Friday, August 14, 2015

Hearing God


As Christians, the Holy Spirit DOES talk to us. (John 16:13) Very often it is in regards to sin in our life. If it's something that you don't want to do, do you find yourself fighting it when God starts talking? We all struggle with that. But the more that you obey that "feeling" that is telling you what His will is, the easier it will be to hear the God talking to you. 


As long as we live in this fallen world though, we will continue to struggle against sin. It is a daily decision that you have to make to listen to God and obey Him. For instance, an example from my own life: Right now, the sin I struggle with is gluttony. I LOVE sweets, especially baked goods. There is a shop nearby that makes the best doughnuts. Sometimes, if the stress in my life is particularly high, I feel like I need one of those doughnuts immediately to make myself feel better. God and I often have heated "discussions" about this. He doesn't speak to me in words, better descriptive words for it might be "impressions", "prompting", "guiding" or "leading". ( He impresses on me a feeling that He strongly disapproves of the action I'm about to take. This ends in one of two ways: either I consent and obey or I harden my heart and dig in my heels like a stubborn donkey. 

Every time I make a choice about how to respond, it has consequences. When I consent and obey, I am closer to God, in harmony with Him and am sensitive to His leading. However, the more often I harden my heart and make that decision to disobey, it becomes harder and harder to hear His voice. If I do it enough, I stop hearing His voice altogether. When I stop hearing His voice, I feel far from Him and that is an awful place to be. When you close your heart to God's voice, you close your heart to the joy of being in harmony with Him. Every Christian has the Holy Spirit of God living inside them, but it takes obedience to God to allow His Holy Spirit to fill you.

Here are a couple of great articles from Got Questions on this topic

(http://www.gotquestions.org/Spirit-filled.html).

How can I know if I am hearing God, hearing Satan, or hearing my own thoughts?

How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit?


No comments:

Post a Comment