Hearing God in Hebrews (Part 2) Hebrews 2:1-4, 14-18
How the Jay family (Chris, Anne, Matthew) heard God tell them to move from the UK to NZ…
The Jay Family - “Why we came to New Zealand ….”
Testimony for CPAC ‘Hearing from God’, 5th October 2008
In March 2006, while we were still in the UK, we asked several friends to pray for us without telling them what we wanted them to pray about. We just asked them to pray and see if they felt God was telling them anything to tell to us. These particular friends have worked as missionaries in Amsterdam and worked full time for a Christian charity organisation. They often talk of how God has answered their prayers, so we felt they may be more able to hear what God was saying than us.
They came to us with 3 “words” that they felt were from God:
1) Life is an adventure
2) Children are adaptable
3) Chris was smiling.
Another friend who we had asked to do the same said he had a picture of lots of bottles of wine in a room, but there was no-one there, and of a church being built – brick on brick (I’ll come back to that later). Another (who knew what he was praying about) read us a bible passage about Jesus leading his sheep, and we must follow (John 10).
All these answers seemed to link to the possibility of moving to New Zealand – a land filled with wine and sheep!!
We were considering this as both Chris and I had seen job adverts for jobs we could both do in Wellington – there had never been jobs advertised for us both in the same place at the same time since we have been married!!
We took the above answers to prayer as confirmation that it was right to at least explore the possibility of moving. I was a bit reluctant at first because of my family situation – my brother died in 1992, and my dad in 2004, so I was leaving my mum on her own. I really needed to be sure that exploring this possibility was the right thing to do.
Chris contacted the pharmacy dept at Capital and Coast where the job for him was advertised, and he applied for the job. I contacted the Head of Department where the job had been advertised for me – and was told I could have a part time, school hours only job, which he would sort out when I arrived in Wellington – this was exactly what I wanted!! He also happens to be an ex-colleague of mine from where I worked in the UK.
I was quite worried about leaving my mum, so I prayed a rather cheeky prayer, to which I didn’t really expect an answer!! I said to God “Ok God, if this is right, and you want us to go to New Zealand, let the words New Zealand be mentioned in a sermon!!” – and it was, on Mothering Sunday ( I have the tape to prove it!!)( play 1 minute of the tape if possible).
When I heard that, I was convinced that we were doing the right thing. However, there were still lots of things that needed to happen. Firstly Chris had his interview and was offered the job – so he accepted it. The next step was to sell the house. We decided that we would not move to New Zealand unless the house sold – I suppose in a way we were testing God again, and prayed that if God really wanted us to go ( although he’d already shown us pretty clearly that this was the case) that he would sell the house. The whole process of selling a house takes much longer in the UK, and 12 weeks after the house went on the market, we received an offer (July), and we eventually exchanged contracts towards the end of October (2006) ( the same a going “unconditional” here).
The delay in exchanging contracts on the house led to a very stressful few months, but also another answer to prayer!! Once we had the offer on the house, we applied for our visas, and had our medicals and police check done. We then found out that the rules for pharmacists registering in New Zealand were changing at the end of November 2006. At that time, registration here was a fairly straight forward process, but was being changed to involve a written exam, which had to be passed in the UK before a pharmacist can come and work in New Zealand. Because of these changes, Chris wanted to get to New Zealand in time to register under the old rules (the easy way). Also, the first proposed date for the new exam was set as March 2007, which would be nearly a year after Chris was offered the job. We were not sure that the department in New Zealand would wait that long for Chris to join them, and also we would have to undergo the whole visa and medical process again – and pay again, as these documents were only valid for 6 months.
Chris needed to give 2 months notice at work, and so we really had to exchange contracts on our house sale by the end of September for him to be able to get to NZ by the end of November. We tried desperately to get our buyers to sign contracts by the end of September, as we did not think it would be wise for Chris to hand in his notice before the house sale was secure. By the beginning of October, they still had not signed, and we were beginning to panic. I met with a small group of Christian friends one Tuesday night (home group), and we were praying about this – I was feeling rather stressed!! I felt quite strongly that I should suggest to Chris that he sent an e-mail to the pharmacy council in NZ, asking if the last date for him to register really was the end of November, or he would have to wait until March.
We had already had lots of e-mails stating this, but I felt we should ask once more. He sent an e-mail on Tuesday evening, and received a reply back almost immediately. This reply said that the Pharmacy council had met the week before and decided to change the deadline for registering under the old system until the end of January. Not only did this immediately reduce our stress levels, but it meant we could stay in the UK for Christmas – I didn’t feel at all happy about leaving my mum just before Christmas. Our house sale was eventually secured mid October, and we then booked our flights for the 1st January 2007.
I would like to tell you about just one more very clear answer to prayer relating to our move. One week, we were sitting in a service in our church (St John’s) , listening to a sermon about giving. One thing Chris and I have always believed in quite strongly is that as Christians we should give away some of our money. We have always tried to tithe, which means we give away 10% of our income. I was sat in the sermon, and a thought popped into my head that said “You should tithe the profit you make on your house”. This was a substantial amount of money, and I was not keen on this idea!! I had a feeling that this thought had probably come from God, as it would not go away. So in my head I prayed the following: “OK God, if this is a word from you, and you really want us to do this, put this thought into Chris’s head too, and make him raise the subject in conversation”. At the end of the sermon Chris whispered to me “I think we should tithe the equity in our house”. I told him what had happened to me, so we had to obey God and do this!! Whenever Chris and I have been considering our giving, we always pray about it separately and then discuss it together. We both came up with exactly the same four things that we wanted to give the money to.
Throughout 2006, we had many very clear and amazing answers to prayer, and God answered our prayers in many different ways. We really needed to know that we were doing the right thing, and God confirmed that over and over again throughout the year.
We have now been here for almost 2 years, and have seen God work in many more ways since our arrival, He led us to Churton Park, found us a rental property here and led us to CPAC. When we heard that CPAC was praying about building a church, we realised the significance of Denis’s second picture in the UK, of a church being built brick on brick. It was not until I received an e-mail this week from Danny, that I realised the full implications of Denis’s other picture – the bottles of wine. Danny pointed out to me that, “The wine image may be a picture of CPAC being founded on the concept of a vineyard. CPAC’s founding text is from John 15:5-8 where Jesus is The True Vine and we are the branches. Also, we call our Sunday brochure The Winepress because of this vineyard concept.”
So we believe that while we were still in Birmingham, God gave our friend a picture of CPAC!! God has also blessed us with many new and wonderful friends, and led us into new areas of ministry here at CPAC.
(Summarise)
Hearing from God…. Question: How many different ways did God speak to us?
I have 8 props top represent each different way…
1) Pictures and words from other people (prop is a black dog and wine bottle)
2) His Word – the bible (bible)
3) Directly through a sermon (the tape)
4) Circumstances – (house details)
5) Thoughts during giving sermon (cheque)
6) Thoughts during prayer (home group – picture)
7) Through a Gift – (“I know the plans…”)
8) Chris and I agreeing in thoughts (who to give money to – Mary and Joe’s picture (names changed for confidentiality))
Testimony by Anne Jay, 5 Oct 2008
Danny continues….
One way I heard from God recently was thro the Dom Post (01-10-08)… Article headed “Quake Ready Warning” said,… “NZders need to be shaken out of their complacency before an EQ shakes things up instead…It’s a challenge to get it through to people… there’s general awareness of issues but little understanding of what that will mean for them and their families… preparing for major disasters needed to become part of mainstream activities”
As it is in the natural so it is in the supernatural – there is a time of severe testing upon us in both realms (financially = global recession, physically = huge stress on family/work relationships, and so spiritually = testing & stretching of our faith/trust in God in such difficult times).
Hebrews is a book to encourage us for a time such as this!
Severe persecution was beginning to rock the 1st century church. They didn’t want to face the “disaster” and were thinking of abandoning their newfound faith in Christ and lapsing back into Judaism, for an easy ride. The writer of Hebrews exhorts them, in the face of testing times ahead, to hold fast to their confession of Christ as Saviour and Lord… “we must pay greater attention to what we have heard so we don’t drift away…He (Christ) is able to help those who are being tested” (Hebr 2:1, 18).
More now than ever before do we need to “hear from heaven”.
If you struggle to hear from God then you’ve come to the right place here!
Don’t beat yourself up!
I said last week that if you know the Lord then you have already heard His voice because it was His inner voice and leading that brought you to Him in the first place.
To hear God’s voice is your basic right as a child of God.
Hearing God’s voice comes out of your growing relationship with God.
Read John 8:26-29… Jesus always checked with His Father first; He always listened for His Father’s voice… motivated by His desire to please His Father.
If your aim is always to want to please, obey, serve, and surrender to our Heavenly Father then you wont have difficulty hearing from Him.
So don’t make hearing from God, and guidance from God, complicated.
“A (wo)man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps”
Prov 16:9
If you stay humble before God He WILL direct your steps; He promises to guide you by speaking to you (in various ways).
If you don’t believe that you hear from God then I encourage you to try this :
Get in a quiet place on your own and ask God,
“God, I know that you love me more than I could ever imagine, but is there anything about my behaviour and attitude that you don’t like?”
…then, wait for God’s answer… He will surely make Himself heard!
God will convict you of any “corrections” you need to make in your life so that you will be restored to Him in a greater way.
In other words, He will convict you of those things in your life we call “sin”.
Sin is an abomination to God.
Sin is the reason for the Cross.
God will surely make Himself heard by you when you raise this issue of personal “sin” with Him.
You and I will hear from God alright!
Here are 3 simple tests to help you begin to hear God’s voice to a greater degree:
1 Submit to His Lordship
2 Resist the enemy of your soul
3 Expect an answer from God
1 Submit to His Lordship
Surrender your entire self to God
Get serious in prayer – keep a pen and paper handy – jot down any thoughts that might distract you so you can pick up on them later outside your prayer time (eg. to do list things which come to distract us, clear the clutter from your mind – see 2 Cor 10:5…) – then also, jot down what God might be saying to you (ie. images, impressions, pictures, thoughts, feelings, ideas…)
As you prepare to hear from God, trust Him.. “Trust in the Lord…He will direct your path” see Prov 3:5-6
God knows what’s best for you – His guidance will always be beneficial.
2 Resist the enemy of your soul.
When you are seeking God and wanting to hear from God, Satan will always try to deceive you. Use your authority in Christ to silence the enemy’s voice!
See James 4:7 “Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you!”
The devil has no choice – He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world!
Read Ephesians 6:10-20 and literally put on the armour each time you read it.
The devil will only affect you if you have given him legal right to do so through the consequence of any sin in your life.
That is why it is always good to ask God on a regular basis:
“God, I know that you love me more than I could ever imagine, but is
there anything about my behaviour and attitude that you don’t like?”
3 Expect an answer from God.
When you ask God anything, pause to give God a chance to respond. You may hear from God straight away, or you may not. It may take a long time to hear from God! Always expect to get an answer though regardless of how long it takes.
See John 10:27 “My sheep hear my voice…”
See Exodus 33:11a “So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face…”
Here’s a good one - Ps 69:13
“But I keep praying to you Lord, hoping this time you will show me
favour! In your unfailing love O Lord, answer my prayer with your sure salvation”
Always expect an answer! Don’t ever give up. Keep praying, asking, seeking, imploring, listening, & waiting to hear from God.
Allow God to speak to you in the way that He chooses.
That is, don’t crowd God with your agenda; don’t tell God what he can and can’t do.
Yes, we can “test” God to get clarification and confirmation as the Jay family did, and as Gideon did when he put out a fleece
The important point about “testing God” is that we don’t do it for purely selfish, indulgent, self-serving motives. We test God to get clarification and confirmation about issues, actions, people, and decisions which when acted upon by us will be of benefit to others, will help us grow and mature as disciples of Christ, and ultimately will bring glory to God.
So don’t dictate to God.
He is the Lord and Master and we are His servants whom He delights in exalting.
Have young 7 year old Samuel’s attitude,
“Speak Lord, for your servant is listening!” (1 Sam 3:9)
It doesn’t matter how old or how young you are, you can learn to hear from God, on a regular basis!
So don’t make guidance and hearing from God complicated.
Submit to God’s Lordship; surrender yourself totally.
Resist the enemy with the authority of Christ
Expect an answer from God
Allow God to speak to you in the way HE chooses;
Stay humble before God and ask for His patience (more fruit of the Spirit)
Amen.
