How To Forgive And Hear From God

We begin knowing God through His Word. His spirit, His voice, and His tone is within scripture. As we allow it to dwell within us, we will begin to discern and recognize Him as He speaks to us.

1. The Voice of Our Shepherd

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

John 10:27

We recognize God’s voice by knowing His Word. Even if you have been born-again or are newly walking out your salvation, God has given you spiritual ears to hear His voice to recognize what He’s speaking.

The primary way to hear God’s voice is to deepen our roots in His Word then we become more familiar with His voice. We have to begin emptying our hearts of all the other voices. This is a great challenge in this day and age. We are bombarded and overwhelmed by the loud voices of social media, entertainment, social groups, and the list goes on. However, peace allows us to accurately hear God’s voice. When we are at peace, we are in the best position to hear from Him.

When we spend hours on social media scrolling through other people’s lives, we are at danger allowing covetousness and the pride of life to soil our hearts and ultimately corrupt our faith journey. The voices and visuals before us on a screen can absolutely drown out God’s voice and obstruct our ability to hear from Him.

2. Seducing Spirits

“Listen to counsel and receive instruction, so that you may be wise in your latter days.”

Proverbs 19:20

Growing deep in God’s Word will protect us from the seducing spirits and prayer will keep our spirit alert, awake, and strong. When we walk in the spirit, we can hear from the spirit as we keep our thoughts on God and His Word. Seducing spirits can lead us into the wrong direction so we need to grow deep and strong in God’s Word and prayer!

Pride is the biggest set up for seducing spirits. We can find ourselves trusting in our own voice and not leaning on God’s voice or not being spiritually accountable which means allowing correction to recalibrate our direction. Surround yourself with good counsel when making important life-decisions. There are times in our life when we have to be willing to admit we are wrong and have made wrong decisions. If we allow our pride to guide us we will walk into deception from the seducing spirits. Let us grow in wisdom and understanding as we hear from God and allow good counsel to assist us in our faith journey.

3. Forgiveness

As we grow spiritually, there is a cleaning process that will take place. This is vital when we are striving to hear from God and get clear direction in our life. We don’t want a tainted heart to cloud our spiritual journey. This is when forgiveness comes into play. We have to forgive ourselves first, then we forgive others. This is part of being clean, broken, and humble before God. Not through circumstances, but by prayer and loving God.

Forgiveness is nonnegotiable. God forgave us and He expects us to forgive everybody who has caused us pain. Just look at the pain of the cross. There is nothing that can compare to that pain, and yet, hanging from that cross, He spoke the words we as believers should live by. “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.”

Sometimes we can forgive but not feel it in our heart. However, we forgive by faith and eventually our emotions will come in alignment with our faith. Feelings are fickle, but by faith we release the people who have hurt us and relieve our heart from the tormenting pain they may have caused us. The torment of pain caused by wrong-doing against us can cause suicide, depression, and many detrimental afflictions.

4. Power of Prayer

“If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.”

Proverbs 25:21-23

Strategic prayer is the solution if we struggle with unforgiveness. When we forgive the people who hurt us, God will help us move beyond the pain that was caused. Forgiveness is a process, but with diligent prayer and the desire to clear our hearts, we make room for God’s blessings in our life. We will get to a place where we begin to feel compassion for those who have commit wrong and caused pain.

Final Thoughts

Unforgiveness opens a massive door for the enemy to beat us down and torment us.

When we forgive the people who broke our hearts, Jesus will return us a new heart for those people.

Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Forgiveness is the key to a life of victory!