assignment before you move forward.
I believe that he honors the sincere request of his Children. When they say Lord.
Would you just do something to confirm? Not not because that’s the primary way you speak. I think you’re speaking.
Would you confirm that by some external means to point me in the right direction and then one of the other M. S.
Is the ministry of Eli. Do you remember the little boy Samuel?
He had an older wiser guy in his life named Eli who was the one who pointed out to him that the voice you’re hearing is the voice of God.
You need to have a wiser, more mature believer in your life who you admire?
Not the car, they drive the house, they live on living the success that they’ve achieved.
But the ongoing conversational relationship they have with God, the victory.
You’ve seen them experience in your life, You go to them and you say here’s what I think the Lord is saying.
Would you pray through this with me? Listen I’ve got those people in my life.
The majority of the things that we have done in ministry as a couple. We have not done.
I’m talking about big things that would have marked our lives in our Children’s lives. We have not done before.
We have called people that were submitted to the authority asked them would they pray through and give us their wise counsel before we took a step.
So we’ve submitted ourselves to the Ministry of Eli. We’ve got e lies in our life.
Okay we’re talking about discerning the voice of God.
We’re gonna be talking about unpacking it with jerry and Priscilla all hour long. Uh this book.
Why don’t you wind back and go back to the original moment that you started thinking about writing this book?
What was happening in your life? What was going on?
How did this subject matter start forming books for most people are painful to write except max Lucado, who says it’s easy, which is not fair for me to write books.
And so most of us would would, I’ve never written a book probably won’t.
But the idea it would be painful because it’s hard for me to write a letter.
So um, this, this had to be a period of life in your life where you were going to drill down, you were gonna get into this why this book.
Why this subject matter when you wrote it specifically?
Because of what your wife described a few moments ago as a dissatisfaction with my christian life.
The way it was. I grew up in an incredible, wonderful, spirit filled environment where my father who started the church that I still attend to this day when I was one year old, they have been faithfully pastoring for 40 years and if anybody can preach the word of God, it is Tony Evans, let me tell you he is one of the most gifted communicators of God’s word.
And I was talking to your wife earlier today and telling her that the reality is I had parents that lived the thing.
I’m so grateful integrity and character. That’s what my parents had.
And so I gleaned so much of what the word of God was, who had described God to be what he did in the old testament.
The new testament. I knew all that but felt dissatisfied because if he did that for them, then why am I not experiencing that for me?
There was an unrest in my heart. I wanted more.
I wanted to see and experience this God of the bible and it is that dissatisfaction that sent me on a just a personal journey that connected me with people who were in different streams of the faith.
And instead of closing them out, I invited in what it is that God was teaching them and the ways that he had demonstrated himself to them and by just list and gleaning and inviting from the breadth of the body of christ.
I began to realize that there is so much more than our little box of our little stream presents to us that there is more that can be that doesn’t take away or water down what we have, but on the firm foundation of where that God has already laid in our life, there are deeper depths and there are higher heights.
And so I just started walking the journey and I’m so grateful to the Lord because he um honored my quest by again not allowing me to be at a place where I’ve arrived.
I’m in a place right now. Here I am. I wrote that book.
I think when I was 31 or 32 here I am at 42 years old and I’m at a place right now where I’m revisiting this whole concept?
Because I’m needing to say, Lord, I’m at a place right now where I feel like you’re silent or either my hearts hardened and I’m not hearing.
So once again, Lord, I need to retrain my spiritual ears, I’m praying and saying, Lord, would you heighten my spiritual senses?
You know, just like we have five physical senses. We’ve got spiritual sentence Lord senses.
Lord, I need my radar to be up so that I can detect your presence and hear your voice and I’m gonna need you to make my detectors sensitive again, Lord, and I’m entrusting that to your spirit.
So it’s an ongoing thing that is born out of those moments of unrest in our life with the greatest gift ever.
It’s the greatest gift. It means there’s a new level he wants to take you to.
I’ve been trying to keep myself from getting frustrated by those moments and just go with God, you know, then then at some point though, how is your life different?
How is your life better after you hit that Dissatisfaction point started writing this book.
What has changed in the 10 years for you personally, because there could be somebody viewing going, you know, this is really too deep of a subject for me, you know, I got kids to raise and I got two jobs and I got this and that I don’t have time to put into, Okay, how can we make sure everyone understands this book?
The contents of this book, the subject matter of hearing God’s voice is something that will change their life.
So take your own journey. Talk to us about that.
If we feel like our life is too big and too filled with the business of kids or business or life right now to be concerned about this topic that just seems so theoretical, theoretical and sort of out there, then those very reasons are the reasons why more than anything, you need to discern the voice of God.
All the things that you love the most your Children, your spouse, your business, your ministry, all the things that are closest to you without guidance and leading from the Holy Spirit without knowing what it is that God wants you to do, you will not be able to To handle those things.
I won’t be able to handle those things correctly.
We’ll miss out on some of the biggest gifts and biggest surprises and biggest miracles that he wants to present to us because most of those hinge on us hearing a word and having faith enough to step out on the journey, just like your parents.
Let me tell you what I’ve gained. Here’s what I’ve gained.
What I’ve gained is that now at 42 years old And I say this, I say this uh you know, I’m stepping carefully when I say it.
But at 42 years old, there are very few things that the Lord could ask me to do that.
I would not quickly and immediately step out to do them Because I have I have such a track record with God now, even with my mistakes.
But I have such a track record with God now. And I think my husband can attest to this.
But I’m one of those people that if I sense the Holy Spirit is calling me to do something because of the track record of seeing his faithfulness time and time again, step in for me when I I stepped off what I thought was a ledge and it didn’t look like it was going.
But I had a word from the Lord and it was confirmed in his word and by leadership in my life.
So I just went ahead and I did it anyway and I watched him catch me and I watched him take me to a place that I never could have gotten in.
My own gifting or my own talent or my own skill.
You watch him do that enough times you get to the place that when God asks you to do it again, you can’t wait to step off the ledge because another word, let’s go.
I’m so excited to see what’s next in the journey.
So I get excited now about hearing a word from God.
I don’t allow myself to become discouraged when I feel like he’s silent.
I assume that that means the last word. I had to stay with the last word right there.
Obedient to do me a favor.
Just uh, let’s, let’s for somebody that still is going, yeah, that’s good for you folks that are on television.
You don’t know what it’s like out here, you know, and all this and, and you know, you’re all up there in your suit and you’re all looking good and smelling good and all that kind of stuff.
It’s really rough out here. Think of the people in, you know, foreign, you know, parts of the world of Indonesia and, and, and africa that are watching tonight.
They’re just, they’re struggling to get by. Okay, why don’t you talk to them? Yeah. Yeah. Would it happen?
Think of think of them in regard to that and if you would look at them and maybe pray for them, Priscilla, let me just say this first of all and I want to talk to those people.
I’m the youngest of three in a single parent home.
My mother had to sack groceries, work for tips only to put food on the table.
But I remember nights I couldn’t sleep and get up.
I saw her praying on her knees for her. It was how bad she wanted it.
I tell people all the time how the prayers of one woman changed entire generation.
Yeah. And so God speaks to us, no matter what ailments.
We have, no matter how devastating those seasons of life are, where we feel like we are completely overwhelmed.
We don’t have what it’s gonna take to sustain our current needs.
And we’re wondering if God hears, we’re wondering whether or not our prayers matter.
We’re wondering whether or not he is ever going to speak into and change and alter our circumstances.
But one of the greatest gifts I think from scripture is not his voice. It’s not what he can do.
Give us. It’s just him. Yeah, seek him.
He will disclose more and more to you in terms of his will, his plans for your life, his gifts, his blessings.
Those are a benefit of just having him and you need to know that he will never leave you.
He will never forsake you, no matter how devastating things might become.
Um, and I know there are some very real practical needs and so I want to pray for those right now.
I want to pray that the Lord will man manifest himself to you in a tangible way that will keep you hope filled, encouraged and excited to continue your relationship with the Lord Despite external circumstances.
Lord jesus, I pray for my sister and brothers all around the world.
I’m asking right now in jesus name, that you would bring encouragement. You would replace discouragement with encouragement.
Lord, I’m gonna ask right now in jesus name, that you would build up somebody’s faith today by man.
If investing yourself in their life. Lord, I’m asking you to speak to them. A still small voice Lord.
Or let the scriptures fall open to a page of of of your word, Lord.
That is so evidently so clearly for them that they will never doubt again that they have not heard from you and experienced you.
Lord, I’m asking that the church they attend would be on fire with your spirit.
That every time they and the others that go there would walk through the door they would have a tangible sense of your presence with them.
Lord pray that your word would be alive.
I pray that the assignment of the enemy against them, against their Children against their spouses. Lord!
That those assignments would be canceled.
And that they would see those assignments replaced by your grace, your love and your mercy washing over them and their experience.
Lord, meet us. Speak to us, Lord. We need a word from you.
And so we ask Lord, that you would bring your word to your people and speak clearly so that we can hear lift the veil from our eyes.
Cause the veil that is over our ears.
The hardness of our hearts, Lord to be softened and to be removed so that we have tender sensors that are able to detect your presence.
We need you, Lord. And so we ask you to speak. It is in jesus name that we pray. Amen.
Amen. Beautiful, wow! I love what you said about your mama, you know the need for God, so many of us, we need something new life, we need God and and I think that dissatisfaction leads us to a place of seeking you know, and I think being a seeker is one of the greatest things that could ever happen to us because there’s a lot of people sitting in church that aren’t seeking God anymore, but there’s a lot of people out in the world that haven’t found God yet.
God hasn’t found them that are seeking and you seek and your find them, you know?
So I think that’s a that’s a good thing.
If you’ve got Children that are seeking God, you need to pray for your kids that God brings that person or something into their lives that that draws them to God because I think that’s a very open season of their life was when they’re seeking God, How do you know?
Um so so I know that a lot of um people want to hear God’s voice but they won’t stop talking right, tell us how important my problem, stop talking.
Yeah, we have turned prayer into this one way monologue where we’re just, you know, just feeling like we have to fill in the name of the silence any quiet spaces, we’ve just got to fill them in with our next request or the next thing that we want to say and you’re right, we don’t leave room for God to get a word in edgewise.
But one of the authors I remember reading bob Sergei I believe his name is he said nothing happens when I speak but when God speaks worlds come into existence.
So why in the world wouldn’t I want to leave time for him to speak and what that practically looks like is yes vocalize your prayers to him.
I literally have kind of begun the habit of even writing some down just writing down what it is that I want to say that the Lord yes we have the privilege of bringing our needs and our request to him.
But there ought to be at some point where you just pause and you say okay Lord, is there anything you wanna say to me most of the time he’ll speak to us just through his word through whatever you’re reading in your bible time that day, he knows how to match up what you’re gonna be reading today with what the needs of your life or your future are that you might not even be aware of yet.
So in his word, that is how most of the time he speaks back to us.
But oftentimes it’s just an impression it’s just a bible verse from that you learned in sunday school years ago all of a sudden it comes back to your your mind.
Now take that as God speaking to you or the name of a friend you haven’t talked to in years take that as God saying, pray for this friend right now, those little impressions, those little inklings, you know, Deuteronomy chapter 30 says God’s word is not so hard that you’ve got to send someone above the heavens to go find it for you or through the seas to go and get it for you.
God’s word is in your own heart, it’s in your it is as close as your fingertips, all of that stuff that we discount as our own ideas.
Oh, that’s just coincidence. Most of the time for the believer, for the one who is seeking God’s will in his voice.
Most of the time. That’s God’s word. Take it seriously, write it down, ask him for confirmation. Treasure his word.
And see if he doesn’t show you how important and palatable it is in terms of the experience that he has planned for you.
We are talking with jerry and Priscilla scher, discerning the voice of God.
You know what, You know, it it couldn’t be any more important. This subject matter.
I mean, the very fact that the four of us are sitting in a studio Doing this broadcast is because discerning the voice of God came to Paul and Jan Crouch 40 something years ago.
And TBN is his thing. This isn’t something that The Crouch family built. Uh this is something God did.
And and the idea um you know that’s why it’s almost comical when people try to rise up against something that God did.
It’s just kind of kind of funny, you know, it can be irritating for a season, but it’s, it’s almost comical because, uh, if we thought that this ministry and as it is now fully in its second generation were up to us, we quit.
It’s not up to us, it’s God’s thing.
And so we have that same firm foundation of understanding and, and oftentimes people will say, well, you know, everything’s different for you and everything is different for these smiling faces on, on television.
You don’t understand what’s like, you know, in the real world and well, the problem is, is the Crouch family, the shire family and, you know, the Evans family were all just normal people till we heard the voice of the Lord.
And then that’s what change if there is a difference. It’s because of his voice.
There couldn’t be a more important subject matter for you.
Uh, and jerry, I’m circling back to you just for a second because of what you said.
So it’s not an economic thing.
It isn’t just, you know, executives that the Lord speaks to your mama, uh, needed the voice of the Lord and apparently was struggling in a single family situation.
So it worked. And it worked for your mama. Yes. You’re absolutely right.
I remember her coming home with her tips and, and it says she made $40 in tips that day.
All right. I remember her taking out $4 you know, putting it to the side because that was going to go into the offering plate.
That’s I mean I’m like mom, are you kidding me?
You know the Lord would understand and she goes, no, it’s just, it’s just simple obedience.
So it had nothing to do with that. And then I remember her like I said getting up early praying.
I remember there were situations I was in often college that some of my boys and I would go do something and there was this thing in me like you know what jerry don’t go, you know what now That was the time my mom was praying for me.
So she has kept me out of so much situation through her prayers.
That’s why I said the prayers had the prayers of one woman changed a generation.
I mean still today, it’s so funny our boys will be like granny still praying.
She’d been praying for 30 minutes and like, yeah, she’s still praying. She’s praying for you guys.
So she’s praying even for this next generation, her grandchildren and so it’s just great.
But yeah, it is not an economical thing. It is, it is a, it is something that you desire.
Do you really want it Like she used to get up early in the morning before the kids got up on her knees praying for her Children, praying for the day praying for whatever.
So you know you make time for what you want and if you want to hear the voice of God, you gotta make time for him.
Okay, now we, we, the four of us grew up in an environment where this subject matter is normal, this this, this is understood, we get this.
There are people that grew up in the opposite polar opposite of that and they don’t get it.
This book, you know, the title is discerning the voice of God, how to recognize when God is speaking.
Okay, so there could be, you know, why don’t you start with, you know, just speak to the people that are new christians, they didn’t grow up.
They don’t have no examples in their life of this happening.
This isn’t normal and sounds sounds like it’s not right that we’re not right, Okay, Okay, so just introduce the subject matter if somebody just doesn’t quite get it.
So John 1027 to me is the most concise and comprehensive verse in scripture about hearing God.
It is when Jesus says my sheep, hear my voice, I know them and they follow me.
He says, you gotta be my sheep to hear my voice.
So you said new christians, listen that relationship right there is the the connector that allows you access to the voice of God.
So, so to me, the first step is actually believing that as an adopted son or daughter grafted into the family of God, that you have the capacity innately because you’re part of the family to now hear the voice of God.
It’s like um when we were growing up in our house, I don’t know about you guys, but we didn’t have access to a whole lot of cable to, my parents didn’t get cable, they didn’t get, you know, whatever direct tv all that stuff, we didn’t have any of that stuff and I felt a little mad about that.
I really wanted to have more channels.
My parents chose that we could really only watch the Cosby show on thursday at seven o’clock and then a different world.
So it wasn’t until we were, we were going to get married and moved out.
Um I remember the day I had the cable guy come over, hook up the cable and after he did all that hooking up, he said, here’s the remote control, push the guide button and I pushed the guide button and I had never seen so many channels in my life on the screen, I had no idea all those channels were there.
Now all those channels didn’t just get created that day. They had always been there.
It’s just, I didn’t have the right hook up so that I could tap into them and bring them and draw them down into my experience the holy spirit is the hook up when you place faith in jesus christ Ephesians chapter one says the moment you believe you receive the hook up the holy spirit now you are able to draw down divine channels.
It’s not that you cree no, they were always there. God speaking.
He wants to reveal himself now you have the opportunity to hear him.
So really the first step, especially if you grew up in an environment where this concept is sort of unique and different and new for you.
It’s to believe that as a, as a privilege of being a son or a daughter, you can hear from God.
It is the deception of the enemy to cause us to, to think we have to have a seminary degree degree.
We have to have some special hotline connection with God. Like somebody we may admire that.
We as regular men and women can’t hear from God. That’s what the enemy wants you to think.
He doesn’t want you to know it’s your birthright.
And so believing that you can is the first step to hearing God and you wrote the book that is our March gift offer And the 800 number that will be on the screen.
Watch this. See it came right on 800 to a 15,200.
That number is specifically for this month, the month of March 2017.
We want this information also frequency by pastor robert Morris those are what we’re offering this month.
The 800 number is on the screen.
That one is very specific for this book right here right now for you we’ve been sitting all our with jerry and priscilla.
Um we, how much time do we have left? We got about four minutes.
Um uh why don’t why don’t you kind of don’t get up from the set without saying something that is in this book that will help people.
Uh, and so just kinda start giving your final thoughts in regard to the subject matter and the fact that this book is available right here right now.
Well, this is one of the most beautiful things about hearing God that I enjoy reminding myself of and that is that sometimes we want to know the will of God for us, we want to hear his voice, but we’re a little bit nervous about that because he might actually call us to do something we don’t wanna do.
You know, he might actually send us somewhere we that we don’t want to be sent or he might actually call us to a season that we don’t wanna we don’t really want to be single anymore.
We don’t even, we don’t really want to be married anymore.
He might actually impress upon us something we don’t want and we’re nervous about that.
So um, one of the things I love about the Holy spirit’s work in us and this is in regards to hearing God, but his work in us is to sanctify us sanctification is the process by which we are molded into the image of jesus christ.
It is the process by which our mind changes our ambitions change our desires. We start wanting stuff.
We never thought we want, we stop wanting things.
We never thought we’d ever not want, want to to separate ourselves from all of a sudden we find ourselves unnerved by jokes that we used to laugh at or company we used to keep, It just doesn’t work for us anymore.
That’s the work of the Holy Spirit.
So in regards to discerning the voice of God, if anybody’s ever concerned or afraid like I have been that, oh God might say to me something, I don’t want the Holy Spirit, what he does is turn your desires so that they are in alignment with God’s will.
So you actually want what it is that God wants you to, that’s what I believe.
The psalmist meant when he said that he gives you the desires of your heart, he doesn’t give you what you want, he actually puts his desires in your heart so that you want what he wants.
Let me tell you a practical application of that.
Uh when we were first married and before we had Children, we lived in Orange county California.
I grew up in Newport beach California. So um L. A. County was more like enemy territory.
We, you know, we we didn’t really understand the big city of Los Angeles.
If you live in a suburb of Orange County, L. A. County is real different.
It’s just a real different environment and and then the Lord called us to Hollywood.
So we packed up our little kids and we went to Los Angeles bought a home in L. A.
and lived there for 15 years.
Laurie told me that I’m so used to Orange County when I need grocery shopping, I’m gonna get my kids put them in my car, I’m gonna drive back down to Orange County.
How far drive was that? 35 40 miles and I’ll do my grocery shopping and then come back.
We had planned that. So we bought a house that felt like this kind of sanctuary upon the side of a hill and and we were very protected and it felt really good when we were at home but we just were very, you know the surrounding was not gonna work for us within days.
The changing of our attitude and the holy spirit that we fell in love with this area.
We started, it was when God called us to Hollywood, he changed the very inside of who we were.
So the idea of when he’s going to call you, if you don’t like it now you’ll you’ll you’ll immediately like it, you’ll you’ll immediately love it.
We lived up there, raised our boys For 15 years in L. A.
County and only recently have come back to serve this ministry TBN as my parents were in their retirement age and now we’re in heaven.
So they’re in heaven now watching the fact that we’re still talking about God that we’re still doing the same thing that for 45 years TB has been doing, you know, uh, all of this and what we want for you this month, we want you to discern and to hear the voice of God get our love gift.
Thank you to jerry and Priscilla Shar for being with us. We’ll see you next time. Bye bye.
Thank you guys at T. B. M.
Our mission is to use every available means to reach as many individuals and families as possible with the life changing gospel of jesus christ.
Thank you for helping make the Gospel of Grace go around the world without you. We couldn’t do it.
God bless you.