Christians are not called to follow a philosophy of life or a moral system of behavior; we are called to follow a Person—Christ. The Way is not a formula but a Person. Truth is not just getting our doctrines accurate, though we want to do that, but the Truth we are to follow is a Person—Jesus is the Truth. He must be our Life if we are to really know Him as the Way and the Truth.

          Jesus said in John 10 that His sheep would follow Him because His sheep know His voice. This is why a primary focus of our ministry has been to know His voice and to help others to do the same. This was a main theme of the Word for the Week last year, but we can go much further than this and will this year.

          As we have discussed, there are two basic ways that people recognize others—by their face and by their voice. Many books are written about knowing the voice of God, and these teach many wise sounding principles. However, I don’t think there is any principle that will help us know the voice of the Lord.

          For example, I could write a paper on someone’s voice and describe it accurately, but until you have heard it yourself, you probably would not be able to pick that person out in a crowd. What I’m saying is that many principles can help us understand things like prophetic revelation and how to handle it, but there is no substitute for hearing the Lord’s voice ourselves. He said His sheep know His voice.

          We do things at MorningStar that help people begin to hear His voice for themselves such as placing them with one of our prophetic teams. As they sit with the team and seek to hear the voice of the Lord, He will speak to them. When they hear others on the team begin to say what they heard, it builds their confidence that they are hearing the Lord, too. As people minister in these teams, over time, their sensitivity to His voice can grow dramatically. Then they start hearing Him at work, while shopping, or at any time and in any place that He wants to speak.

          As mentioned above, the Lord said that His sheep know His voice—He did not say that His lambs did. Young believers (in spiritual age) often need to follow more mature people until they mature. One of the primary ways we mature and become sheep is by knowing His voice. In our life of discipleship, this should be a fundamental purpose—knowing His voice. We should also be devoted to building on a foundation of sound doctrine and having a biblical worldview. This is part of growing in the truth and having a love for the truth, but fundamental to our life is following the Person who is the Truth.

           Therefore, one of our themes and goals this year will be to know the Lord’s voice much better because we are getting to know Him better. Our ultimate goal as His disciples should be to be like Him, to think as He thinks, to view the world and situations the way He does, and to be used by Him in any way that He desires.

           I ask you to consider making it a weekly goal to hear something from the Lord for another person. It could be a verse from the Scriptures that you feel quickened about for someone else or just an impression. I have witnessed how impressions could radically impact someone’s life, even turning them 180 degrees from a course of destruction to one of a fruitful, happy life. If we will start responding and speaking these, the Lord will give us more. Soon we will be impacting lives every day for the Lord and His kingdom.