Priscilla Shirer & Jentezen Franklin: Knowing God’s Voice in Your Life

Priscilla Shirer and Jentezen Franklin sit down with Matt and Laurie Crouch on TBN’s Praise to talk about discerning God’s voice in our lives, and surrounding ourselves with people who will encourage us and strengthen our faith.

He calls you daughter of the Most High God, son of the Most High God. Redeemed, forgiven, valuable, fearfully and wonderfully made. Get rid of the shame. You are worthy. You are accepted. No more embarrassed by your past, hiding in the background. You’ve been approved by Almighty God. Your past is forgiven. This is a new day. God is doing a new thing. But the enemy would love for you to live down on yourself, never go to God with boldness. He doesn’t want you to activate that flow. He knows if you do, you will step into purpose, favor and blessing.

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 we God as you walk in the rhythms of grace.
If you will be open, this is a year of supernatural guidance for your life.
And when the right people enter your life, you learn you learn through 2 ways, mistakes, and mentors.
Does god speak audibly. Does he only speak through his word?
Does he speak how how what are the different ways that you certainly know of that god speaks to you.
Um, I’ve never heard the audible voice of god babe. Have you ever missed something?
I have not
No. Not
yet. No. Not yet. But I think there is something internal
Yeah.
In you that you that you feel the presence of god, and it lines up with scripture, which confirms Okay.
This is what I’m hearing.
That’s right. So the Holy Spirit of God, a Lumen scripture.
The book is alive, and he causes the the old preset subscription to have a nouness and a newness that applies and intersects with our personal experience.
So as Jerry mentioned, the Holy Spirit in us confirms and corroborates and connects with the the the word of god and causes it to intersect with our experience.
So that that verse that has something to do with David and Goliath.
All of a sudden, it’s not about David and Goliath.
It actually applies to what you’re facing right then in your life, and you understand it as a directive straight straight from god.
And then there’s the conviction, you know, the conviction of the holy spirit that that green light of ease and peace that says go.
That that yellow light of warning and uneasiness that says hold up a minute till you get clarity.
And then that red light that is a straight up no. There’s no peace. There’s confusion. There’s dissension.
That’s the Holy Spirit’s way of telling you, no. Don’t go there.
There’s a better yes for you if you’ll just wait and be patient.
Have you ever heard the still small voice of the lord in a phrase and an impression?
Have what describes some of what is in discerning the voice of god.
The how how the lord speaks or how this conversation unfolds with you?
Yes. Well, most of the time, most of the time, god speaks to me through his word.
It is exactly what I described. It is reading through a portion of scripture.
And on that day, it’s like the Holy Spirit has taken out a highlighter and has highlighted this verse.
You have seen a million times before, but on that day, it leaps up off the page and it grips you.
That’s the only way I can really describe it, is that it grips you in the depths of your soul and causes you to pause for a moment.
Because it it seems to be literally speaking to something that’s happening in your life.
Most of the time, that that is the voice of god. We have discounted, I think, the power of scripture.
Because if we say we wanna hear from god and we never actually read the love letter that he wrote to us, we don’t wanna 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 revealed 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.
The reality is that sometimes you do not know until hindsight that what you heard was the voice of god.
Yeah. Yeah.
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 misstepped along the way.
So just grace for those of us. Yes. Who have ever heard god wrong?
And, um, 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, uh, now I interviewed Henry Blackabee who wrote experience in God.
And I, you know, had my notebook out my pen.
I was gonna take a seminary class from every black guy, 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 could 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.
Yeah. When you know his character, when you know, um, 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 in his character, then you know when you hear the voice of fear, uh-uh, that don’t sound like my god.
When you hear the voice of your ego pride, jealousy, divisiveness stepping in, all that stuff that in our flesh 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 dis divide his voice from a stranger.
You know what it does? Yeah. It ruins you for church as usual.
Oh, hey. Come on.
Yeah. That regular old, mundane, Christian, rediversa day 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. Okay.
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.
Yeah.
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 near because he’s omnipresent, there are times where he manifests himself in a way where the the hair on the back of your next hairstyle.
Kind of failing.
Goosebumps. 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.
You want more of that.
And
I think what a lot of people need to understand, and he also speaks through his silence.
Very much so.
You know, I’m not saying anything.
You know, think about the years in the one where where, you know, from the old to new testament, he was just silent.
Yeah. And his silence means stay still. Don’t move. I got you.
Yeah. This is on the heart of god right now. This is the bookmarks.
Dissatisfied with the mundane. Yeah.
We are aren’t wanting to hear god’s voice, wanting to know you know, I don’t, I mean, you know, not what to to eat today Yeah.
Necessarily, but needing to know to help their kids Yeah.
To to their jobs there, you know, in every area of your life, I believe God is speaking, or wants to speak, or wants to have a say.
Yes. And, you know, I wanna say too, that just that sense of dissatisfaction that that someone may be feeling that we all feel when we’re gonna 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 wanna get to the answer, but the dissatisfaction itself is a of god’s spirit working with
you. Absolutely.
And then satisfaction, 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 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.
Wow.
He’s mysterious. He’s got an art 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 can never arrive at the knowledge of him.
That I have to constantly and consistently be growing?
Well, because it takes faith. That’s what it takes faith
to say.
Okay. You know what? That That’s why I always say if we step out in faith, kinda 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 us and And we can ask them. Our yeah.
Yeah. Even when we’re when we’re unsure and we’re unsteady, in in 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 5 m’s of hearing god.
When you sense that god is imparting something upon you, um, impressing conviction, um, uh, just a a push towards 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 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 it’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 live live in this 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? Uh, listen, I’ve got those people in my life. Yeah.
The majority of the things that we have done in ministry as a couple, we have not done.
Um, I’m talking about big things that would have marked our lives and our children’s lives.
We have not done before we have called people that we are submitted to the authority.
Ask them when they pray through and give us their wise counsel before we took a step.
So we’ve submitted ourself to the ministry of Eli. We’ve got Eli’s in our lives.
When you understand that god really does speak, that god really does lead, that god really is concerned about the details of your life, and you learn to listen to him He will begin to bring the right people.
Let’s talk about that for just a moment. The right people into your life.
So so when the enemy wants to mess you up, he’ll send a person.
And when god wants to bless you, He god’s not writing checks. God’s not selling cars.
God’s not he doesn’t have a car business out here. He doesn’t have a bank.
He doesn’t have an employment agency. He’s gonna use somebody. Wow. He’s gonna use a person.
And when you begin to discern the right people in your life, I think about When I sit here and I look at YouTube, I think about some right people that came into my life at the right place, at the right time.
Can I talk about it? Absolutely.
I think about a phone call that I got when I was just starting out in ministry, had a tiny church of about 300 p we’d build it up to 300 people.
And I got a phone call from Dallas, Texas, TBM. Ms.
Jan Crouch has seen you on some TV show playing your saxophone.
She would like for you to come to Dallas tomorrow. That’s how it happened. Tomorrow.
Sounds like my mom. She would like for you to come tomorrow and and her and and and, uh, Paul Crouch are hosting the show.
And we would love for you to be the musical guest. Well, I’m I’m I’m from Georgia.
I’m a country I’m his country’s cornbread.
I’m, um, I mean, you know, I was, I was, I was terrified and yet humbled and yet, wow, Next thing I know, I’m flying out on Delta, and I’ll never forget it.
I walked into that studio in Dallas.
And I just played my horn, and it was a kingdom connection.
I don’t know any other way to describe it.
The next thing I know, she she I I got back to the hotel room and a girl, and I don’t know if she’s still with you, Laura Massey.
Yep. Called my I I remember these details.
Thing that touched me, Laura, was was I had read the verse and that had that had drove me to my knees before.
And when we talk about the right people, the right place, right plan. Listen to this.
I’d read a scripture that week from the book of Psalms that said that he will exalt your horn.
Oh my goodness. The horn will be anointed, and it will be exalted And I got that phone call.
You know, I’m a preacher, basically, but it wasn’t the preaching that got my foot in the door. Mhmm.
It was my horn, my saxophone. Them.
And and so I go and I play that night, I get back to the hotel room, and I felt like it went good, you know, we they were so kind to me.
You’re dad. I’ll never forget how your dad made me feel like a million bucks. I’m I was nobody.
I was still nobody. But he came over and talked to me.
And so you pastor in Georgia, and, uh, Jan’s dad used to pastor in a gush uh, they started, or some, where was it?
Yeah. Columbus. Yeah. And Decatur. And so make a long story short, they call back and say they would for you to stay over tomorrow, they’re gonna take another show.
And, uh, the guest at night, by the way, was a guy named T. D. J.
You had never been on there. And he creates my mom. I was on that show.
Go back and look at your your take. I was there. We rode over in the car together.
And I didn’t know him from anybody, and he didn’t know me from anybody.
I’m telling you God can get you from anywhere you are to anywhere he wants you to be in one day.
My goodness. In one day, the right people. Thank you, Laura.
Paul Crouch Jan Crouch were the right pea I don’t know why she liked me.
I don’t know why she cared about me. Yeah. But something happened. Yeah.
She opened doors to me all over the world. Yeah. And I just really feel this.
This is more than a TV tape Wow.
This is a year of if you will be open, this is a year of supernatural guidance for your life.
And when the right people enter your life, you learn you learn through 2 ways, mistakes, and mentors.
Pain or people. You’re gonna learn one way or the other. I’d rather learn from somebody else’s pain.
Yeah. I’d rather learn from somebody else’s mistakes.
And one of the greatest days of your life is when god brings into your life, people that are anointed to speak into your life to mentor you.
Sometimes a mentor becomes a tormentor, because they’re like a coach, they’re trying to bring the best out of you.
Don’t run from them. And god has these kinds of people, I call them kingdom connections, that that he will bring into your life that are bridges to your destiny, that are bridges to your purpose and your calling.
And had they not poured into me at seasons in my life.
I don’t believe I’d be setting here, and I don’t believe I would be nowhere near, uh, as as as blessed as I am today to preach the gospel in areas that I never dreamed I would get to go.
Uh, but they became those those people.
You know, when Paul was discouraged, and and I take great joy in that.
Listen, somebody needs to hear this Mhmm.
That the great apostle Paul became so he said he’s put it like this.
He said I had I had, uh, fears within, and I had problems without.
You ever had a day like that?
Mhmm.
You had trouble on the outside and doubting your own self on the inside. Wow.
And he said, in my lowest hour, god sent Titus You know what Titus name mean?
It means you can make it. My goodness. God sent it. You can Joel won’t
Right? Come
on. God sent a jaw off sting, a Titus. You can make it. Don’t you quit now?
There are 28 seasons in in Ecclesiastes chapter 3 time to week, time to cry, time to dance, time to gather, time to scatter.
The one season you’ll never see is the season to quit. Oh my goodness.
And sometimes you need to tide us in your life. That’s a kingdom connect. That’s the right people. Sure.
See, there’s flash people and there’s They’re spirit people. Mhmm. Fresh people feed your fear.
Spirit people feed your faith.
Flesh people feed your they they cause you to abort your your spiritual dream. Wow.
But spirit people Like when Mary got around Elizabeth, the Bible said the baby inside of her began to leak the dream, the call, the purpose, the plan of god, when you start getting around the right voices in your life, they’ll make what’s in you come alive.
I’m doing that right now.
I’m I’m the right person for something to do right now, you’re not gonna waste another year of your life.
Thank you, Lord.
This time, discerning the voice of god, give us a kind of a, a little bit of a lesson in in how that works and how it works right and wrong.
And, you know, how do you, how do you discover that too?
One of my favorite things that we talk about is, uh, in the book of Jose chapter 5, god said to Ephraim, one of the tribes, he said, I will come to you as a moth.
So only time in scripture where god says, compares himself to a moth.
You know what a moth is? It’s just a little insect. It’s just a little little flutter or something.
How do you describe a moth? It’s it’s just it’s so tiny and so little.
You just kind of do like that, and it goes away.
But then in the next verse, he says I’ll come to you as an eagle. Mhmm. Lion.
And then a lion. Wow. Wow. Wow.
And, you know, I tell people, if you opened the closet and you saw a moth in there, It would be no big deal.
But if you come back the next day day and you open the closet, and there’s a big old eagle with sharp claws and beak that could rip your flesh to pieces.
It gets your attention. Sure. But if you, on 3rd day, opened that closet and there was a vicious lion looking at you, it would really get your attention.
So the point is this. Notice the pattern.
God says, It’s a powerful thing to, to be sensitive to the voice of god that you can just have the gentle letters of the Holy Spirit.
He doesn’t have to scream. God seldom screams. Almost never. He whispers. A still small voice.
He wants us not to have to have the lion, not to have to have the life, just being torn all the pieces in the eagle, tear in our lives.
Uh, those things will come because he whom the lord loves, he chastens.
And if he has to do those things to get you on the right path. He’s got lions.
He can release. Trust me. Wow. But his greatest desire, this is this is the tenderness of god.
That his greatest desire is just to flutter, just to make us sensitive, that, oh, I don’t have to have some mighty thing.
I I’ve I’m reading the word. I’m praying. I’m in touch with his voice and just the flutter.
It’s a strangest thing. I I was preaching for um, Craig Rochelle, not too long ago, and his, he, he had asked me to, to come and, and preach some sermons and, and take them, and then stay over and do his staff thing, and he has, like, 1200 people that that had gathered.
And I had prepared my messages ahead, you know, the best I could and all of that, and I was prepared.
And just before I walked up that last service, I I don’t know how to describe it, except that flutter.
It wasn’t like, you know, just overwhelming, thus sayeth the lord in reverb. It was just the flutter.
Somebody said something on the stage that mess there was another message that I tucked in my Bible, and it and it it just came alive.
Everything in it And I had that one, but it just, it didn’t, and the flutter was over there.
I don’t know how to describe it.
And I walked up, and I preached that message, just sitting about me, but I preach that message, and, and, and I’m just telling you, it was it was strong what god did.
I almost I could have missed it I could have gone with just an old program message that that, you know, that but I I had that sensitivity and to be gently impressed.
To be tender enough to just have those gentle impressions of the Holy Spirit.
Man, that’s when you start walking, Christianity in its greatest form is, and he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he and he tells me I’m his own