How to react and what to do when God speaks to you

As I read the Bible today,  from Luke 22 about Jesus’ prayers in Gethsemane, some things gripped my heart. It is the familiar feeling of God sharing His heart with me, not just the pretty and joyful parts, but things that sadden Him. He called us friends, and friends don’t just share joys and successes, they share their grief and disappointments too.

Did you ever ask Jesus to share not just His joys and good things with you, but the things that bother Him, the things that grieve Him and hurt His heart? If not, I encourage you to stop reading right now and get down on your knees and ask God that question. No Christian should live his life without ever being a close friend of God. A close friend will want to know everything, what brings joy to the person as well as what saddens a person. That’s what real friends are there for, a true friend will be there in good times and in sad times. Jesus wants faithful friends, who are willing to know His heart, who are interested and intentionally take the initiative to ask and know, friends who really care about Him, friend who don’t just come to take, but also to give.  I really mean this, please stop reading right now and ask God to share what bothers Him, what is the burden of His heart that He wants to share with you, what saddens Him, what grieves Him. 

How are we to respond when the King of the Universe opens up His heart and shares intimate things from the depths of His Being with us? When He pours His soul before us about things that sadden Him.

He never shares His heart just so we feel sad, sympathize with Him and move on. No … He wants us to take to heart what He says, search our hearts, check our lives and plan to do something about what He shared. To do something about by changing our own lives based on the revelation and also influencing others to do so. Because one of us changing is not enough, we need to spread the knowledge of how He feels and get as many as possible to respond to take action and make a difference for Jesus.

The kind of change that Jesus is looking for is not just one of feelings where we feel sad that He is sad with a situation here on earth and grovel in the dust for a while and then feel like we have done our spiritual duty to be there for Him. No, He wants the things He shares intimately to our hearts to create such a reaction in us that they actually change our diary. Yes, proposed change that does not end up in your diary is not real change, it is just wishful thinking.

If He calls us friends, and we claim to be His friends, His words to us would bear a lot of weight. They need to be taken seriously, treated with the respect that only doing something about it really makes sense. Jesus never wastes words, He even taught us that every careless words from our lips will be judged. He tells us what is really needed for us to know, essential.

When we get to a place where we have known the Lord for a while, sometimes we can get kinda familiar and comfortable with Him and sometimes take His messages to us a bit lightly. We are so used to Him speaking to us so often that it becomes kind of common and mundane to hear. That should never be when the King of the Universe is your personal intimate friend.

Jesus also said: ‘Take heed therefore how you hear: for whosoever has, to him shall be given; and whosoever has not, from him shall be taken even that which he seems to have.’ (Luke 8:18) – Jesus is saying hear that we should not take for granted when He speaks to us or treat it lightly. He watches to see how faithful we are with what He gives us, what we do with it, if we act on it or not and based on that He determines if to give us more revelation/instructions or to even take away some of the light that we already have because we have not been faithful with it and did not use it.

So let’s determine in our hearts that we will be one of those who will be very attentive to His words, treat them seriously, seriously enough to take action and make a change for good.

Once He speaks to you, He will never force you to do anything about it. In fact, from my personal experience in hearing God, He usually waits for a response from you to His sharing. He waits to see if you want to offer to help. He might suggest or ask you if you want to help, but He will never push, manipulate or guilt trip you to do it. He leave it all up to you. I find this so intriguing about God, He never pushes Himself on anyone, He waits for a willing response that comes out of love or He wants nothing at all. He rather walk away empty than take something that you don’t want to give. How much more should this motivate us to respond in love with our whole being!

So, if He speaks to you, write what He says down, meditate on it, pray about it and ask Him what you can do about it. Think about how you can change your life in order to change the things that grieve Him, and plan how to make that change, down to putting tasks down in your diary. Then set your mind and heart like a flint to go about doing it without fail, like a soldier does in a life and death mission.

THEN DO IT! There is no greater joy I know that the joy of bringing joy to the Father’s heart where there was sadness before. To do this to a human being can give us great joy, but to do this to God, it is pure happiness.  One of my life’s mottos are: I live to bring joy to the Father’s heart! What about you? Another one of my mottos is: ‘This is the least I can do for Him who has done so much for me’ Obedience becomes easy when put in perspective against what Jesus did for us. So, happy obedience ahead!

If you want to hear how to hear from God, please read my other article entitled: ‘How to hear from God’ here .