This is an old mail i got awhile ago from my Dad (the earthly one i mean, #wink) and i just thought, since truth never gets old, that it might prove useful for someone out there. So please read with an open heart and i pray it is as much of a blessing to you as it was (and is) to me.
^_^
The Five-Fold Secret To Clearly Hearing God's Voice
One of the questions I
consistently get from Believers whether they are newly born-again or have
been in the Body of Christ for years, is, "How do you know God's voice?"
There is a five-fold secret to clearly hearing God's voice. For
the ministers and lay Christians who do not know this crucial secret, hearing
the Lord's voice becomes a perpetual struggle. Let's go to the Word of God to
learn this five-fold secret..
Who Are You Really Listening To?
Over the past sixteen years, I've watched Christians make decisions that have produced alarming self-inflicted wounds. In each case, they did what they did because they firmly believed God was the one who called, led or inspired them to do so. But in the end, they married the wrong person, bought a car that turned out to be a lemon, bought a house they could not afford and started ministries and businesses that were doomed for failure from the onset.
I've watched people claim God told them to quit their jobs to do
the work of the ministry. But it wasn't long before their cars were
repossessed and they were begging for money to pay their bills, and finally
had to file bankruptcy. Write this law down and don't ever forget:
When You Follow The Lord's Voice - The Vision Always Comes To
Pass!
The Lord is never going to lead you to bankruptcy or divorce court, ministry or business failure, or into a bad consumer deal! Under no circumstances will He lead you into marital turmoil, financial shame or ministry embarrassment, (See Psalm 23). If you find yourself trapped in one of those traumatic moments in time, just know that the voice of the Holy Spirit DID NOT lead you there! You got there because you listened to or followed the wrong voice, or you made a bad decision.
Do You Know The Five
Voices?
In every decision that you are called to make and in every situation that you are faced with, there is always going to be five different voices speaking to you.
(1) The
voice of God
(2) The voice of your conscience (3) The voice of your reasoning (4) The voice of your flesh, and (5) The voice of the devil
In most cases, each voice is going to lead you in the opposite
direction of the voice of God. The sincere Christians who consistently miss
God's voice, either: (a) don't know about all of these five voices, or (b)
they have not learned how to discern which voice is speaking. Each voice has
a distinct sound and is easily discernable once you know what to listen for.
I very rarely listen to the radio, but when I turn it on, there
are certain voices that I detect immediately. Voices like: Smokey Robinson,
Ron Kenoly and Stevie Wonder, to name a few. Each of their voices has a
distinct sound pitch. In the realm of the spirit, the five voices I named are
the same way! They each have a distinctive sound pitch. We're going to
examine each of these five voices and get to know their sound pitch from the
Written Word of God. After this teaching, you'll be on track to clearly
hearing God's voice. We'll start at the bottom of the list and work our way
to the top, saving the best for last!
The Voice of The Devil - (Psalm 55:1-3)
This is how the voice of the devil sounds. When he speaks, his voice comes to:
If you hear: fear, confusion, torment, doubt, justification of
sin, etc., you don't have to pray about it or seek counseling. You are
listening to the voice of the devil!
The Voice of Your Flesh - (Galatians 5:16-21)
Your flesh has a voice! It speaks to you in a commanding and authoritative sound pitch. It doesn't matter if you are an apostle, prophet, pastor, CEO, Governor, Police Chief or an average citizen. Your flesh speaks to you constantly. Any time you follow the voice of your flesh, the net result will always be negative. You can never follow the voice of your flesh and things turn out, "ok!" The fifth chapter of the book of Galatians reveals the sound pitch of your flesh. You know you are listening to and being led by the voice of your flesh when you engage in:
(1) Adultery
- unlawful sexual relations between a man and a woman
(2) Fornication - pornography, harlotry, incest (3) Uncleanness - homosexuality, lesbianism, pedophilia, sexual perversion (4) Lasciviousness - undisciplined, lewd, overeater, lazy, shiftless (5) Idolatry - worship sports stars, movie stars, music icons, preachers, money, etc. (6) Witchcraft - includes drug use, spells, luck charms, horoscopes, zodiac signs (7) Hatred - hold grudges and malice and be angry at someone (8) Variance - to quarrel with words, stir up strife and incite debates (9) Emulations - the spirit of jealousy, rivalry spirit (10) Wrath - creating domestic and civic turmoil (11) Strife - getting pay back for a wrong, angry contentions (12) Seditions - stirring up strife in the church, government, home, etc. (13) Heresies - causing discord, unrighteous indignation (14) Envying - to wish ill will toward a person, organization or group of people (15) Murder - to spoil or mar the happiness of others, to kill (16) Drunkenness - public or private intoxication, alcoholic, addicted to (17) Revellings - clubs, house parties, carousing, obscene music
The voice of your flesh will never inspire you to do the will of
God. It will only talk you into committing adultery, fornication, listening
to obscene music and engaging in any of the other seventeen destructive
behaviors you just read. You are to never listen to the voice of your flesh!
What you do to the voice of your flesh is bring it into subjection to the
Written Word of God, (See I Corinthians 9:27).
The Voice of Your Reasoning - (Acts 28:1-6 and Mark 2:6-8)
The Lord God has given us the ability to reason. We have that ability so that we may rationally consider all options, blessings and curses, obstacles, situations, consequences, advantages versus disadvantages and profits versus losses. You can always tell when you are listening to the voice of your reasoning because you will weigh the things you see and hear in the natural. You will deliberate and think things through, and afterwards, make your decision. Caution: if the answer of your mind contradicts the Written Word, or contradicts what God has said to you, then you must abandon the voice of your reasoning, (See Numbers 13:26-33).
The Voice of Your Conscience - (Acts 24:16 and Hebrews
10:22)
Your conscience is the place where you recognize the difference between what is right versus what is wrong. It is the place where you establish morals and values, or where you reject good morals and values and become reprobate in your mind. Your conscience is going to fall into one of the four categories:
(a) A good
conscience, (I Timothy 1:5 and Acts 24:16)
(b) A weak conscience, (I Corinthians 8:7) (c) A seared conscience, (I Timothy 4:2) (d) A evil conscience, (Hebrews 10:22)
This next point should be obvious. The voice of your conscience
is good to listen to as long as you have a good conscience, but when a person
has a weak, seared or evil conscience, it would be unadvisable for them to
follow the voice of their conscience.
The Voice of God - (I Samuel 3:1-10 and John10:1-5)
You know you are hearing the voice of God when you hear these sounds.
·Instruction in righteousness, (II Tim 3:16)
·Correction in righteousness, (II Timothy 3:16, Proverbs 3:11-12) ·Causes you to profit in Christ, (II Timothy 3:16, John 15:16) ·Brings to your remembrance the Word of God, (John 14:26) ·Guides you into Truth, (John 16:13) ·Exhorts you, (Jude 3, Romans 12:1) ·Comforts you, (John 14:16, Psalm 23:4) ·Rebukes and reproves you, (Titus 1:13, II Timothy 4:2) ·Convicts you of sin, (Romans 6:1-23) ·Leads you to salvation, (Romans 10:9-10, II Timothy 3:15) ·Assures you of the Heavenly Father's love toward you, (I John 3:1, Jeremiah 31:3) ·Admonishes and warns you, (Ephesians 6:4, Acts 21:4,10-14) ·Edifies you, (Ephesians 4:12) ·Increases our faith, (Romans 10:17) ·Cause you to triumph in life through Christ, (II Corinthians 2:14)
The Seven Elements To Clearly Hearing God's Voice
Now that you know the five voices, and how they sound, there are the seven elements that must be in place in your life, if you are going to properly discern which voice is speaking.
If you follow those instructions, you will come to the place,
where you quickly recognize which voice is speaking to you. That is an
awesome feeling to know that you know that you know -the voice of the Holy
Spirit!
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This article really REALLY helped me put things into better perspective. I'm sure if we'd apply the truths here it'll go a pretty long way. :)
P.s; i added the emphasis on meditate in #2 of the 'Elements to Clearly Hearing God's Voice' because many at times, folks misinterpret meditating on God's word as merely reading it and it sometimes misguides people.
Well, hope you enjoyed it. See you all in February! ^_^
xxx, Kwiksie~
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