another way that GOD speaks to us…

another way that GOD speaks to us is through gifted teachers.

have you ever sat in a church service and felt that nobody else in the audience mattered, that GOD was speaking directly to your heart? HE was. at that very moment GOD was speaking through a gifted teacher to tell you what HE wants to say to you. GOD often uses other people to share HIS word.

1 thessalonians 2.13 (ms), …when you got the message of GOD we preached, you didn't pass it off as just one more human opinion, but you took it to heart as GOD's true word to you, which it is, GOD HIMself at work in you believers!

GOD speaks through teachers, preachers, and pastors, and it changes our lives when we listen to them.

back when i was 37, i was the minister of youth and music in a church in portsmouth, ohio. in one sunday morning service, we had a missionary speak. i don't remember what he spoke on that particular morning but i do remember a story that he told that changed my life.

he told about his experience of going to some town on the mission field and planting a new church in the front room of his house. he told of how he went for months with just his family in the service, of how very difficult it was but something in that story stopped me.

at the end of the service, he opened the altar and i went to one end of the altar and i didn't know it, but margaret my wife was at the other end. that one service changed the direction of our lives because GOD was calling us to leave the security of staff ministry to go out and plant new churches. we were never the same from that service on. GOD spoke to us through that missionary.

now what if i would have missed that message? do you think i would have been a part of planting 3 different churches and all the people who will be in heaven because of those new churches? no way. that message was a defining moment in my life. that's why i hate to miss church. even when i go on vacation, we stop and go to church. i always wonder, "what if GOD had that pastor prepare that message directly for me and what if i miss it?" i don't ever want to miss GOD talking to me. i want to show up where i can.

just a thought from my front porch…