Hello. My name is Carl Wesley Anderson. I’m both an equipping evangelist and documentary filmmaker of Born To Blaze Ministries, coming to you from Minneapolis, Minnesota. A special shout out to the God Today audience. Isn’t this exciting? We’re going to learn something, that God is real today, He’s speaking today, and He’s speaking in such a way that you might not have recognized Him, but did you know your thoughts can actually be His thoughts flowing through you? We call this the inner voice of the Holy Spirit and it’s so common, it’s like a daily conversation with the Holy Spirit.
When I teach on these themes, it’s like people say, “Well, hearing the voice of God, is that like some audible external voice?” And I go, well, there are 21 ways to listen, but the 21st is the audible. It’s the least common. Many of you, including myself, may never hear an audible voice, but you can hear the inner voice of the Spirit speaking to you today. Let me define this for you because love is speaking. Here’s how it’s defined. It’s defined as an inaudible voice originating in your sanctified human spirit and flowing out your mind as a thought or flood of thoughts. How about that? So let me pose the question to you. I may hopefully make you smile or laugh a little bit to start your day today. Okay? Here’s the question: Just what does God sound like? Wow. What does the God of the universe actually sound like? Well, let me share that with you in a very simple way. If Robert De Niro was a believer and I’m not sure if he is, I’ll start doing the Robert De Niro. I’m switching into this Robert De Niro accent for you. Now I don’t know if you’re a fan of De Niro, and if you’re watching this from New York, you’re going to be like this Minnesotan does a terrible New York accent. I know it’s terrible, but it’s close enough. So if I was Robert De Nero and if I was a Christian, right, I’d be like, this is how I’d be praying every day. I’d be like, “You talking to me? Hey, you talking to me, Hey God, I’m talking to you while you I’m talking to you. I’m talking, can you hear me? Are you talking to me? Right? This is Bobby De Niro. Are you talking to me, God?” And God’s in heaven going, ”Yeah, I’m talking to you. Are you talking to me?” Okay. You get the idea right? To Robert de Niro, if you’re watching this Bobby, big fan, if you know, God sounds like Robert De Niro in his mind, do you understand? He doesn’t talk to me like that. He talks to me like Carl Wesley Anderson. He talks to you in whatever accent you’re from. You know, right? I’ll do the rest of this whole teaching for you in my Northern Ireland accent, ‘cause I’d been there for 25 years, preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s very simple to do a Northern Ireland accent. You just pretend like you’re singing like this. So if I was from Northern Ireland, I’m praying, “Lord, are you talking to me?” The Lord is like, “Ya, I’m talking to you, you’re talking to me, right?” That’s how the Lord speaks to an Irish man or a woman. But to you and I, He sounds like, gosh, He’s a thought or flood of thoughts flowing out our mind.
Let me give you a very practical example. When our son, Ethan was of the age to take his first missions trip, he was on his way to Africa, Uganda, with a group from the youth group of our current church at the time. And my wife, Sarah was of course, as I was, a little nervous about sending your 16 year old kid for the first time to a country where you’re asked to get these shots and inoculations and go through all this stuff. So Sarah is at the doctor’s office one day, and she’s praying as he is getting his shots. She’s in the lobby and she’s praying, “Lord, is he going to be okay?” Simple prayer, right? And out of her mind flows, the thought, “He’s going to be okay.” It was my wife’s thought, but it was God originating that thought by the Holy Spirit within her giving her an assurance. You know, it’s one thing to look at scripture and we have the verse, you know, my sheep hear my voice. So simple, John 10, Jesus speaking, right? We know the Good Shepherd’s speaking to us. But if you look at the Bible, you can find a verse, you’re going to find a verse that, you know, God is Ethan’s refuge and fortress. My son, Ethan, in time of trouble or whatever, you can stand on the word, but it’s something even powerful to get the inner voice of the Holy Spirit. So, have a laugh as you’re having your coffee. “You talking to me?” “Yeah. I’m talking to you, you talking to me,” right? Like the Lord is talking to you today.
So let me pray for you now, a little impartational prayer to ignite this in you. Father in the Name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, I pray a fresh impartation today of the inner voice of the Holy Spirit to be activated, to be birthed. I pray that Lord, you’d give everybody watching this now, a fresh recognition, a fresh discernment, that Lord, these thoughts that they’re having at times, they actually are coming from you. And they can believe that, they can sense the witness of the Spirit, a sense of peace or joy as these, as these thoughts come. So I pray that the thoughts of God would be in your minds and in your hearts today as the inner voice of the Spirit for you in Jesus’ Name, Amen.