How to Stay Tuned In to God

Posted On June 27, 2021

“Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. . . . .”

John 8:47 NIV

Jesus said that those who belong to God hear His voice. If we have accepted Christ as God’s Son and have made Him Lord of our lives, then we are God’s children and we will hear what He says. That’s good news! But how do we do it?

That’s our topic for this week. In the early 1940s, C. S. Lewis gave a series of talks on BBC radio which he later collected and published as Mere Christianity. I have included a few excerpts from his chapters on faith. We will let his voice guide us as we discuss how to stay tuned in to God.

Listen for His Voice Every Day

“Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. . . . Consequently one must train the habit of Faith. The first step is to recognise the fact that your moods change. The next is to make sure that, if you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. That is why daily prayers and religious reading and church going are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed.”
~C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The first thing we need to do is make a commitment to feed our faith and listen for God’s voice every day. We can do this through daily prayer, Bible reading, and meditation on God’s Word. We can also give God many opportunities to speak to us by attending church regularly, engaging in Christian study, and spending time with other Christians. God wants us to hear His voice. He doesn’t hide from us. If we make an effort to listen, He will help us to hear Him.

But we must make sure we are ready to respond when He does. We must be willing to do whatever He tells us to do. If we aren’t willing to obey Him, we’ll get stuck. He won’t give us new instructions until we’ve completed the ones He’s already given us. And it will be harder to hear Him in the future. We must come to Him with childlike faith, trusting that He knows what’s best for us and willing to obey Him right away.

God has plans for our lives that He wants to communicate, but the main thing God desires is a relationship with us. He is our heavenly Father, and He wants to spend time with His children. We recognize the voices of those closest to us. The more time we spend with our Father, the better we get to know Him and the more we crave His presence. As we grow closer to Him, we learn to recognize His voice.

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

John 10:27 ESV

Tune In to the Right Frequency

“Christians have often disputed as to whether what leads the Christian home is good actions, or Faith in Christ. I have no right really to speak on such a difficult question, but it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary. A serious moral effort is the only thing that will bring you to the point where you throw up the sponge. Faith in Christ is the only thing to save you from despair at that point: and out of that Faith in Him good actions must inevitably come.”
~C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Anyone that has ever tried really hard to obey everything God wants us to do knows how difficult this is. In fact, on our own, it’s impossible. It’s when we finally realize this that we’re ready to let Christ save us “from despair” as C. S. Lewis puts it. Faith in Christ brings the gift of the Holy Spirit. As Christians, we have God’s Spirit living in us, transforming us to be more like Jesus. He gives us His power, His wisdom, His love, and His desires. It’s the voice of the Holy Spirit within us that we need to learn to listen to.

This takes practice. It’s hard to know where our thoughts are coming from sometimes. Are they from ourselves, from God, or from something evil? Peter warns us: “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.  Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith” (1 Peter 5:8-9 NLT). The Holy Spirit is not the only one speaking to us. We may be listening to our own desires or to the voice of the enemy. This is why we are told in Proverbs 3:5 (ESV), “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”

So how do we tell the difference? The best way to learn how to tune in the voice of the Holy Spirit is to spend time in prayer and in God’s Word. God will never contradict Himself. So any voice in our head that goes against Scripture is not the voice of God. The better we know what God says in His Word, the better we’ll know what God is saying in our thoughts. As we learn to tune in His voice, it becomes easier for us to hear Him. And then the real adventure begins! He begins transforming our desires to align with His. And He gives us access to His power and strength so that we can join Him in His amazing work.

“For God is at work within you, helping you want to obey him, and then helping you do what he wants.”

Philippians 2:13 TLB

Get Rid of the Extra Noise

“Now, once again, what God cares about is not exactly our actions. What he cares about is that we should be creatures of a certain kind or quality— the kind of creatures He intended us to be—creatures related to Himself in a certain way. I do not add ‘and related to one another in a certain way,’ because that is included: if you are right with Him you will inevitably be right with all your fellow-creatures, just as if all the spokes of a wheel are fitted rightly into the hub and the rim they are bound to be in the right positions to one another.”
~C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Once we’ve learned to tune in the voice of the Holy Spirit, we need to learn to silence everything else. This may be the hardest part because it means we must learn to guard our thoughts. I think this is why Paul instructs us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17 ESV). When we start letting our own thoughts, or worse, the voice of the enemy, take over, they can drown out God’s voice. How many times have we had to restrain ourselves from saying or doing what we were really thinking? Well, it’s good that we’ve learned to control our words and actions, but Jesus wants us to go further: He wants us to control our thoughts as well.

“What matters more than the type of service is the heart behind the service. A bad attitude spoils the gift we leave on the altar for God.”

Max Lucado, Grace for the Moment

I know what you’re thinking because I’m thinking the same thing — really?! How am I supposed to do that? Well, once again, on our own this would be impossible. But with the help of the Holy Spirit working in us, we can do this. He will give us the strength that we need (Philippians 4:13). Keeping our thoughts focused on God is the only way to have the close relationship with Him that He desires. When we spend all our time worrying or doubting or longing for things that aren’t good for us, we miss out on hearing His voice. We miss out on the blessings He wants to give us.

The same is true if we feel too guilty to be used by Him. God knows all our sins, so we can’t hide anything from Him. Through Christ, He has already forgiven them. Romans 8:39 (ESV) promises that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So then why does He still ask us to confess them? Because it helps us. When we confess our sins and turn back to God, it clears away the noisy guilt and brings us closer to Him.

“Confession does not create a relationship with God, it simply nourishes it. If you are a believer, admission of sins does not alter your position before God, but it does enhance your peace with God.”

Max Lucado, Grace for the Moment

One last noise we must banish from our thoughts is disharmony with other people. As C. S. Lewis explains, “if you are right with Him you will inevitably be right with all your fellow-creatures . . . .” We cannot be right with God if we are not right with everyone else. Jesus was clear that we are to love God and to love people (Matthew 22:37-39). Bitterness, resentment, anger, and hate clash with the beautiful, loving voice of God. If we are carrying around any negative thoughts toward others, we must cancel them out with love and forgiveness.

“If anyone boasts, ‘I love God,’ and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.”

1 John 4:20-21 MSG

Be Transformed

“I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Every one there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes.”
~C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Listen for God’s voice every day, make sure it is His voice we are hearing, and clear away everything else. This sounds like a lot, and it is. But remember that we’re not on our own. The Holy Spirit is helping us along the way. If we just trust Him and take a step of faith in His direction, He will help us reach our destination!

“The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”

1 Timothy 1:5 ESV

This week’s Scripture passages are all about listening for God’s voice. As a bonus, I have also included one of C. S. Lewis’s original BBC recordings. In this radio talk, he discusses prayer and being transformed to be like Christ. I admit, transformation is scary. We have to give up who we are to become who we are meant to be. But if we are willing to embrace the change, we will find our true selves!

“Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. . . . look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

References:

• “C.S Lewis Recording – BBC radio broadcast, Beyond Personality: The New Men.” YouTube, uploaded by David309211, 6 March 2013, https://youtu.be/m3jYLGcDUFE.
• Lewis, C. S. “Mere Christianity.” The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, Harper San Francisco, 2002, pp. 1-177.
• Lucado, Max. Grace for the Moment: Inspirational Thoughts for Each Day of the Year. J. Countryman, 2000.

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