The reason we want to focus on hearing the voice of God is because this is a major key to the supernatural being released, a major key for the supernatural being released. I want you to read with me if you've got a Bible or the notes - if it's an even page you may not have it, except in the ones you get tomorrow. So this is Paul writing, so just if it's not there that's okay, just focus on listening rather than searching. They started off as a very vibrant Holy Ghost church and now they had lost it altogether, so he's writing and he's bringing adjustment to them.
One of the issues he addresses is their loss of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. One of the key reasons they've lost the manifestation of the spirit was legalism. They came back under laws and rules, do this, don't do that, and they lost completely the flow of the spirit, so he begins to challenge them and he asks them two questions.
Now what you've got to see is when he asks these two questions he's actually - each one is to bring about an insight of where they're missing the mark, and the problem he's addressing is that they thought you become mature by obeying the laws. What he's saying is no, you need the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.
So notice the question he asks. I want to learn this from you, I want you to tell me this; did you receive the Holy Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? He asked them a question, how did you receive the Holy Ghost into your life? How did you get born again? How did you get baptised in the spirit? How did you get a supernatural change in your life?
Did you get it by working hard, or did you get it by the hearing of faith? What is the answer? The hearing of faith. How do you get saved? You hear the word of God, and you believe and respond, and the power of God is activated by your response, see? That's how a person gets saved, so he appeals to the foundation of their Christian experience. How did you get saved?
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Did you get saved and supernaturally changed, and the spirit come into your life, because you worked hard and went to church and did good things - or did you get it because you heard the word of God and believed, and when you responded the spirit of God came? The answer's really clear. It was never by the works of the law. They were supernaturally transformed when the spirit of God came into their life.
He wants them to get that answer, because now he's going to ask them the real question. So he asks them the first question to get their head clear - how did you start in this game? Did you start by working hard to be a better person, or did you start by believing God? He's asking now the real question he wants to ask, so then he goes on and he said: You began in the spirit, and you think you'll become mature by the flesh?
Have you suffered so many things in vain? He says now, He that supplies the spirit to you, and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or the hearing of faith? So you notice he's asking almost the same question, but he's applying it to something else. So the first one was like this: How did you get your initial experience with God - work hard, or believe God? Now he does it a different way, he asks the same thing. This time he says how does God supply the spirit to you? How does God do miracles among you?
So in other words he's saying, how do the gifts of the spirit flow? How do miracles happen? Work hard, or hear God and respond? The answer's really clear isn't it? Now he's framed it up that way by appealing to how they started as a believer. They heard God's voice, heard God speaking to them and they chose to believe and respond, and they were into a flow of the spirit.
He said the moving in the spirit's the same way, it's exactly the same way. It's not by working hard. It's not by trying hard. It's by extending your faith to believe and listen to God, so here is why, if we want to move in the supernatural, we must practice hearing and identifying the voice of God. This is the significant key to operating in the spirit.
It is the hearing of faith. I extend my faith to believe God will speak to me, I extend my faith to believe God wants to use me. Now for some of you that may be a challenge, because it's easier to believe He'll use someone else, than use you, and the core challenge is: There's no reason at all why He would not want to do this. God loves me, He's justified me, I'm accepted.
He wants to work through me. He's designed me to work this way. Of course I believe, and I'll extend now to listen and hear His voice, expect to hear His voice - and I'm going to apply this when it comes to working with one another in the exercises. I'll get you starting to stir your faith to believe, and listen, and then stretch out to see what God does. That's how the activations will work, so for example - so always it involves faith, I must extend out and believe that God will work through me. Secondly, I need to tune in to hear God speaking to me; and three, I need to step out and actually act on what God gives me.
Think about how you got saved. You heard the word of God, faith rose to believe it to be true, and then you stepped out and acted by speaking out, or confessing Christ in some way, so the flowing in the spirit actually works the same way. It all works the same way, and so we just need to practice hearing the voice of God. In John 5, 19 to 20, Jesus answered and said: I tell you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but whatever He sees the Father do, that's what He does. He just spoke out and did that. Notice He didn't heal every person.
Sometimes He healed everyone, but you know there's a guy by the door of the temple, He walked past him every time He went into the temple and never did anything. Because He never saw the Father healing on that day, but when Peter went by, after being baptised in the spirit, Peter looked at him and he worked a miracle and the guy was healed. So was it the will of God for him to be healed?
It certainly was, but there was a flow of the spirit that Jesus listened to. So He went to one place by the well, by the Bethsaida [a place reputed for its healing properties] and the porters there, and there's a whole heap of crippled people and one He heals. That's not very fair. I don't understand all the ways God works. All we know is, He saw what the Father was doing, and did that. He avoided or resisted pressure to try and meet every need. He learned how to listen to the Holy Spirit and work with the Holy Spirit, so we're not called to fix all problems.
We're not called to solve everything. We are called to learn how to yield, extend our faith, listen to God, and obey Him, and it's in the little things you get the miracles. Let me give you an example. Before I was a Christian I was raised a Catholic. When I became a Christian I stopped going to the Catholic Church and started to attend another church, a spiritual church.
It was a great offence to my grandmother, and she was deeply offended by it. We had some significant issues over that and anyway her birthday was coming up. I thought I need to get her something and my thinking in those days was you better make it up somehow, thought I'd get her a nice gift, so I went downtown. The day came and went and I got so busy I missed it.
I thought oh no, double banger. This is not good [Laughter] so I thought then what I need to do then - my reasoning, which is not a good reasoning, was I need to buy a nice gift to make it up. Actually that would never make it up. You just couldn't appease the thing like that, but I did want to buy a gift anyway so I went to the shops and I was looking and I couldn't work out what to get. I went past this shop and I felt the Holy Spirit say go in there. It was a religious shop, books and things, and I went in there and I looked around and there was stuff I didn't really like there.
It was full of all kinds of stuff, and I was wrestling with God over it. I saw a little picture there and it was the shepherd with the sheep - you know the picture, I'm the good shepherd and there's a picture of a lovely shepherd, robes and Jesus [laughs] and he probably doesn't look anything like that, but that was the picture. I just really - I thought no, no, no, I don't even like those things.
So I walked up the street, came back and I thought no, I can't see anything, I'll go back to the shop. So I went back, I thought I've got nothing to lose. I feel God's telling me, I'll just get it, I'm just going to get the picture. So I bought the picture, and I bought some dried flower arrangement, and I put it all together, bundled it off with a note, sorry I missed your birthday, here's a little gift and blah blah blah. Anyway I met my grandmother a little later and I said to her did you get the birthday gift?
She said yes, thank you very much, I really enjoyed the little dried flower arrangement. It was very, very pretty and smelled nice and so on. I said what about the picture? She said oh, she said that did bring back some memories, and she said when I was at school in boarding school at the age of 12, a girlfriend and me got into trouble with one of the teachers. We wanted to try and put it right with the teacher, and so we decided we would buy a gift, and we bought that picture for her. Now only God could come up with something like that. We're talking something like 60 years prior, and God knew what she did, and when she saw the picture it triggered the memory of trying to put something right in a relationship that was wrong, and she associated with my gift a desire to put right with her something that was wrong.
Now only God could come up with stuff like that aye, so this is the blessing of being able to listen to the Holy Spirit on different situations. Okay, getting the idea? So we need to hear what God is saying. Alright then, so another example is found in Acts 14, Verses 8 to Paul is in Lystra and a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from his mother's womb, he'd never walked, and the man heard Paul speaking.
Paul - now notice what it says - Paul observed him intently, and saw he had faith to be healed. Now that's an interesting statement. Paul fixed his eyes on the man - in other words he stared at him, and as he stared at him he perceived, that's in his spirit, that the man had faith to be healed. What does it look like if you've got faith to be healed? What would you be looking for?
In other words there was an inner knowing that this man had faith. He went to him and prayed and immediately the man rose up and was healed, so this is he saw something. So in flowing with the Holy Spirit, or hearing the voice of God, we begin to hear that sometimes we see things, sometimes we hear things, sometimes we will just perceive or sense something in our spirit. So let's now have a look, as we've seen how Paul operated, and we see how Jesus operated, and we see that it's by the hearing of faith that we can work in miracles. Now we want to look at how to hear the voice of God.
What does the voice of God sound like? So the first thing I want to do is to point out this, is that when you hear the voice of God, you will hear from within, not from without. God put His Holy Spirit within you. So being born again, your spirit is joined to the Lord, so if you're going to hear the voice of God you will hear Him in your spirit.
You won't necessarily hear Him with your audible ears. You won't necessarily see anything with your natural eyes. You will have to develop your spiritual sense. Okay then, now what I want to do is I'm just going to get three people up, and I want to just do a visual illustration for you to give you an idea of something - I want to put something visual in front of you, to help you understand something spiritual.
So I won't refer to all the notes as I do it, but what I've got in the notes I will teach it by doing a visual demonstration for you. Okay, so why don't we get three guys to come up. Can we get three guys? There we are, there's one there, Brian, two guys over here. Won't you guys come on up on the stage and just help me out here okay, help me out here.
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Alright then, so you don't have to do anything, you've just got to stand there, okay, so here we go. See, stand there and face over here, this is perfect. Come over and stand over here, face over here and you face over there. There we are, it's perfect, alright then, you can see everyone. Now God has designed us and we are body, soul and spirit. We're a spirit man; with a soul; living inside a body, so your body has five senses: Okay, I want you to just turn around this way here like this now, put your hand on his shoulders, and you put your hand on his shoulders. That's right - so if I'm interacting with Brian and connecting with Brian I see his physical body, and if I look into eyes I can see there's a person in there, but what is in there is the hidden man of the heart.
The hidden man of the heart is found here. It's the soul, the mind, will, emotions, memories, personality and it's the spirit man. Now his spirit man, and everyone has a spirit dimension - you have a spirit being, a part of you which is spirit - the spirit man also has spiritual senses. So we just all turn around, face this way again. Okay, now the spirit man has spiritual senses.
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Just stand there, that's right. So his spirit man, dwelling inside him, energises his body. Your spirit is incredibly important. The Bible says that if the spirit is absent from the body, a person's dead, so this is how important your spirit is. Your spirit energises and gives life to your soul and your body. Your spirit is a vital part of you, but your spirit has many functions, so one function of your spirit is to energise your soul and body. Your spirit quickens your body, because if your spirit is withdrawn from your body, the body dies, so your spirit's very important.
If you spirit is wounded or damaged or hurt or injured you tend to get sick much more readily, and the Bible tells that. It says a broken spirit dries the bones, so if your spirit is damaged in some way, then it will affect your body and your body's health. Another aspect of your spirit is that your spirit illuminates your mind. See, it says the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, lighting up all the inner parts, so your spirit will illuminate your soul with ideas and thoughts.
How many have ever had a hunch that turned out to be right? Where did the hunch come from? Oh, that's sixth sense. No it isn't, it's your spirit. The sixth sense is actually your spirit. So when we get a hunch or an intuition, actually there's an idea come from our spirit that's come into our mind, that's what we're picking up and if you act on it then you start to find things happen, for example so we now see that we are designed to operate, we're quite unique. The soul area here is mind, will and emotions, and so your soul retains memories, memories of various experiences, so when you have a new experience you reference the old ones and come up with the conclusion.
For example - we'll just turn all around this way again, face all this way. Now I went to Singapore one time and when I went to Singapore there was this dreadful smell, and I couldn't work out what the smell was. I had no reference point for it whatsoever, so I could smell, but there was no experience to attach it to. I couldn't recognise it. It was just an unknown horrible smell, then someone said oh - I said what's that smell? They said oh, that's Durian and they brought out this big fruit, and it's Durian, and it smelt!
Some people love it, some people hate it and mostly you can't eat it in a building, it smells everything out. Now prior to that I had no reference point. Next time I came around [sniffing sound] oh, Durian, you see because I could smell and the sense would then register and the mind and memory would raise up them something and I was aware that's what that means. That means a fruit. I had a picture, a smell and an experience to relate this to and so next time round, no trouble, Durian!
Now just turn around and face this way again. Your spirit man will also pick up spiritual sensations, and they will go to the same place that the physical sensations went to. They go into your brain, into your memory, inside you, and your mind processes what you get, so as a unique person you can receive from the physical world and recognise things from a memory bank, but you can also receive from the realm of the spirit, and also build up experience so you quickly recognise different things.
You quickly recognise a different kind of spirit. You quickly recognise various sorts of things. Because you have developed your spiritual senses and built experience. Paul writes in or the Hebrew writer in Hebrews 5: You've got to practice to discern. Do you get it right every time? Why do we not get it right every time? Because our mind argues all the time, you know and I'll talk about that in a moment. Okay then, so if you just put your hand on his shoulder now and your hand on his shoulder over here.
So when you are born again the Holy Spirit comes in and becomes joined one spirit with the Lord, so we see in 1 Corinthians 6: That's how close you are to Him all the time, so everywhere you go you carry the presence of God, and God knows all things, so in your spirit you know a lot, and you have access to the source of lots of things all the time, all the time. He's never going to leave you, never going to turn away from you. You have access all the time to the presence of God, all the time. How do you get in tune with that access? You've got to silence all the noise that goes on in your head and tune in to your spirit.
So now how am I going to hear the voice of God? Well the first thing it's helpful to think of is where am I going to hear Him? The first thing to recognise is you're not going to hear Him out here saying 'Hello, this is God. That's not where we're to be looking for God outside us. It's not where He's to be found. He can be found inside you, so if you're going to grow in the things of the spirit, you have to develop what's inside you. So you find many immature Christians are constantly looking for something outside them, looking for something shaking or moving or this or that or a feeling or anything, but they're looking in the wrong place, because the devil can manipulate circumstances, and manipulate everything around you.
He can make storms happen. He can do all kinds of things. So we don't look outside ourselves. We look to our spirit man, because that spirit man is joined to the Holy Spirit, and therefore has access to heaven. Put your hands all on one another like that. Okay now, here we go. So the physical man accesses the physical world, but through my spirit I can access the realm of heaven all the time, free to access the presence of God. I've just got to learn how that happens. Okay, so turn around now.
We're going to show you how it happens. Turn around, put your arms on one another's shoulder like that. Okay, so if God is wanting to communicate to me, how will He do it? Very simply, the Holy Spirit will communicate with my spirit. How does He do it? Usually in one of three ways. Now He can do it many ways but there's usually one of three ways that there's direct spirit-to-spirit communication. Here it is; number one, you see something. You don't see it with your natural eyes.
The Holy Spirit puts a picture into your spirit, and that picture in your spirit rises up into your mind, or the Holy Spirit will speak a word into your spirit, and that word will rise up in your mind, or the Holy Spirit will just put an impression. You don't know how you know, but you just somehow know something. You say yes, of course I know I'm saved. How do you know? I don't know, I just know.
Well the Bible tells me, but I know. You know because there's an inward knowing. How do you inward know? Inward knowing is the witness of the Holy Spirit with your spirit, you're a child of God.
It's an inner knowing. That's how you know you're saved. Okay, so the Holy Spirit will do this, so if I'm going to be tuning into the voice of God here's the first thing. The first thing is, I have to quiet the noise. You have got noise all the time in your head. That's why I hate having headphones on, just noise in the head. Some people love it, and I don't mind listening to a certain amount of music, but I don't want my head to be full of noise of something else. So what kind of noise is in your head? All kinds of memories, all kinds of pictures, all kinds of experiences, things that have happened, all kinds of things in there.
You have demonic voices talking to you, they fill your mind with accusation, condemnation, not good enough, who do you think you are? All that kind of stuff is noise, and the noise is a block to hearing God, so if I'm going to hear God I need to number one, know I'm going to hear from my spirit so I should activate my spirit by prayer, praying in tongues; secondly, I need to quiet my soul so that my mind is not busy and all over the place. Thirdly, I need to tune in to what will be spontaneous. Now the language of your heart is different to the language of your head.
The language of your head is logical, structured, line upon line, and it's thought through carefully. That's how the language of the mind works. Its logic, so for example if you're working out some mathematics you're logical - one, two, three, four. You're trying to work out where to put something, one, two, three, four. If you're trying to create something, now it's intuitive and you start to flow, so the way we're designed is like this. Amazing design God has given to us. We're designed to be supernatural, it's amazing. Your brain is divided into two hemispheres or two parts. With the left side it's the logic side, so if we got him doing some maths I suppose he can - do you do maths or something?
Okay, suppose he can do maths, or he's trying to figure something out, and we put a brain scan on him and try to find out what part of his brain is busy, all the left side will be busy. If he's dreaming and imagining or creating it'll be the right side of his brain, so you're designed so that one part of you is logical and process oriented, one, two, three, four, blah, blah, blah, like that. The other part of you is intuitive.
It gets ideas, there's flashes and ideas and things like that and it's creative, so if you're a creative person you'll be very active in this part. If you're a logical person you'll be very active in that part of your brain, but both sides exist for every person. Now when the Holy Spirit is speaking to us what happens is, He imparts into our spirit, and which side of the brain do you reckon it comes up into?
It comes up into the right, so what do you get? You just get spontaneous thought. You get a picture just pops into your mind, or you get a word just suddenly comes into your mind. So what happens immediately after that comes in, the other part of your brain takes over and starts to argue it down and dismiss it. Men are often quite bad at that, and their wives are often quite intuitive, so some of you may recognise - and we won't ask for any show of hands - of a decision making process where the husband felt this was the right thing to do and his wife said I don't know, I don't feel very happy about that.
He says well why not? It's logical, it all works out and she says no, no, I don't know, it just doesn't feel right. Well I can't work with that, you know, that's just unreasonable. You're right, it is unreasonable - it's intuitive. Then later on you go ahead and do it, and you find actually it was the wrong thing to do, because your wife had this intuitive impression, and it was of greater value in discerning what something was than your my mind was.
I'll give you another example. How many have met someone and they look good, sounded good but you just felt something was not right about this person? That's the kind of language a woman would use - creepy [Laughter] you know, don't like that guy. I don't like him. You know, they say I don't like him, and the man may say what's wrong? There's nothing wrong with him. You know, he can't figure it out, but he's operating out of logic, what he can see, what he can hear and he's working on a reasoning basis. She's picking up intuitively from her spirit there's something not right about this person or situation, I don't feel right about it.
Now you think about this in Colossians 3: Initially you don't know that but you find out after you've had a number of experiences where you overruled your spirit, did something and then it didn't work out too good. You learn then actually listen to the voice of your heart more carefully. Now we do need to work things out.
We've got a capacity to do that. We should develop our mind and intelligence, but we need to also develop the intuitive side of us, so when God speaks to us it's very simple. I just calm down and quiet my soul to listen. I stir up my spirit through praying and focussing on the Lord, and as He speaks, spontaneous thoughts, pictures or impressions come into my soul, and I pick them up as an impression. Now you don't just do away with your brain and shoot your brain.
You actually then enquire, so I'll give you an example of someone. I was talking to one person, and I had a word of knowledge they were extremely lonely and so I said I just feel an impression that actually you're struggling with a lot of loneliness. No, no, no, no, I'm not lonely. It came again, so I said it again. No, no, no, I'm not lonely.
Now that's two denials, but it came again, and so I said in the end I actually feel you're quite lonely. I feel God's laying on my heart you're struggling with relationships and friendships, and you're lonely. God added me a little bit more. She broke down and began to weep, so I was right the first time, but the person tried to pretend that wasn't so, and just the impression kept coming and coming and coming.
So remember it was just an impression that came that I couldn't shake off, so when I gave voice to it then God was able to move. So the impressions that you get, your mind will always argue them. Your mind will act like that can't be so, it couldn't be true. Like you see a person smiling and God says they've got grief in their heart, and you look at them and you think no, sorry, got that one wrong.
The role of your natural mind then is to enquire, Holy Spirit, what does that mean? How do I work with that? What do You want me to do about that? So you enquire of God, rather than reason it all away. So there it is, it's not quite so difficult. So why is it some people have trouble hearing the voice of God? Now the trouble that people have with hearing the voice of God falls it seems to me into two categories.
It falls firstly into the people who are Dr Spock on Star Trek. They are totally head, and they just reason everything, everything's structured. Usually with a person like that, there's strong spirits sit around their mind, and they're disconnected from their heart. Often there's issues been in their life that have disconnected them. They many times need healing or deliverance or setting free, or training in how to engage with their heart, because they've lived out of their head and logic all their life, and they haven't developed their spiritual side.
So very often there's spirits of rationalism and unbelief, rejection and all kinds of things sit around that person, but they can be set free, and they can develop the capacity of tuning in to spontaneity, to spontaneous ideas, to thoughts, to feelings, to impressions, and learning to recognise and identify and name them.
The other extreme is where you get someone who's often quite broken relationally, and everything is God, God told me this, God told me that, God told me this. Now it's like there's this flow where everything God told them. When you hear that, you know two or three things; number one, God isn't saying all those things.
Number two, they're very broken people, and three, they've got major problems relationally, and so they're putting it all out there of God to portray some spiritual hotline. The reality is we don't hear God talking all the time that clearly. We have impressions and we learn to be led by God gives you wisdom to run your life without Him having to tell you what to do. He doesn't tell you what to put on your shopping list.
It's your job to figure that one out. He doesn't tell you what colour you should paint something. He gives you room to be creative. He doesn't tell us everything to do in our life, or we're like a puppet being told what to do. He actually works with us in a relationship where we work with Him, He's the senior partner and He guides us, but He gives us room to participate in life, so you've got to learn to find the things that you yourself have and own them, rather than say it's all God.
When I hear people saying God told me this, God told me that, I know one, God isn't telling them all those things; two, there's just a big show, and I'm not meeting the real person; three, there's brokenness inside. They really need help. A person like that usually is unstructured in their life, and create havoc in a church where you're trying to flow and develop things in the spirit.
You have to actually bring them into discipline where they have to learn to structure their life and stop just listening to every impression that comes, because they've got turmoil in the soul, and haven't learnt to filter out what's God and what isn't.
So both extremes happen, but none of you are in that extreme. You're all here in that happy group who will just be opened up to listen to God, aren't we wonderful? Okay then, so again just summarising it again: And it'll come up as an impression which comes into your mind, and then you just focus on that, and then begin to speak and act on what God gives you. As you speak and act on it, then the spirit of God moves, and that's when people get touched.
Well let's give them a clap and thank them for helping out. Okay, so are you getting an idea now about how all of this works, because I want you to understand it clearly and [laughs] there, we'll see. Now I want to just give you two or three examples out of the Bible just to support what I've been saying, then we'll get you to do an activation, how about that? You might want to just jot them down if you wish to, but let me just give them.
The first one is found in Habakkuk, Chapter 2, Verse 1. He said I will stand on my watch, and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what the Lord will say to me. Notice this word, I will watch to see what God will say. So he did a couple of things. Number one, he positioned himself to be quiet. This is important to hearing the voice of God, you've got to quiet yourself down, so when I get to do activations with you we'll get you to do a couple of things.
One of the things we'll get you to do is to pray in tongues so your spirit becomes energised, alive with the flow of the Holy Spirit. The second thing we'll get you to do, is just be quiet and focus your attention to just listen for a flow of spontaneous thoughts that come, then the third thing is we'll get you to then identify what you're thinking or feeling or what's happening, and speak it out.
Okay, so Habakkuk positioned himself to hear God, quietened himself, and then he focussed on intuitive flow of seeing, hearing. That's how he got it, and he was able to discern it. God spoke to him by a picture. In 1 Samuel 3: And he jumped up and ran to Eli. Why did he jump up and run to Eli? Very simply, he heard something so strongly he thought it was Eli.
He didn't recognise that it was God's voice, so it takes time to recognise the voice of God speaking to you. You've got to practice until you get used to oh, that is the voice of God, I'm recognising Him speaking to me. I know that's God speaking - and there are a number of ways we can get that. A third example there is in Mark 2, Verse 8, it says Jesus perceived in His spirit that they were reasoning. He perceived in His spirit they were reasoning, so it was He knew something. Now what was going on, get the picture, Jesus is speaking - now get this - He worked out what they were thinking.
How did He figure out what they were thinking? He felt it in His spirit what they were thinking. Now you've probably had an experience like that, where you were talking with someone, or they were talking, and then suddenly you felt something about that person, a thought rose up. You just perceive it in your spirit.
You can't shake it off, you just know you can feel it's there. So the third example is the one we saw at Acts How did he see it? He perceived it in his spirit. There was a knowing inside, so you'll discover then that all of the moving in the spirit, moving in the supernatural, comes out of intimacy or connection with the Holy Spirit, where we learn to recognise His voice and act on it.
The more you act on it, the easier it is to recognise. The more you practice walking with God and listening and responding to His impressions, the more easily it comes to you. It's like Jesus said, if you have ears to hear, more will be given. If you don't have ears to hear, even the little you have you lose, so it's like you have to use it or lose it. You've got to continually develop listening to God in your personal private life, so it flows out of devotion. Okay then, so the last thing I'll finish this session with, and then we'll get you to do something.
There are other ways that people receive revelation of course, but what I want to show is just some things about the revelations God gives. There are a couple of checks that you want to run by anything that you think God has given you, and here's what they are. Number one - so these are tests of revelation. If you think you've got something from God - you'll find this on Page 19 in your notes - number one, does it agree with the Bible?
If it doesn't agree with the written word of God, the Holy Spirit wrote the written word of God; will He who wrote that Bible tell you something different to what He wrote? Not going to happen, so if you come up with a revelation, and you say that God has spoken to you this thing, but it's contrary to what the written word of God says, you got it wrong. You've actually just got it wrong, and it's come either just as a random thought, it's come out of your own desires or thoughts and perhaps that's how you got it - but you got it wrong.
If it disagrees with the Bible it didn't come from God. You've got to have the Bible as your standard for testing all revelation, so you know, if you find that you've got something, and you think God's told you to do this and you find it's completely the opposite to what the word of God says, you got it wrong.
If you keep getting it wrong, you should go and get some counsel to sort out if something's going on inside you. So if people come to you and say: God told me to do this and it's very clear, you know, God told me it was okay, we're in love, we can sleep together, you know, hello, give me a break! The Bible says those that commit fornication shan't inherit the kingdom of God, so He's not going to tell you that it's going to go good for you, personally, if He's told you in the written word something different.
You've got to become familiar with the Bible, load yourself up, read the Bible, get familiar with the Bible and automatically you'll be filled with thoughts of God that are useful in ministering to people - very helpful. Okay, the second thing is does it line up with the character of God? Is that something that God would be likely to do, you know, like the devil took Jesus up into a high mountain and said come on, the word of God says cast yourself down, there's angels will take care of you, you want to jump.
In other words, I'll put it another way - he was standing on a high place and said go on, jump, it'll be okay, you'll just float to the ground. You see this is contrary - it may have been what the words said, but actually it was a misrepresentation of the nature of God. Interesting thing, God seldom takes someone and suddenly moves them from here up to some big thing. God grows you step by step, so it's not the nature of God to want you to suddenly show yourself off in some big way or public exhibition, or to make a big scene of any kind, or to do something spectacular.
He just grows you little by little by little, so if it doesn't seem like it's the nature of God, it probably isn't. Then finally - or two other things - does it produce good fruit? So one way of testing a revelation is if the fruit of it is good. That's why we'll teach you to ask after you've prayed or ministered to someone hey, how did that go? What did you sense as a result of me sharing with you these things? In other words just get a bit of feedback. The person says well that was great man, it really helped me, touched me - you get feedback. If there's fruit from God it's always good.
Fruit from heaven is gentle and reasonable, open to reason. If for example you get someone who says well just God told me, and you can't reason with them, that is definitely not God, because the Bible says in James, the wisdom that comes from heaven is quite easily entreated. You can appeal and talk and interact, so we'll teach you when it comes to ministering a word from God that, just do it gently, don't say well God told me like you're the authority in the earth. Just hey listen, I just sense this or I just felt this or I had an impression, maybe God, about this.
In other words just do it much more low key. It's easier for you to interact with the person, easier for them to receive as well, not so dogmatic, okay? The final one is, if it comes from God it will bear witness with your spirit. When something is right your own spirit bears witness to it. How many have had someone tell you something - I taught Michelle what to do but Michelle had some guy come up to her, said oh God's told me that I'm going to marry you. Now what does she feel straight away? Now this is the dilemma when some guy carries on like that. A good Christian girl wants to please the Lord, now he's saying God's told me this thing and she doesn't feel it in her heart, but she wants to please God.
You throw people into turmoil with that kind of stuff. I said to her tell him just straight, God didn't tell me that, so goodbye. I said he can think what he thinks, and he can say what he says, but actually if it doesn't witness with your spirit, don't go with it. I've seen many people trapped into relationships, into business deals, if they'd listened to their spirit, they'd have never been happy about it, but they kind of got impressed that someone was very prophetic or very spiritual.
How did they get impressed? Because they projected it out that they were, but the wisdom from God is easily entreated. It's gentle and pure, and it produces good fruit. One of the things it'll witness with your spirit, so if something doesn't register as being right, then just say well thank you very much, but no thanks, I'm not going to go with that. You can thank the person, be polite, you don't have to be rude, but we don't need to receive things that aren't right, so let your own spirit bear witness with that, whether this bears witness of good fruit or not.
Okay now, why don't we just stop now and I'll get you to stand up and turn around and sit down and we're going to give you an activation. Okay then, now what I want to do in this session, first of all I want to get you all to do an activation. I'll just show you what it is in just a moment, and then I'll introduce you to activations and how they work. After that we're going to talk about how to activate the gifts of the spirit in your life, so I'll do the teaching session how to activate the gifts, after we've actually got you to step out and have a try, so we'll get started first of all and then we'll talk about the specific things.
Then we'll have a chance for some questions and hopefully just finish around about 9. So I want to just do a simple activation. Now this is a very, very simple one, and in this one here what we're going to do is we want to just pray an inspired prayer so I could just - Henrietta, just come on up here please. Can I just practice on you? There we go, so Henrietta comes up, there we go and so this is the kind of process. Now with all of these activations, the thing to remember is now we're just practising.
Practising means we're stepping out to have a turn. We're getting on the bike to see if we can ride it, and even if we wobble eventually we'll get going and we'll be riding the bike, so we're just having a practice. The first thing I'd like you to do in any activation is to ask with a smile, hey, can I practice on you?
Great, that's right, so you get a very positive response, yeah, great, go, do it! Great job, you know, I want, because hunger and expectancy from a person can draw from you, can help you when you're learning how to flow in the spirit, see? Always remember this, that God wants to speak to them and bless them and help them because He loves them - so it's not about you. It's actually about God being loving and the person needing to be touched by God. It's not about you at all.
You're just actually the channel through which it happens, so what we're going to do, I could ask her something like well what would you like me to pray for and ask what her need is and get her to tell me her need. That's one way we can pray. You're used to doing that, well what's your need and so forth. Or what I could do is just ask the Lord to drop into my heart a simple thought that will be the basis of what I will pray.
It could be a picture, could be a word, could be just an impression to pray about a certain area, okay? So I need to do, so the steps that we'll take is number one, we just say hey, can I practice on you? Yeah, a very positive response, that's great. Now I'd like to take the persons hand, just make a connection with them. So the first thing it's helpful to do is just if you begin to exercise or stir up your spirit.
The key in this remember is listening, just listening to your heart, so I'm going to break it down very, very slowly because if I do it slowly then you can see what's going on inside me. I'll explain it and then you'll see me doing it, okay, so we'll try and pull it apart for you. So the first thing I would do is just, at this stage, I'll just begin to pray in tongues, and as I'm praying in tongues my inner man is starting to come alive, so I'm becoming stirred up.
October 2018
I become aware of God see, because when you pray in the spirit your spirit comes alive. Your spirit is praying. Your spirit is being built, so if I was to just - so I need to now close off my mind to busyness. I've got to stop thinking you're all looking at me and what if I get it wrong stuff, you know, all that sort of stuff, the what ifs. You've got to shut down what-if messages in your head. They stop you receiving God. The way to shut them down is to just redirect your focus. If I focus on myself then I'll start to fill with fear and my spirit will close, and now I'm not going to get anything, because I need to get it from my spirit, but if my spirit's closed because of fear I'll get nothing.
I need to stay relaxed, and the best way to stay relaxed is not to focus on me, but to focus on how much God loves this person.
I might just begin to meditate on how much God just loves her, how important she is. I'm sure that God who loves her, really does want to talk with her, so I just keep my attention fixed, and I'm expecting God to give me something, see? So ask for permission, calm yourself down, stir up your spirit man with expectation, then begin to reach out for God to give you something, and you're looking for a spontaneous word or thought or impression. Then you're going to turn that into a simple prayer, so you have to start at some point - so right now I'm still trying to get something.
I'm convinced God wants to do this. I just have to relax and wait on Him. Now I'm slowing the whole process down, so you can see it taking place see, then in a moment I'll just get an impression will just come, and just as I was talking an impression came just then. One word just dropped into my mind; I'm talking to you, suddenly a word just drops into my mind like that.
That word is a seed. When God gives you something, He only gives you the seed. You have to actually step out with what you've got and start the journey, trusting God that as you share what you've got that He will give you more, and a flow of the spirit will take place. That's the risky bit isn't it aye? So now because I've got a word God expects me to use a measure of intelligence. He doesn't want me to be a puppet, so therefore He expects me now having given me an insight what to pray for, that I would pray with some sense about that, so I'll have to start praying, well just I'll pray generally, and then I'll start to pray about what God has given me, okay?
So I'm just going to start, you know, so you start to say something - you've just got to start a flow, and as you start the flow and remain just fixed on the Lord, you'll get the words will start to come. Alright then, so I have in the moment just one word so I'll just put my attention on that word, and I'm starting to feel things now, so I'm just going to pray for her.
I could prophesy this but I'll actually just turn it into prayer, because I want it to be really simple, because every one of us can pray, and mostly if you ask people if you can pray for them they'll say yes. Okay, so here we go.
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Father, I just thank You for Henrietta. That's a good way to just get started, see, quite easy to start the flow, something simple like that. Then I'll start to move to what I felt God give me, and as I stay focussed on that and relax and let my heart flow to her, there'll be a language just come forth. Don't try and work it out in the head, just let my heart flow to her. Alright then, so just again just focus - I can see the word again.
Lord, I ask that You will just touch her in the depths of her being, and heal the loneliness that she's been experiencing and feeling for some time. Pray Lord she'll feel Your presence loving her, comforting her, and reassuring her, that You are always with her. Lord, let Your presence and love just flow over her right now, in Jesus' name.
Oops, have to hold on to you, you'll be going over. Alright then, now did anyone work out what the word was that the Lord gave me? Loneliness, okay, so you see how I just started generally, and as I began to meditate in that word I could just feel all this grief around her, grief of loneliness and that's been something around her life, and God is wanting to heal the loneliness and just have her reassured He's there. Just tell us what you're experiencing just as a result of doing this.
It's alright to cry, because God is touching her in a real area of her life. What did you feel or sense? Has there been loneliness or struggle, a sense of being on your own? I just needed more of an awareness of that, a deeper, greater level. Peter, get ready to catch her in a moment, because I could feel the spirit of God coming on you. As you close your eyes, I want you to just use your imagination to see that Jesus is just there, right in front of you.
He's there with you right now, and His presence is going to come and just touch you, just in a moment. Thank You Lord, You're just coming on her life right now, Your presence just touching her. Lord, just fill her with love. Any item with "FREE Shipping" label on the search and the product detail page is eligible and contributes to your free shipping order minimum. You can get the remaining amount to reach the Free shipping threshold by adding any eligible item to your cart. We will send you an SMS containing a verification code. Please double check your mobile number and click on "Send Verification Code".
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