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How to Hear the Voice of God
In this series I would like to take you through the Word of God to show you how we can all clearly hear the voice of God. I would also like to show you how to train yourself in hearing and being led by the voice of God. Determine in your heart to allow the Word of God to be your guide and have an open mind as you are reading this book with your Bible. The Holy Spirit will witness with your spirit and reveal the truth, and the truth will set you free. ROMANS 8:4, 13, 14 AMP For if you live according to [the dictates of] the flesh, you will surely die. But if through the power of the [Holy] Spirit you are [habitually] putting to death (making extinct, deadening) the [evil] deeds prompted by the body, you shall [really and genuinely] live forever. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. I was reading this scripture here in Romans 8:4 one day and the section that said, "who live and move not in the ways of the flesh but in the ways of the Spirit [our lives governed not by the standards and according to the dictates of the flesh, but controlled by the Holy Spirit]". This made me think about my life as it may make you think about your life in Christ. I am very simple in my approach in God; I thought that Paul was implying that God expected me now as a born again recreated being in God to live different to the way I was living before Christ became the centre of my life and, if this was true, then I have not been fulfilling or living the way God expects His child to live. By reading verse 13 and 14 of Romans 4, I realised I needed to find out more, so that I may live pleasing to God. All because verse 14 tells me that the sons of God were led by the Spirit of God and I wanted to be led by the Spirit of God. If you are anything like me, we were saved but still very much controlled by our flesh. So with that thought in mind and what this Scripture had opened my eyes to see, I said to myself, "Trevor, you need to search out the Scriptures on how to be led and controlled by the Spirit of God." Because I wanted to be as pleasing to my God and Saviour as I possibly could. As we all do! So I am presenting to you today the results of my study notes for you to see what I found out. I hope you have as much enjoyment and excitement about this subject as I did in preparing it. GALATIANS 5:16 AMP This Scripture here in Galatians tells us that we have to be led by the Holy Spirit, controlled and guided by Him as believers. So that means we need to be able to hear and be led by the Holy Spirit . Is that not true? The Spiritual things of God are only understood by the children of God, so that means we have to be born of God to understand and to discern and appreciate the voice of God. 1 Corinthians 2:14 AMP The natural man does not have the ability to recognise or understand the Spirit of God, but this Scripture is saying that the born again person has the ability to not only recognise the voice of God but to discern and appreciate His voice. So then let's become more discerning and appreciate and understand the method that God has established for us to communicate with Him by hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit. The problem we have today is that very few people know how this communication is set up or what method is used. Are you able to recognise and understand the voice of God, as a believer? When we do hear the voice of God and we are guided by it, we get excited (overjoyed), because we have recognised that it was God and we heard correctly. It is meant to be a common thing for us to hear God's voice the same way we hear anyone who is speaking to us, not a surprise to hear God's voice. People find it very hard to tell the difference between the Holy Spirit and their own spirit or mind, because we have never been told what the voice of the Holy Spirit really sounds like or how to hear it. We have only been told that it is a soft gentle voice, an unction from your belly, a knowledge not from your head, just a knowing. Have you heard it explained that way? If you're anything like me, all that information didn't help me at all to understand the voice of God that I wanted to find out here. I wanted to know how to experience the voice of God all the time, not the knowledge of how I should know. I now know that there are two ways to hear the voice of God, by His Word and by His Holy Spirit. The Word shows me that there are different parts to my being. To hear the voice of God I need to understand the make up of my whole being. HEBREWS 4:12 AMP There are three parts to the natural way we're made up! Body - Physical conscious When you are born again the (super) natural way we are made up is reversed, you are to be first, spirit controlled then soulish and last of all body (or flesh) controlled. A natural man is flesh controlled but as a born again believer, now dead-to-self, we are to be predominantly spirit controlled. This shows me that being led by God is something to do with my spirit. A natural man works out of his mind, so a spiritual man works out of his spirit. Zechariah 4:6 Let us now have a look at Romans 9:1, to help us find this secret (silent) voice. Establishing how to hear the voice of God clearly, to have God recognised more in our lives, to know Him as a close and dear friend. Romans 9:1 Can you see it here? The secret has been revealed, if you look and read closely it's here in this Scripture as plain as day. To help, let's look at this verse in the amplified Bible. Romans 9:1 AMP HOW'S THAT! Are you able to see how to hear the voice of God? Yes you're right - it's our CONSCIENCE. Let's look at what the Vine's Dictionary has to say about the word conscience. Conscience: "The witness born to one's conduct by Conscience, that faculty by which we apprehend the will of God." We as Christians have six senses not five!!! The Conscience is the voice of our spirit. It's our God-given ability to have communication with our Heavenly Father via the Holy Spirit. You could say that our Conscience is the channel tuned into God when we are born again. So I can guess by your facial expression that the penny just dropped, I can hear you saying to yourself, "So I have been hearing the voice of God more than I have given myself credit for." You sure have! Let's go on and let me open your eyes of understanding even further. We are the only beings to have a Conscience. Because we live under the age of Grace, we are the only people on the earth who will be controlled and have our lives governed by the way we have used the special tool of conduct given to us. If you have a look in the Old Testament you'll find that they were not governed (controlled) by their Conscience because they were spiritually dead to God. They were people of the sense realm. The people of the Old Testament did not have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. The Holy Spirit fell upon certain chosen men of God. For the people of the Old Testament to hear from God they had to go to the man anointed of God for that day (age). So we see here that we need to pay more attention to the affairs of our Conscience. We need to admonish, uphold and not sear our Conscience. 1 Timothy 4:1, 2 We need to train ourselves in the art of following the thought and instruction of our Conscience (the voice of God). The Conscience deals with us in sin and righteousness, we can train ourselves to allow our Conscience to have more control of our whole being. Let's look at the Scriptures that deal with our Conscience. 1 Timothy 1:5, 19 AMP Notice that by rejecting your Conscience you can lose your faith? Or your faith will become shipwrecked. 1 Timothy 3:9 We need to always keep a pure and undefiled Conscience. Yes you can defile and corrupt your Conscience. Let's look at Titus, Titus 1:15 AMP 1 Timothy 4: 2 AMP You can easily quench or sear and simply ignore the voice of your Conscience (the voice of God) and go the way of your soul or flesh. We have done this and every time we will say to ourselves, "I know I should not have done that." When you hear yourself say that, you then can say, "I just ignored the voice of God." Repent and you will then be on the road to allow the Conscience to be your guide in life.Before we were born again we allowed our body and soul to rule our existence, sometimes listening to our Conscience. Now the reverse should be the norm, that is allowing the Conscience or Spirit of God to rule our existence and only sometimes listening to our body and soul. Galatians 5:16 AMP Now the difference between Christians receiving from God or not will be based on how they use the Word and listen to their Conscience. Your Conscience (Holy Spirit) will deal with you and instruct your life to become more like Christ based on the amount of Word you insert into your heart and mind. This is how the Holy Spirit works in your life concerning the things of God. We cannot expect to just become better acquainted with our Conscience and expect God to fill us with all wisdom. Wisdom is obtained by hearing and hearing the Word of God. We can develop our Conscience once we are born again, the same as we could develop our body and soul when we weren't born again. Through more information and exercising of the Word, we can become what God created us to be, Spirit-ruled and not self-ruled. Romans 6:6, 7 Through becoming more Spirit-ruled we can become men and women of integrity. ACTS 24:16 AMP 1 JOHN 3:21, 22 What is your heart? It's the centre of your being , which is what? Your spirit is the centre of your being and your Conscience is the voice of your spirit. Yes your spirit has a voice. To help with understanding the Scripture better, let's look at the same Scripture in the Amplified Bible. 1 JOHN 3:21, 22 AMP To wage a good warfare, we must have faith and a good Conscience; without a good Conscience you will not obtain the rewards of faith. You will be a soldier with no armour. If you can imagine someone going to war with nothing but hope that he will win, you and I would call that man a complete idiot or fool. Too many Christians are trying to pull down strongholds with nothing but hope that it will work, and they end up falling flat on their face. They then say that faith and hearing God is too hard, and the devil walks all over them until they see how to use their whole armour. To become an overcomer, the basics are allowing God to help you train your Conscience. HEBREWS 9:14 HEBREWS 10:21-24 AMP 1 PETER 3:15-17 AMP Our Conscience was purged and purified at salvation. We must have a pure conscience to witness. To witness courteously and respectfully is based upon the state of our conscience being right with God. Having an unimpaired conscience will also stop false accusations from having any outcome in our lives, so the reverse is also true. If your conscience is impaired or not right, false accusations will unfortunately stick and mar your life. When you were water baptized you started your life in Christ with a clean conscience. One of the spiritual symbols of water baptism is the cleaning of your dead Conscience being made alive to God. Copyright 1997 by Trevor Bartley About Trevor Bartley: Trevor Bartley is a Pastor from Perth, Western Australia. He heads up FAITH WORKS WA Itinerant ministry.He also heads up a online bible college called "Lifestyle Training School" This college programme is being taught live by Trevor and is also available as a correspondence online course or can be set up in your local church, taught there by your church team. Trevor's own ministry, Faith Works Itinerant Ministries, is available for seminars, training programmes and teaching on a variety of topics; one that he specialises in is the Ministry of Helps seminars, discovering your gifts and talents.For further information regarding any of the above courses or for Trevor's own ministry, please feel free to contact him direct at: FAITH WORKS WA He has ministry CD's available and has written the following books: Ministry of Helps
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