 Yes, I see someone excited all in the corner, Lydia. Very good, very good. God bless you guys. We are so happy to have each and every one of you. I believe that we are in the state of expectation. Can I hear some amens? Maybe? This is going to be hard for me because I am not used to no feedback. So the people that are here, you're going to have to say amen back, OK? So all right, you guys, I'm excited to have each and every one of you guys on here. So before we dive into the Word of God and just a short message to encourage your faith, to believe the fact that God wants to speak to you, that he wants you to learn how to hear his voice in your own personal life, amen, so that we don't have to strive or be, how do I say, consumed by chasing someone else to speak into our life. But when the Word of the Lord is spoken in our lives, we can make better decisions, wiser decisions, that we can have a brighter future, amen. So great things are happening through here that I want all of us to be in a place of expectation, to believe today that God wants to speak to you, that God does see you. And I have a few testimonies that I do want to share with everybody that things are happening. And so today, do not allow the enemy to allow, to rob you of your word. And sorry, my own voice is one second, you guys. I got distracted with my own voice. As I say, don't get distracted, so come on. But I'm all pushing things to a side. Bear with us, you guys, as we get through the technical difficulties. But we just want to give all of the applause to all of the people behind the scenes, operating the cameras, and all of the technical aspects. We cannot do it without them. So we just applaud you guys also for being such a great team. But real quick, as I mentioned, I do want to share a couple of testimonies that we have come through, that has come through from different locations through these Wednesday services. And this one is from Hannah from Portland, Oregon. So she wrote to us, the Lord located me on a Wednesday live service when Ilya prophesied to me over Zoom. He mentioned God wanted to set me free from generational curses, specifically relationships and my marriage. After a previous physically abusive marriage that ended in divorce, God brought a godly man into my life. But I still had fear that there was an open door from the divorce that would affect my kids and made me hesitant to submit to my present loving husband. This word confirmed that God sees me, and now I feel I can love without hindrance and know the curse is broken off for good. Wow, praise be to God. I think that is a powerful testimony. We are so happy to hear that, Hannah. Thank you so much for writing us that testimony to encourage others, those that are watching, just be ready to receive a prophetic word, and that there's no distance that, or no, no distance. Say it. There's no distance in bear. Distance is not a barrier. Oh, my goodness. Sorry, tongue tied. Someone from Brazil. During the Wednesday livestream, Pastor Ivan prayed for physical healing, specifically loss of smell and taste. I knew it was not a coincidence, and after service, I realized I could smell and taste again. Wow, come on. The next morning, I was completely healed and did not have any more issues from COVID-19. That is incredible. I know people still have no scent at all, and it's been six months. So some people have been impacted so much by that when some of them got COVID-19. I know people that literally lost smell completely for six months, so praise be to God that that was all restored to you in Jesus' name. And Jamaica, Kevin Green, I stumbled on the Zoom link for the Wednesday livestream, and it was immediately called out to be prayed for. I had been depressed after someone had cast a spell on me. I've not struggled with depression even three weeks after service, and I am so happy now. Wow, that is incredible. From Jamaica, from Brazil, and then there's one more from North Carolina that I missed. I found Hungry Jen from a repost on Instagram. I had been suffering from a spiritual spouse and ran across a Hungry Jen livestream that was exactly what I needed to hear. I prayed with the speaker and was completely delivered from my nightmares I had every day. I am not just delivered, but I am not, but now growing in my relationship with God. Come on, come on. What we see is not only just people receiving healing, but restoration in their marriage, generational curses being broken off, blessings of God being poured in, people's lives being touched, depression coming off where people are actually happy now. This is powerful stuff, and I know that this is something that God wants you to believe in, not just for us to read testimonies so that you just hear it one ear and goes out the other, but for you to believe that God wants to touch you today at this very moment that God sees you, that he cares about your situation, and that your case will not escape the presence of God. Amen. And even when we have technical difficulties, we just know that the enemy is trying to utilize any medium and avenue to stop you from receiving your blessing today because I know the anointing of the Lord wants to come and touch you wherever you're watching. If you're watching through in your office, in your bedroom or in the car, wherever you may be, may God touch you right now. Let the anointing of God touch you wherever you're at. I'm believing for this. We are praying for things like this to happen to anybody that is watching and that is ready to receive, amen. So today we are wanting to speak specifically on a message on how to hear the voice of God. And this is something really dear to my heart because I know that many people believe in the lie of the enemy thinking it's only for a certain type of people, the elite, call it pastors, call it leaders, or deacons of the church only, or prophets that God only speaks to a few. That is a lie of the enemy. He speaks to all of his children. And the enemy wants to do a very good job of convincing you that he doesn't speak to you so you can miss his voice. So I want you to know, is it possible that God is speaking to you? It is possible. He is speaking to you every day. And if you're asking, am I just missing it? Yes you are. It's all about knowing how to hear the voice of God. And there's a couple of things that I just want to touch on to encourage you to believe and for your ear to be open to hear the voice of the Lord in your own personal life and not allowing the enemy to come and rob you of that truth that God doesn't want to speak to you on an individual basis from day in and day out, amen. So how many of you are ready to receive and believe that God wants to speak to you in your own personal life, amen? Are you guys ready? I love to see the hands up that we're getting ready. Our spirits are ready to receive the word of the Lord, amen, amen, amen, amen. So just quickly on the chat window, if you are watching, we always encourage that if you're watching through YouTube and you're tuning in, go ahead and press the like, comment away, you can spam us with amen, let us know that you're getting encouraged. We want you to be involved and in tune because the moral likes is not for the fact just for the number sake, but it's to reach more people. We have testimonies. If you didn't hear me earlier, it said, I ran into Hungry Jen livestream. I ran into it on Facebook. I ran into it on YouTube. People come to our services because they said, I saw you guys on Facebook. And it wasn't even a personal invitation. So it is crucial that we are using this as an evangelistic tool to reach to people. And all we have to do is literally just comment it, share it, like it. It's that easy, it's that simple and we're already spreading the message by using those tools, amen. So please go ahead and do that for us to reach multiple and multiple people, amen. So we are going to dive into the word. If you guys are ready, I'm going to read from John chapter 10. But I want to read a quote real quickly that says, the person that does not expect to hear God won't. A.W. Tozer. Let me repeat it. The person that does not expect to hear God won't. I believe that God wants to position each and every one of us, position our hearts to believe that he wants to speak to you. He wants us to have the posture heart of expectation. He wants you to have the posture with your heart of expectation to believe that God wants to speak to me. And I want you, even though I can't hear you, I want you to say and repeat it after me and say that my God wants to speak to me. And as I'm saying this, say it to yourself, my God wants to speak to me. We need that posture in our heart to be expecting that God wants to speak to us. And so as I mentioned earlier, enemy wants to convince you it's only for those few. Those that have positions, call it apostles, call it pastors, call it leaders, whatever is a lie in your mind telling you that it's only for the few, but it's not for me is a lie of the enemy. I use this illustration multiple times when I teach on this subject and I wanna share it with you. I was 15 years old when I got saved and I gave my life to Christ. And because I don't want to use names, I'm gonna leave this person anonymous, but I was 15 years old, about six months in into my relationship with God. And I want you guys to please listen to this. I'm six months in, even though I was raised Christian, I was not in touch with God, but I was radically changed at 15 years old when I gave my life to Christ. And what happened after six months being in church, listening to the word of God and just starting, just starting my relationship with God six months in only, I heard the voice of God for the first time. I had an incident where I ran into a drunk person, a drunk person that was a very close person in our lives. And that drunk drunk person, he was completely not himself at this point, comes up to me and asks me to pray for him. At 15 years old, I didn't know what else to do, but to pray the blood of Jesus upon him. And I was just praying with passion and knowing the fact that I wanted him to be free from this addiction. So I was just praying as he was under the influence of alcohol, but I will never forget the day, the fact that as soon as I was praying at 15 years old, six months into my relationship with God, I saw his eyes look at me as I was plying the blood of Jesus upon him and just casting out anything that is not of the Lord. He looked at me and he said, who the hell are you? And I knew that it was no longer the person that I saw before me, but a demon. It was something different. His demeanor changed, his eye color changed. I was completely frightened. It was the first time I encountered a demon and I encountered something that I knew was not the person that I was praying for. I completely jumped back. I was frightened, mind you, I was 15, but I was so scared. I had fear just come upon me. I'm like, oh my goodness, what just happened? What is going on? He's going to hurt me or something of that sort. I'm just, fear was running pacing in my mind. It was going so fast, but then all of a sudden I heard such a defined impression inside where it says tell him you are the child of the Most High God. And I knew that that was not me because I had too much fear going on in my mind, okay? I knew that that wasn't me. But saved by the bell, someone knocked on the door and someone came and got distracted. And that was the very first time, not only did I encounter a demon in my, just through my life experience, but for the very first time I heard the voice of God very clearly. And it was so strong and so, so accurate that I knew that it wasn't me, but I still wanted confirmation. So I spoke to some mentor the next day just to receive confirmation and I explained what happened, how I was praying for this person and I was just applying the blood of Jesus and I felt like a demon just manifested and asked me who I was. And I heard the voice of God saying you are the child of the Most High God. The mentor told me you should have said you were the child of the Most High God. And I was stunned because it was a confirmation that I heard the voice of the Lord, that it was not only just that wasn't me, but I received confirmation on the same thing that I should have told that demon or that encounter that I experienced. So here's a thing that I wanted to, what's my point of this story? Is that for some of us, we write off the voice of God because well, I'm just saved. I don't think I can hear the voice. I think I need at least one year experience or two years experience, that is not true. As soon as you give your life to Christ, you have access to hear the voice of the Lord. As soon as you give your life to Christ, you have access to the voice of the Lord. And I want you to just wipe off that feeling that well, I need to mature. Yes, you do. The more you mature, you do get confident in hearing his voice, but that doesn't mean you have to be matured that you can't get his voice. That is different. When you become more mature in your walk with God, you'll be able to discern how he speaks to you because I don't want any of us to write off. Well, God doesn't speak to me like this person does or that person. God speaks to us in our very unique different ways. There was a question that came on where someone said, how does God speak to us? We cannot limit our God on how he speaks to us. I know from testimonies and personal experiences that God can use any medium and avenue to speak to us. Yes, he speaks through preaches. Yes, he speaks through mentors, through people in our lives that are close and that we have accountability to. Yes, he speaks through the word of God, 100%. Yes, he can speak through movies. He can speak through song lyrics. He can speak through situations to get to us. So we cannot limit and say that it's only limited in this avenue. That is something that I cannot say or even put God in a box on how he moves when it comes to speaking to us is that he only speaks through a preacher. That is not true. Sometimes when we need correction or some type of direction, God puts people in our lives to give us a defined answer or at least some suggestion and we're like, that is from God. So God uses people. God uses the preaching. Yes, God can use movies and song lyrics and different avenues and ways to get to us. So just to say that God cannot be limited in the way he wants to speak to each and every one of us. He's not limited in speaking to you only when you are at service. You can be in the car, you can be washing dishes, you can be in different places and God is not limited to space or time or any type of avenue or medium to speak to us. That is our God. He is not limited in that aspect. And so today I wanted to break off what the first lie is to say, well, I'm not in my relationship enough to hear the voice of God. I want you to know that as soon as you gave your life to Christ, you have access to the voice of God, amen. And I hope you guys can receive that and believe that that as soon as you gave your life to Christ, you have access to the voice of the Lord. So position yourself. I want you to position yourself to receive and to learn how to hear from the voice of God. And how do we position ourselves? And this is something that Pastor Vlad speaks on and has spoken on. And so this is inspired through some of the things that he says and preaches and equips each and every one of us in, is that in order to hear from God, you need to be in the word of God, okay? That is number one. There is no absolute way where you won't be able to define from the lies and the truth if you don't know the truth. And this is something that I tell people all the time, anytime I am counseling people or someone's coming up to me for advice or any type of suggestions in their life, I always advise them to be in the word of God because there was another question I was asked, like how do I know if I know the truth or the lie? How do I know it's not the devil lying to me? See, the devil is a liar. We need to make that very clear and distinction in our mind. The devil is a liar. He will always lead us to a wrong path. He always has a bad blueprint for our life. Now, that being said, we need to know the truth. And in order to know the truth, we must read the word of God. And if that is a missing part in our lives, we will not be able to distinct the voice of God from Satan because he knows how to pray on God's people. He knows how to be a deceiver. He's called a deceiver for a reason. Hear me, this is very strong for somebody right now. He is known to be a deceiver. How does he deceive? He even may use scriptures to deceive us, to go a wrong way, to lie to us, to accuse or guide us in an incorrect way, to put something false in our path to get us off a path. So that's how the enemy operates. He operates to deceive us. And the only way we can know from the lies and the truth is to read the truth. It's not about reading how many books on how to hear the voice of God. It's about reading the word of God and knowing it. By knowing the scriptures, by reading it day in and day out is to being able to apply psalms and proverbs, wisdoms and truths into our life. A lot of things and a lot of answers are in the Bible. The Bible is not something boring. And I just want to address this. If some of us are bored reading the Bible, I want you to know you're reading it wrong, okay? The Bible is a living word. It is something that causes life to happen. There's revelations upon revelations that every single time you read it, God is able to not just reveal something new to you, but to remind you, to help you, to counsel you through his word. So if you are bored, that is okay to admit that. All of us may have or have gone and experienced that time one way or the other in our walk with God. And if you are in that place right now where you're bored, where you're like, I don't know how to read the Bible. I'm so bored reading the Bible. I want you to know is that you can pray and ask Lord, revive me to be able to read your word again. Make that a prayer point. Ask Holy Spirit. I ask that you help me to understand the word of God as I read it. I invite Holy Spirit. Invite him every single time you read. Before I open the book, and no matter how many times I do it throughout my life, I always ask Holy Spirit, I invite you Holy Spirit to help me understand the scriptures, to open up my eyes to see or to my ears to hear and understand what you're trying to tell me, so that I know that the word of God isn't just going to be left on the pages, but there's gonna be an indent in my spirit. And so that is what I do. And I encourage you that if your state right now is I don't wanna open up that book, it's boring, that's Satan operating right there because the living word is what's going to guide you to allow the word of God and the voice of God to manifest in your life. It's through the word of God, okay? And if we begin to honor or respect or reverence our pastor's voice or prophet's voices more than God's word, then that's something wrong right there that we need to put at a halt. We have to honor the Bible more than anything else and everything else will fall into place. So number one is that we have to read the word of God in order to know the truth from the lie. That is how you will get that sword to separate the lies from the truth. If you don't know the truth, you will accept the lies. You will accept the lies. And so I want to make that extremely clear and it's okay to admit if you're feeling I just don't connect to the word, I feel bored, I feel stuck, ask the Lord, revive me, revive my spirit to enjoy your word, awaken me, help me, join me Holy Spirit as I read the word, however way you want to word it. But I encourage and invite you to be able to pray to God and ask Him to revive that area in your life because if it's missing it won't be clear to hear the voice of God in your life. You won't be able to distinct the lie from the truth. That's number one. And number two is that you need to draw near to God in order to hear from God. John chapter 10 says, and I'm reading from Passion Translation. John chapter 10 verse three says, and the sheep recognize the voice of the true shepherd, for he calls his own by name and leads them out for they belong to him. And when he has brought out all his sheep he walks ahead of them and they will follow him for they are familiar with his voice, familiar. Now some of you don't know and that's okay, I just wanna share another personal experience is that I have a three month old in my house and she's going on four months and what's amazing is that she recognizes my voice immediately, it is the cutest thing and I wanna share this is because I'm with her all the time so she knows mama's voice. So as soon as I walked into the room as soon as I'm there and she hears my voice she just makes a movement. Her body, she just gets startled cause she knows I'm coming. She recognizes my voice. The way to recognize the voice of the shepherd is to be in the presence of the shepherd. We need to be there. My newborn doesn't recognize other voices so it doesn't pertain to her at all if there was a stranger or somebody that she doesn't know but when she knows mama's voice and she hears me, her whole body jumps cause she recognizes, she knows because she has encountered it before. She's in the presence of me. She's in the presence of my voice so she's able to distinguish my voice immediately. She knows my voice and that is what Holy Spirit desires for each and every one of you here today is that you to dwell in him, for you to be around him. And some of you ask, why does God whisper? Why couldn't it be just so clear cut? Why can't it be so sound, so loud? It's because he desires for you to be close so that you can hear the whisper. But if you're drawn away it's very hard to distinguish through all the noise and all the distractions and all the things that are coming on. His voice is precious. His voice is gentle. Holy Spirit is a gentleman and when he speaks, he speaks in such a whispering way because he expects for us to be near to him, amen? If you draw near to him, you draw near to his voice. You can hear him and you can hear him so clearly. I believe that if you draw near to him you will be able to distinguish his voice and recognize his voice when he's talking to you. So you know that it's God and every time you hear the voice and you're like, I know that that was God. I encourage you to be humble about it. And I say this because so many people get weird and I know this is going to maybe affect some of you but I hope it affects you in a good way. We do not have to be weird Christians. We're on some type of cloud that is almost unreachable and unattainable. I truly believe that the closer we get to the Lord the more inviting it can be for others. Can I get it, amen? It doesn't have to be weird, right? It doesn't have to be weird where it's like, oh, I heard from the Lord and it was this and it was that and it wasn't something that could be compatible with somebody else or they could obtain for themselves. As you draw near to God and you hear the voice of the Lord and it's a pretty distinctive decision you need to make I encourage you to be accountable to someone as you hear the voice so that you know is this me or is this God or is this Satan or what is happening in me? So that you're not saying nope, that was God and then we're kind of stubborn and we hold onto it. No, I know that was God, I know that was God. Yes, as you get more mature in Christ you will be confident in his voice all the more. Am I right? The more time you spend in his presence the more evident it will be and you will be able to distinct his voice better and clearly, but if you are mature in Christ you'll be mature enough to ask for someone else in the sense of counsel and accountability. Hey, what do you think? Do you think this is something that is a desire of mine or is this something that I'm manipulating myself to believe or is this from the Lord? What are your thoughts? I encourage mentorship. I encourage for you to have that accountability. So, and the only way to be able to do that is if you're mature enough to do that, amen. So we can't just say, well I'm mature enough Christian but you're not mature enough to get accountability. We need both and that way we can be sharp and we are not deceived by the enemy because he is awaiting and he's always on high alert to get a moment where he can deceive us, amen. So we need to be mature enough to receive accountability to our own when we hear the voice of God. So that's number two is to draw near to him so you can know his voice better, those whispers when he talks to you. You know, I had an also another incident recently where it was a job altering decision. This was in 2020, last year, right before COVID happened. Okay, hear this, right before COVID happened. And I was contemplating on changing my job career because I, you know, being a mom and being in ministry I just wanted to change some things. I wanted to work remotely from home and a job opportunity came. A job opportunity came where I could work remotely from home and I felt like that would be so much better for me if I was to do that. And I remember I received, just how do I say, an impression that God was going to do it for me. Everything was gonna get set up in its right time but I rushed the decision and I applied for the job and I was doing a job application and I was going to get an interview with the manager so I can get this remote job. And as I was applying and getting myself ready, the Holy Spirit, I felt an impression on my spirit. It says, I told you, I will do it for you. It was just this very clear. I was completely not thinking about it. I was just going about my day, just doing the dishes or getting something ready in the kitchen and I just got this complete impression. I told you, I will do it. I kid you not, two months later, I got the remote permanent job. It happened on its own. And that's another thing that I wanna tell you is that when the word of the Lord or when the God speaks to us, there's confirmations. Not just from people, from people, that's one way. And two, from life itself. It will prove if the voice that you hear, life will show it. It will show. And just immediately, he stopped me. Like I said, I wasn't thinking, I wasn't, I was going about my own way. I was being stubborn. I wanted it on my own pace and I know that speaks to so many of us where like I'm gonna go into this relationship because I wanna be in a relationship already and it's not your time, but you're pushing and you're pacing it to go faster. I want you to know that God sees all, he cares about all of your life decisions. Even if it's a career change, a relationship, if it's something with finances, if it's with marriage, if it's with your children, I want you to know that God cares about all decisions that you make and he wants to be involved. He wants you to acknowledge him and as you acknowledge him, you'll be able to hear his voice through those decisions. And so even though I was stubborn and I was already applying and I was trying to go my own pace, because I was close to the Lord, I was able to hear it and he did it for me because I could have made a decision that wasn't best for me and for my life and my surrounding. So I want you to know is that you will get confirmations through people and you will get confirmations through life circumstances, they will follow. God is faithful. He's not gonna just say things and leave it empty where it's like, good luck, make it happen. He will help you on making things happen if you hear from the voice correctly, amen. So number one, as we said, to hear God, we need to be filled with God. We need to be filled with God's word if we want to get familiar with God's voice. Number two, to hear God, we need to be near God. Number three, we need to lower the noise to hear God's voice. So this is also something that Pastor Vlad mentioned a lot and I take this into my own life. If you were watching too many movies that are debatable, if they're godly, and listening to music that you don't care what you listen to, you don't care, there's just too much noise that is happening. And if you were listening and watching with no type of, how do I say, conviction, if you're not doing all of those things, you're accepting all of these things, all of those things are influencing our lives like it or not. It's a principle. Whatever you allow to go into you, movies, music will start to influence how you see things, how you perceive things, and how you hear things. So we need to empty ourselves in the sense of we need to lower down the noise. Circumstances and life situations are already loud in our lives. It's already a dominating thing. So what we need to do is to lower down the noise. That means we have to start to slowly go away from those movies, from those music, and go to a quiet place, a place of solitude. And I know that sometimes it's difficult for moms. I know it's difficult for people that are trying to make financial aspects for their family. I know that we have so many things that we're trying to solve in our minds. So that's why I say the way to lower the noise is to go away from the noise. And that is to have your time of solitude. That is your time to, with the Lord, it's for him to be able to speak to you, if that is in the mornings or if that is in the evenings, if that is in your lunch hour, that if you're in your car, find a moment where you can just take a moment where you can silence your mind so that you could be able to hear his voice through your devotion to the Lord because he wants to speak to you as you read, as you pray, because praying is not just you pleading. It's also a dialogue. So that means that you are talking and he's talking back. That is possible where you can hear his prompting. You can hear his voice. He will remind you of scriptures. Those things will begin to just come at you where you're like, oh, I know that was God telling me this. But we all have to have those three things play in our life in order for us to get more mature in the sense of understanding and hearing God's voice accurately. One more time, I'm just gonna repeat these things so that we know that this is how I need to hear from God more clearly. Number one is knowing God's word. Listen to preaches. Listen to the preachers, like the people that you really know that God speaks through, through YouTube, through podcast, through the word of God, read the word of God. So that way you can distinct from the truth from the lies. So that way when the enemy tries to lie to you, you have a way to block and guard your heart because you know the truth so he can't deceive you. Number two is as we draw near to him, get close to him, we'll be able to know his voice. Just like the shepherd from the sheep. The sheep recognize the voice of the Lord as I gave you that example of my newborn child. She knows my voice because I'm always around her. She knows my presence, she knows my voice. It's the same thing with the Lord. The more you are in his presence, the more you get to know the Holy Spirit as a person, the more you know how he operates in your life and how he speaks to you. And like I said, don't put God in a box on how he speaks. He speaks differently to different people. Okay, so don't think, well, God didn't speak to me through a song or through a lyric or through this. God is God. He is not limited in the way that he wants to speak to you. So don't limit him or fashion him in a box to say that this is how he speaks. That's number two is draw near to him so that you will be able to recognize his voice. The sheep know the voice of the shepherd, but you have to be around the shepherd in order to know his voice and to hear his whispers, to draw near to him. To hear God, you need to be near God. And number three, lower the noise to hear God's voice. This is where you have to break away from the circumstances of your life, the loud noise of you problem solving, all of the negativity, all of the wrong music, all of the things, you are not a garbage disposal, okay? You don't get to fill everything at anything you want into your life and get an outcome that you want if you are not feeding yourself correctly. We need to put things into our life correctly. We need to start listening more to worship music. And I assure you, your appetite will change based off of what you feed yourself. It takes a while, but as soon as you change your appetite, something will change inside where you will hunger for those things instead of that music, instead of those movies. You will begin to say, you know what? I just don't even like that anymore. The Lord will help you in that. So to draw yourself away from those things so you can draw near to God to know his voice and to distinguish it. And the last but not least I said this early is you have to position yourself. Position your heart to be expected, expecting that God wants to speak to you. Be in a place of expectation that you will once you wake up that you're excited that God wants to speak to you and that you're like, God, I am ready to hear your voice and make sure that every single time where you're like, I think that the Lord is speaking to me in this area in my finances or making career decision or making a financial decision or relationships or marriage. If you're mature enough to in your walk with God you'll be mature enough to be accountable to the people in your life to confirm that you heard correctly. So that we don't start to stray away and do it on our own. That we start to believe things that maybe is the enemy using a certain tool to deceive us because we are stubborn and we want our desire.