Notes from a Journeyer's Journal: Hearing the Voice of God

Pastor, teacher, equipper, trainer, exhorter, mentor, and pioneer of ministries, Jono Turner is our guest today. He is from New Zealand and was first on our show back in August of 2023.

 In this episode, I talk with Jono about hearing the voice of God. From his years of experience, he brings a wealth of personal insight as well as biblical understanding. 

Transcript

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Welcome to Kingdom Talk

Mark Banyard 0:10

Welcome to Kingdom Talk , the podcast where we talk all about things Kingdom . I'm your host , mark Banyard , and I'll be interviewing a variety of people who , through their lives and ministries , have been committed to advancing the Kingdom of God . Their lives and ministries have been committed to advancing the Kingdom of God Church planters , church leaders , pioneers of missions and ministries , both at home as well as abroad . So let's go straight to today's episode of Kingdom Talk .

Meet Our Guest: Jono Turner

Mark Banyard 0:48

Today on the show is my friend , jono Turner .

Mark Banyard 0:51

Jono is from New Zealand and was first on our show back in August of 2023 . In this episode , I ask him about hearing the voice of God . From his years of experience , he brings a wealth of personal insight as well as biblical understanding .

Hearing God's Voice: my own experience

Mark Banyard 1:10

Well , I'm here today in Palmerston North , new Zealand , with Jono Turner . Jono has been a guest on our podcast before , but since I'm actually in New Zealand , it's a great opportunity for me to actually meet up with Jono and sit with him this afternoon in his lovely home in Fernlea Ave . So , Jono , we've been talking today about hearing the voice of God and how difficult that seems for a lot of Christians , and I'm just wondering this is something you have a lot of insight to , in fact , a revelation , maybe , perhaps you could share a little bit about that , right ?

Jono Turner 2:03

I think I should start with my own experience as a new Christian . I was after I surrendered my life to Jesus, from that moment I had a very real experience of God speaking to me , speaking into my mind , speaking in my heart , a real awareness of close connection and communication in my heart , a real awareness of close connection and communication . And as time went on , the discipleship process that I was invited into and encouraged in was very much a Bible study discipleship process, emphasizing, memorizing the written word of God and having the renewed mind based on what the word of God said . And when I talked about the subjective experience of hearing God speaking to me and experiencing that connection , it was very much devalued . Well , perhaps not devalued , maybe the best way of putting it is it was considered as very much secondary to memorizing scripture and being intellectually informed with the right information . And so in my pursuit my desire to really be a Christian in the eyes of my peers , I pursued that for a long time , but then I realized it wasn't feeding my spirit . There was a measure in which I was fed , my brain was stimulated , but I felt like I kind of lost something .

Jono Turner 3:54

And many years later , about 10 years later , when I was already a pastor , I realized that I'd lost something that was really precious and I determined in my heart I need to get back to connecting with God in the way that I did as a new Christian before I actually knew all this information , and that sent me on a bit of a quest . So that's

Disqualified to Talk God to Speak: a wrong view of self

Jono Turner 4:18

another part of the story . As I have journeyed in the whole process of trying to help other people with their connection to God , I've realized that many people have a view that is very derogatory or detrimental towards themselves . So they're trying to relate to God but they think of themselves as sinners , unworthy , they're not holy enough , they're not righteous enough . Therefore , they disqualify themselves from that communication because until I get more holy , until I become more righteous , until I am what I should be , I'm not really going to have the connection with God that I want .

Mark Banyard 5:04

Right , and if you feel that way , it just lends itself to performance and working harder and striving harder and improving yourself constantly to earn that kind of communication with God .

Jono Turner 5:41

And you know , it seemed to me as I reviewed my own experience of discipleship as a new Christian that it emphasized how bad I was and how sinful I was and how I owed God a transformative you know I have what I put that the feeling I had was that I kind of owed God so much that who am I to come into his presence and actually talk to him as a man would speak to his friend .

Jono Turner 5:55

And so in my personal journey I came to this revival , really in my own life , of reconnecting with God on this very organic and personal level where I could hear God speak , I could talk to Him without going to some formal kind of format of prayer , and I started to really come alive within my own heart

The Written Word vs.the Spoken Word: both/and rather than either/or

Jono Turner 6:35

and spirit .

Jono Turner 6:36

And , of course , at the same time I was measuring everything that I was experiencing or going through against what the Word of God says . The Word of God is always your plumb line for what's going on , but in that journey I was teaching a lot on the relational side of Christianity the Fatherhood of God , releasing the Holy Spirit and getting activated in your gifts , hearing the voice of God , lots of very practical day-to-day how you live with God kind of messages . And in that process I became really aware again and again and again , and especially in YWAM , youth With A Mission school settings that people who'd grown up in the church all their life they could quote scripture , they had opinions about all kinds of issues and what the scripture had to say about those issues , but they couldn't tell you what God was speaking to their heart , they couldn't define it , they couldn't say you know , they generalize , they're quite a scripture actually , and that obviously got your attention .

Mark Banyard 7:52

Yeah , totally .

Jono Turner 7:54

And you see , and of course , when I started to share my experience of a conversational relationship with God , I got a lot of pushback , not only just from students but from other ministers . Oh , that's very subjective , that's very . You know you can't trust voices , all this kind of stuff , very kind of with scriptural weight . You know you test everything , trust nothing kind of thing .

Mark Banyard 8:32

Very considerate . It wasn't just about you know . Imagine that God's speaking to you and fill in the blanks for God . It wasn't that .

Jono Turner 8:39

No , not at all , and I just continued to do it in my personal journey because that's what gave me life . But I I held back from bringing this forth as a um , as a credible connectivity between the individual and method , method or yeah .

Personhood: made in God's image, made for relationship

Jono Turner 9:08

And then God started really speaking to me about the issue of personhood that we are made in God's image . He's not made in ours . So our personality , our desire for fellowship , our desire for connection with other humans is all part of the image of God in us . We are made for relationships . And God started speaking to me about how my people talk at me not with me and they talk to me but they don't listen to me because it's not a two-way conversation , it's very one-way . And over a period of time God's said phrases like this to me , even to the point of saying many of my people treat me like an idol , they don't expect me to speak back . And you know , I was sort of having this dialogue with the Lord which was very personal and it was revolutionizing my way of relating to God and thinking about looking at scripture again and thinking you know what this is actually in the scripture , just depends what perspective , from what perspective , you look at the scripture and then the Lord showed me so one time .

Jono Turner 10:23

It's a funny story , but one time I'm standing in the shower and the Lord said to me , I was listening on my phone playing Psalm 119 , and the Lord said to me so Jonah , who wrote Psalm 119 . And the Lord said to me so Jonah , who wrote Psalm 119 ? And I said , well , david did . And he said to me so why is it in Scripture as my word ? And I said it felt like a bit of a trick question . And while I was hesitating I felt like a bit of a trick question , sure , and while I was hesitating I felt the Holy Spirit say to me it's because David wrote down a conversation that we were having .

Jono Turner 11:10

And I began to look at Scripture . And then , of course , you read Revelation and the angel says to David write this down , Write this down , you know . So the Lord started to show me that just about all the Bible was the record of conversations that humans had had with God , momentous conversations , the prophets , and . But I started to realize that all this that is written down , that we call the word of God , is actually a record of someone's experience of hearing God speak . It all started off with a voice , not with a pen and paper .

Mark Banyard 11:46

And , even more than speaking , an experience of God himself .

Jono Turner 11:50

Yeah , of God , absolutely of God himself . And Sinai is the classic example . You know , at the bottom of the mountain the Lord says to Moses tell the people to get ready to come up onto the mountain because I want to speak to them . So Moses goes to the elders and says tomorrow , I want you to get yourself ready , sanctify yourselves , because tomorrow we're going to go up and God's going to speak to us . And all the elders said oh no , no , no , no , we don't want to do that . Maybe when we hear his voice we'll die .

Jono Turner 12:18

You go up , moses , and you talk to God and then come back and tell us what he says , and that's become the model for church . The man of God hears from God and he tells us what God says . A man of God takes the scripture and reads it and interprets it and tells us what God is saying , was saying . So anyway , this , this set me on this whole journey of a trying to find the scriptural roots of my own experience , with a conversation with god and then really encouraging other people to develop that that awareness .

Mark Banyard 12:54

That's very

An Issue of Sonship: a relationship with the Father

Mark Banyard 12:55

good . Uh , there's two things I want to pick up on here . And it's going back to , in fact , fact , the conversation before we started recording , and that is very early in your Christian experience . You had a sense of yourself as a son of God . You had an experience of sonship , let's put it that way . But the context back then or , for lack of better terms , the language of the church back then , that was not an acceptable way of anybody talking about themselves and it took you some time before later down the road where you almost had to go back and reclaim that ?

Jono Turner 13:44

yeah , can you talk about that for a minute . Yeah , well , I I probably to be honest with you at the time when I gave my life to the lord , because it happened very early in the morning , um , on a on a work day , a monday morning , I think it was yeah , it was a mond Monday morning , because I'd gone home the night before and I'd knelt down beside my bed and I'd said , god , if you're there , I want you to come into my life and change it and I want to know you kind of thing . And so I went to bed and woke up in the very early hours of the morning and I had this experience of God , a definite supernatural experience of God . He was in the room and something had changed and I looked out the window and the sky was bluer and the trees were greener and that whole thing that you've heard other people say . I'd had this and I thought to myself maybe that born again thing's happened to me . So when I , you know it was 5 o'clock in the morning and the navigator's apartment , where the navigator girls were just down from my apartment , you know they weren't going to be awake at 5 o'clock in the morning , so I waited till about 7 . I went and knocked on the door and they sort of came to the door rubbing their eyes and you know what do you want ? Sort of thing . I said I think that born-again thing's happened to me . And they and you know what do you want ? Sort of thing .

Jono Turner 15:01

I said I think that born again things happened to me , and they and they asked me what had happened . I told them the story and they said we think the born again thing has happened for you . So anyway , this was such a real experience , I couldn't deny it . But I didn't realize it exactly at the time . But what I knew was a level of closeness from God in that time that I had with my own father , and my mum and dad were a very good mum and dad and we were , you know , I could honestly say my parents were my friends as well as my parents , you know . And so what I felt from God was this level of closeness .

Jono Turner 15:38

It was later that I realized to myself that I felt the sense of adoption and sonship into the family of God . I wouldn't have said it at that time . I would have said I think the born again things happened to me , which is what I did say . But when I look back later , trying to recapture that reality , I realized that I'd had a revelation of being adopted in the family of God at that point . But the body of Christ was not talking like that in those days .

Jono Turner 16:09

You know , what I got told was you're a sinner , you need to repent of your sin , and generally the inference of how I was discipled was you're not a prayer , so you need to learn to pray . And you don't know the scripture , so you need to study the scripture . So all the inputs I got focused on what I was not rather than who I was . And as time has gone on , I realise many , many Christians are in that boat . They don't actually really realise who God's made them to be , so they're still almost relating to God from a pre-Christian perspective rather than a post-resurrection perspective . So then I started developing this whole methodology . So how do I help people ? First of all to understand the truth about their true identity , and then to help them and support them to start walking in that by faith , rather than waiting until they feel they're righteous or holy enough or that they've memorized enough scripture to be acceptable

Hearing the Voice of God? Apply the Test of Scrutiny

Jono Turner 17:22

.

Mark Banyard 17:29

The other thing I wanted to ask you is if you could just talk a little bit about perhaps those who would take license with hearing the voice of God directly and end up feeling as if , somehow , that there's no need for a witness , a confirmation , even accountability and all of that is just isn't required because they hear directly from God .

Jono Turner 18:03

Well , I think as a pastor , I've had so many come into my office and say God told me , God told me to leave the church , God told me to marry this person . God told me this , God told me that and you know , I would just honestly say to people well , if God told me this , God told me that and you know I would just honestly say to people , well , if God's told you this , there's nothing I can say . Closed story . Closed book . End of story . So End of story .

Jono Turner 18:31

Yeah , I think if you truly are hearing the voice of God , It'll stand the scrutiny . It'll stand the scrutiny of scripture , It'll stand the scrutiny of your fellow believers who love you . Don't cast your pearl before swine . You know , if you tell somebody who's you know somebody who's contentious and you know in the church they're not particularly a fan of who you are and you tell them about what God's been saying to you and they attack you , that's not helpful , but you do .

Jono Turner 19:05

I really believe in accountability and I believe if God's speaking , it'll stand the test and it may have to be tested . It may be that some say , oh , I'm not sure about that , and that's fine . It's fine for people to be unsure or to doubt . But when God really speaks , um , eventually there's fruit or a confirmation of some sort that proves that that was really the Lord , you know so . So that's where I'm quite a fan now .

Jono Turner 19:37

I never used to be , but I'm I'm a big fan now of recording what you think God's saying , of journaling what you think God is saying to you so that you've got that point of reference , a date , what scriptures you were around that , so you can review that . I think it's very easy to assume that the communication that you're receiving , either in your mind or in your heart , in your spirit , in your soul , wherever you're registering a communication , to assume that it's all God . But of course it's not so . And the scripture tells us to test , test the spirit , test the voices . So , and I'm just a great believer that if God's speaking , it'll be proven through the test .

Mark Banyard 20:32

Yeah , I am too , and I think that you know the challenge really is is for a lot of people is there might be a fear factor , they're going to get it wrong , so they just say I'm not going to go there . Yeah , and we kind of have to get past that fear that we might make a mistake or we might imagine God saying something to us . Yeah , so that we can actually get into that place of trust and faith and say , lord , I'm here and I want to hear your voice . Further to my question , just as a follow up .

Mark Banyard 21:09

Of course , there are different things that God says to us . Like , if you put it into categories , some are very edifying encouragement who doesn't want to hear God say I love you ? Magnifying encouragement who doesn't want to hear God say I love you ? And when that comes with a revelation , an encounter , that's very , very powerful . I don't think you have to turn to anybody and say is this really God ? But certainly and there's different categories the one I just asked you about really is directive , isn't it ?

Discerning the Voice of God: be still and know that I am God!

Mark Banyard 21:41

You get a word from the Lord that you have to act upon . It's very directive and could affect other people . That's right .

Jono Turner 21:51

Yeah , I think the other thing is too that I've learned , that I try to teach people , is that often we are suffering from what I call static , you know , noise , chatter In our lives that prevent us from discerning the voice of God , either in our minds or our hearts , or however we register that . And so this whole process of learning to be still and to embrace quietness and mostly the quietness is the quietness of your heart and spirit where you , you know , it's not just physical stillness , it's actually be able to get all the analysis of your mind just to , I'd say , be quiet . In my case , I don't think I ever got my mind to completely be quiet , um , because it's active all the time , but quiet enough that , the same as when you're in a room with a bunch of people and you're trying to have a conversation with just one , you have to concentrate and be quiet and listen carefully to discern what somebody is saying . When there's a whole lot of chatter in the room , but some people get really distracted , especially us extroverts by all the other chatter , and sometimes you can be talking to someone here , but you're actually , you're being listening this person over here . Some of the things they're saying are interrupting you and you're not really concentrating . So that learning to be focused and at rest , not striving I think the striving thing is a big thing people get panicked about .

Jono Turner 23:27

I've got to hear from God . I've got to hear from God and the biggest thing to do is to exercise trust and faith that God will communicate with you . That's his heart and if you give him space , that's the first thing that God said to me . I want more room in your life , I want more space . I said why do you want more space ? And he said so I can fill it .

Jono Turner 23:51

And I think people don't give make enough space . They they blat off a prayer to god but then they don't give him all themselves space . Because sometimes god's ready to speak right back at you but you're not in a place where you can hear it . Because you there's all this noise in your life , there's all this turmoil , pressure or stress or whatever it is that is creating internal noise and um and learning to be still enough so that God can say a profound thing to you or even a really strong corrective thing to you . But when God does that and you're in that place of rest and peace , it never comes as a judgment or a rejection , it always comes as .

Jono Turner 24:34

I want you to make this judgment , this adjustment , so that you can benefit . I'm not just want to take things away from you , I actually want to add to you . But for me to be able to add , you know , it's Ephesians 4 . You've got to put off the old , corrupted stuff and put on something new . But it's not just put off the old , just keep repenting of your sin . Keep repenting of your sin . Actually , the victory over sin comes from walking in a new way

The Practical Disciplines: find a place of rest, embrace silence, write things down.

Jono Turner 25:06

and you've got to put on the new in order to completely defeat the old .

Mark Banyard 25:10

Yeah , that's very good , Very good . My last question is just a practical one . You've kind of touched on it already , but hearing the voice of God is a discipline . Yeah , that's what I'm hearing . You say what are some practical ? You talked about journaling . Are there some other practical things that come to mind to practice the discipline ?

Jono Turner 25:39

I think you've got to . You've got to find a place of rest and for me , you know I , like you , mean physically , yeah , both it starts with a physical thing or for me it does I've got to find a place where I can relax and not feel like I've got a list of things I've got to talk to God about . You know , I think some people they rush into prayer with a list of prayer requests and they've got limited time so they want to get all their prayer requests done before they have to go to work . You know , and for me , I had to give God more space . It took me much longer to get to a place of real , what I call real rest and stillness internally so that I could hear God clearly . And now , you know , I can sit in a cafe and go into that space with all the buzz around me and hear God speak to me . But when I started I couldn't . I had to find a physical place of stillness , quiet and rest , and usually looking for me , looking out at the trees , waving in the breeze , something that distracted my mind from over analysis . For some people it's music . You know we talked about , you know , soaking music . For other people it's Just being in creation . It's being outside rather than inside , yeah , all those things . So finding the place where you are most relaxed in yourself , I think , is quite important . The second thing is it's quite a discipline to embrace silence and not be afraid of it Now as an extrovert , or feel that you have to feel the silence Exactly so as an extrovert and a sanguine personality . You know , mary always joked that I could go into a room full of deaf mutes and talk for 45 minutes before I noticed . And I don't think I'm like that now , but I definitely was the consummate extrovert as a younger person Didn't need other people to talk , I filled all the space with my talking .

Jono Turner 27:59

I used to do that with God and I can remember right early on , even before this conscious journey back into a meaningful connectivity with God , I was doing a lot of prayer . So I'd go and I'd walk up and down the river for praying and just praying about everything in the church and praying about everything and anything that I could think of . And one day I did about four hours of prayer just walking up and down by the river and I was exhausted at the end of it . I prayed everything . I felt really good about myself .

Jono Turner 28:36

I prayed out , I called it , prayed out and I sat down on the log and it was like the Holy Spirit spoke to me very quietly and said John , you know I could never use you . It was a shock because it was so opposite to how I felt . You know , I could have been tempted to think it wasn't God , but I was so prayed out I knew it wasn't me and I said God , what do you mean ? I could never , you could never use me . He said you never shut up and listen . That's what he actually said .

Jono Turner 29:05

But it didn't feel like a rebuke . It felt like God embracing me , drawing me in and saying I have things to say to you , but you don't listen . You do all the talking . So I think , finding a place where you can still all your thoughts because even if you're not talking out of your mouth , sometimes you're still super analyzing and evaluating in your mind and we've got to be able to let that go to a large extent and say God , whatever you want to say to me , even if it's not about anything that I've been asking you , I just want to hear you speak to say to me , even if it's not about anything that I've been asking you . I just want to hear you speak to me . I think , clean , give God the space to talk about whatever he wants , and my initial experience of that was that God would not talk about anything that I was asking him .

Jono Turner 29:52

Very true , he would start to talk about all sorts of other stuff and then sometimes and often at the end of our time , he'd just say and by the way sort of thing , he didn't say that , but it was sort of like by the way , you asked about this one . So yeah , I think that's been really one of the critical things . Obviously , writing down , I think , is helpful because none of us have the kind of memories that can remember clearly enough not only God speaking but how he spoke . And my experience is that God chooses his words very carefully and he'll even say to me sometimes I suppose you want a scripture for this , because you know I say God . I can remember say to me sometimes I suppose you want a scripture for this , because you know I say God . I can remember saying to him once God , if I talked to anybody about this , they'd think I was a heretic . He said well , don't talk to them about it , it's just between you and me .

Jono Turner 31:00

But I think , as you progress in your journey with God , listening to him and how he speaks to you , because it's very personal , it is very subjective , but it's real . He did it to Moses , he did it to King David , he did it to Moses . You go through all the patriarchs . They all heard the voice of God . They all were able to interpret through their own human filters , long before it ever got written down . And the amazing thing , because they all grew up in an oral environment where significant historical things were memorized and passed on through the generations . But then , of course , moses' experience in Egypt , learning writing , he started to write things down and thank God he did for us , because just oral traditions do get kind of subverted . They tend to get subverted by just gentle diversions of interpretation . But I think writing it down is another really important thing .

Jono Turner 32:03

And I didn't journal at all , I wasn't interested in writing stuff down . But what happened for me is I started feeling God was saying such profound things to me . I had to write them down . I knew I couldn't remember . How could I remember to tell Mary exactly how he said that ? So I to write them down ? I couldn't . I knew I couldn't remember . How could I remember to tell mary exactly how he said that ?

Mark Banyard 32:21

so I'd write it down it's also being in the moment . It's a bit like jacob waking up from his dream and having to

Carrying on the Conversation: walking with God

Mark Banyard 32:27

respond in the moment rather than you know . When I get around to it , I'll write it down . Yeah , yes , have you found that ? Perhaps from when you started to where you are now , that it quickly went from being kind of directional , informational , asking God questions , to being more intimate relationship , just wanting to be with him ?

Jono Turner 32:53

Yeah , I'm not trying to put words in your mouth , no , I definitely journeyed that way . But now I kind of feel like that whole process of walking with God in this is now it's directional . Now it's not just sitting and being in his presence , it's actually we're walking . We're walking in his , what I call his , what he has told me and he says it to me many times , I'm walking in his loving purpose . And because I'm walking in his loving purpose , he's always sharing things with me , telling me things , fine-tuning what I'm doing and guiding me . So , for instance , I told you about doing a series on the second coming . Well , years ago , that would have intimidated me because I would have thought it involves lots of study , lots of study , and where do you even begin ? But the first thing I did was I came into God's presence and said God , you know , I've been asked to do this series on second coming . What do you want to show me ? And I just sat quietly in his presence and he highlighted to me the key , the central approach , emphasis that he wanted me to bring , which for that particular , those two Sundays . And it was just . It was such a journey of whoa . I've never seen that before . Whoa , you know , like Lord , this is really exciting and you'll see all through my journey journal . If you read my journal , you'll see all through my journal . It's wow , father . Thank you so much . This is so encouraging , this is so enlightening . This I this is so . You know um , and I feel like I'm in that I'm .

Jono Turner 34:43

I'm always in this sort of mode of discovering more and more about who he is . But it's not just um arresting in his presence , it's actually more of a . It's got momentum , it's got , it's got direction and journey in it . But he's leading the way . I love that scripture in John 10 where Jesus says my sheep hear my voice and they don't recognize the voice of another . And then he says I call them out of the fold and after I call them out , I go on ahead of them . And I always have this view that we're on this journey . We're not just I'm not just sitting at his feet hearing what he's got to say , but we're actually in the we're in the kingdom journey of his kingdom purpose and I'm following him , learning as I go . But we're not just , we're not just sitting in a school . It's a very western thing . You go and sit on the top of a mountain and learn all the wisdom , but I just feel like for me it's this journey and I'm following .

Mark Banyard 35:46

And so it's not so much that we stop resting , but we continue to rest in Him as we follow Him , as we walk with Him .

Jono Turner 35:54

Yeah , we're not striving , you see , we're just following , and that is a definition ?

Mark Banyard 36:01

Yeah , perhaps the definition of God's rest is when we lay down our works and trust in His work through us and all striving ceases . Yeah , but it doesn't mean we just lie down on the couch and watch .

Jono Turner 36:14

Netflix all weekend , yeah , or wait for . You know , the other thing that I think I've learned from it is that many times in my earlier Christian life , the first 20 years of my Christian life , I was always waiting for the big event , you know , the big thing that was going to push us into the next move of God , the big , you know dramatic thing . And what I've learned here is that we're actually journeying . We're journeying towards the ultimate fulfillment of his kingdom on earth , where he rules and reigns on earth , and we're on that journey towards that and it's not a static thing and I think , learning to rest in that , without knowing everything , because you know typical , I think men particularly , we want to know where we everything , because you know the typical , I think men particularly , we want to know where we're going and you know we're wanting to know details about how we're going to get there and how we're going to pay for it and how we're going to survive this and how we're going to achieve that . And I think the thing of learning just to really trust that tomorrow , when I talk to him , the next steps or more steps , because it's not always linear more steps will be revealed , more you know we follow in his footsteps kind of thing . And to me it's just become this great adventure now where it could go anywhere . You know , I don't feel limitation anymore on my life like I used to , because I used to feel it's so dependent on me to become qualified and have understanding . But now I , I realize I just follow his voice , just do what I said . And you know it's interesting , I I did the study recently and I haven't done it in great depth , but it's something I want to develop .

Jono Turner 38:01

But you know , there's not very many places through the history of the Old Testament , particularly where the Lord is telling His people to read His Word . He says today , if you hear my voice , today , if you hearken to my voice , it's always about the voice , the voice , the voice , the voice . And you know , I believe in being scripturally aligned and , you know , accurate as best you can . But actually it's the voice that we follow . When we can't hear the voice for any reason , then we default to principles . But many people want to live by principle and occasionally hear the voice . I believe we should live by the voice and make sure that it aligns with principle and then , when we really don't know what to do and we have to make a decision . Well , we default to the principle . But I think the joy of this journey for me is knowing that as long as I keep cultivating that stillness and attentiveness to listen , then his voice will guide me through .

Mark Banyard 39:11

Very good , very good . Well , thank you John . Yeah , keep listening . We're all on the journey , aren't we ?

Jono Turner 39:17

Yeah , yeah , keep listening . We're all on the journey , aren't we ?

Mark Banyard 39:23

Thanks for listening . We hope you enjoyed this episode of Kingdom Talk . You can find all the notes and links for today's show at our website , wwwkingdomadvancedministriescom . Forward slash podcast and , once again , if you enjoyed our show , be sure to subscribe so that you won't miss any of our upcoming episodes . Bye for now , and may God bless . Thank you .