Following The Right Voices

BY REV GOH YONG KUANG

I can still remember a game that my friends and I played during our youth fellowship days. Two persons were selected to represent two opposing teams to compete in an obstacle course. The game requires the participant who is blindfolded to navigate through a series of physical obstacles, such as chairs, tables and other objects without running into them. The team members will give out verbal instructions to their teammate, while the opposing team will shout as loud as they can to distract and to mislead their opponent with their conflicting instructions.  

We live in a world where we are constantly surrounded by noise and different voices calling out at us. Not all of them are helpful. There are few types of voices that we hear today:

-      Our own voice

-      The voice of other people

-      The voice of our adversary, the devil

-      The voice of God, the Holy Spirit

We must learn to distinguish each one of them so that we may tell the right voices from the wrong ones. Some of the voices that we hear today will only cripple us, make our lives miserable and hinder us from becoming effective for God! They may sound something like this…”You can’t make it!”; “You are not good enough!”; “No one is going to appreciate what you are doing.”; “It’s not going to work!”; “God will not forgive you!”; “This battle is not worth fighting”; “Follow your heart!”, etc. 

When you hear such voices, stop for a moment and ask yourself:

Are they consistent with God’s Word? Does it encourage me and provide hope for my life?

Does it lead me to make decisions that benefit others and glorify God?

We must ask God to help us discern these voices in our hearts and mind – so that we can distinguish the still small voice of the Holy Spirit from the voice of the evil one. Jesus said, “My sheep know my voice, and I know them. They follow me…” - John 10:27 (CEV).  

We are living in the last days where we find ourselves frequently surrounded by familiar and unfamiliar voices; bombarded with teachings that are strange yet appealing; and confronted with attractive promises and words that appeal to our carnal senses. Yet no matter how attractive they may seem and how rational and convincing they may sound – they are only leading us down the path of destruction! 

The apostle John warns of the need to discern right from wrong, truth from error: 

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God,

because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.” - 1 John 4:1-3 (NASB)

May God help us to recognize and follow the voice of God, who speaks uniquely to each one of us in our own circumstances, during our quiet times of reading and prayer, and through the wisdom and counsel of His people!