Intuition
As has already been discussed, we can hear God's voice speaking to us just in the fact that His unwavering peace occupies our minds about any particular faith position that we take. This peace from Him is His voice telling us that we are standing at that moment on correct Scriptural grounds over any particular matter. Inability on our part to reach peace about a matter can also be discerned as God's voice telling us that our faith stand is not correctly Scripturally grounded.
Isaiah 30:20 - 21 - ...He, your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. Your ears will hear a word behind you, "This is the way, walk in it," whenever you turn to the right or to the left.
Whenever we are positioned wrong in any of our faith positions, God can be relied upon to bring a thought or a Scriptural Word intuitively into our minds in order to attempt to straighten us out. This is one way that we can see and hear Him! His voice is the thought or feeling itself, not an audible sound.
However, Scriptural intuitions within our minds can also have been placed there by Satan in his evil efforts to mislead us. So, in order for any Scriptural intuition to begin to be relied upon as truly being the voice of God, peace of mind must also be present within our minds. If peace won't stay, the intuition is automatically suspect no matter what the verse is from the Biblical Scriptures. After all, did not the devil himself try to deceive Jesus using passages from the Scriptures, at the end of His 40 day fast?
Matthew 4:5 - 6 - Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' "
And did not Jesus overcome Satan's deceptive use of the Word by invoking another Scripture which was of a higher priority for the situation because it had to do with the underlying intent of the action?
Matthew 4: 7 - Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'
Therefore, just as Jesus did when He dealt with Satan, whenever a Scriptural intuition occurs we also need to be sure that it's the highest priority Biblical Scripture for that particular situation. If we can reach peace that it is, then it might actually be God speaking to us about that situation. But just to be sure, once all of the applicable Scriptures have been prioritized and peace of mind is firmly present, that intuition needs to then be confirmed by some other outside witnesses over which we have no control.
II Corinthians 13:1b - Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
These establishing witnesses which are outside of ourselves, if they are truly from God about a matter, will be things like the agreement of an authority or of some other Christian or of some event which seems to substantiate the matter. If the Scriptural intuition within us comes with these kinds of backings it can be considered as being most likely a Word which the Lord has spoken to us.
So remember that there is always a chance that an intuition is not actually a message from the Lord, so we should always stay humbly open to further guidance from Him. Yes, we should move into a firm faith in this kind of a substantiated Scriptural intuition as being the voice of God. But even though our faith is firm, we should not be stubborn and unyielding to further correction, just in case it is not really a Word spoken to us from the Lord.
Consequently, a good confession in this regard might be that we firmly believe that the Scriptural intuition for the situation is actually a Word spoken to us from God but we are open to the possibility of being misguided about it and therefore we are open to being corrected by God in some way about it. But until a correction is sent, we will stay firmly within our faith position on that particular matter.
The Biblical story of Gideon's fleece is a good example of a godly man who strongly believes that he's had a Word spoken to him by the Lord but when doubt about it creeps into his mind, he seeks for additional witnessing events from God as to the validity of the message. He wanted to be as sure as he could be that the message that he had gotten was actually from God, not from the devil in disguise, before he went off to take a risk that he might regret.
Judges 6:36 - 40 - Gideon said to God, "If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised - look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said." And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.
Then Gideon said to God, "Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew." That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
If we are open to it, we can hear God's voice within the conscience of our minds. Here we will be given or denied peace from Jesus about anything that we may have rightly or wrongly believed, said or done.
Romans 2:15b - ...their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.
Our conscience is a substantiating witness within us from God which unequivocally speaks of the truth or falseness of any intuitive Scriptural message as actually being the voice of God. It will allow us no peace about a matter in which we wrongly believe or which we wrongly do.
I Samuel 24:5 - ...David's conscience bothered him because he had...(done a wrong thing even though at the time, he thought he was doing the right thing)...
Our conscience starts out speaking loudly from God to us about an error within us about which He wants us to deal. But if its insistent voice is long resisted, eventually it will be silenced. God calls the silencing of the conscience's voice, the act of searing it.
I Timothy 4:1 -2 - The (Holy) Spirit explicitly says...that some will fall away from the faith...seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.
Discernment of Spirit
Additionally, we can hear His voice within our minds when we receive a discernment from God about some good or bad spirit's presence and / or activities.
Ephesions 6:12 - For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere.
Good and evil spirits are invisible beings whom God allows to have influence over and / or impact upon the events of our lives. So, in order to reveal their activities, God's Holy Spirit will gift some Christians with the ability to somehow sense them or even see and / or hear them.
I Corinthians 12:8 -10 - To one is given in and through the [Holy] Spirit...the ability to discern and distinguish between [the utterances of true] spirits [and false ones]...
This gift quite often infuses the discerner with the loss of peace whenever evil spirits are speaking to them in their minds or through other people or when they sense their presence near them. Discerners will not reach peace within their minds until that spirit or its evil activities are overcome and defeated and / or it is cast out or sent away from them. This is God's voice to them warning them of their evils.
Conclusion
So these are 4 ways by which to hear within our minds the Lord's voice as He speaks to us.
1. Intuition
2. Conscience
3. Discernment of spirits
1 comment:
I really appreciated this, it’s helping me to understand the thoughts and going through my head. I really appreciate it! THANK YOU!
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