Holy Spirit Speak To Me

“Speak Lord, your servant is listening.” These are the words Eli gave Samuel to say in response, when as a young boy he first heard God’s call. This was the beginning of Samuel learning to discern the voice of God, and to be ready to obey. At first Samuel did not know whose voice it was calling to him. He thought it was his teacher, Eli. Samuel had been raised to be obedient to his elders, and to God and without this instruction, he may very well have ignored this call from the Lord. It was with love and submission Samuel learned to stop and listen to that still small voice that called out to him. And because of that one moment where Samuel opened up to the voice of the Lord, a life long friendship was built.

It is not always easy to discern the voices we hear in our heads. We have our own thoughts, then there are the thoughts the enemy plants within us to deceive us, and we have the voice of  the Holy Spirit. In the beginning of my walk with God, I was very obedient. I was totally in love with my Lord and was willing to continuously give Him my life in whatever way He might ask. He was worth it. And the Lord showed faithful to my persistence that He took my life and use me as a tool. It was to the point where He was asking me to do things that were very difficult. Yet I continued to be obedient.

That is until it got so hard I just could not bear it any longer. It was my first Halloween and the Holy Spirit clearly showed me that my family and I were not to celebrate this pagan holy day. Which was just fine with me! The problem began when almost every other Christian around me was celebrating it. It took the conviction that I had and that I took so deeply and made me feel so different. So set apart. And the enemy loved it and took this opportunity to start the lie in my head. I am different and that makes me a freak. And that is when I began to question whether what I was doing was right.

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. John 15:19

It wasn’t long after that I wanted to begin to withdraw from some of the convictions of the Holy Spirit. Then the questioning began – “how do I know whose voice this? Maybe it is just me. Maybe it is Satan.” I began to be confused as I believed the lies the enemy was spinning like a web in my mind. Yet it was also a great excuse to not obey. If I wasn’t sure that it was the Holy Spirit speaking to me, then it was easy to say ‘no’ to obeying the things that I didn’t like the sound of. I didn’t even see the how deep into the lie I was getting. I just kept falling deeper and deeper into it, picking and choosing when to obey and living in this constant confusion of what was true, what was of God. Yet it got even worse than that.

The voice of conviction in my head began to speak less and less often. I came into a very dry season, and I was still a new Christian! I fell away from the Word and from time of prayer. I began to not even want to read the Bible or pray. I could not even care anymore. And that is very scary. That is exactly the place the enemy wants us to be in. Complete apathy. What brought me to this place? How could I fall away so easily from the Lord that I desired more than life itself? Selfishness.

But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. Exodus 23:22

By refusing to obey the convictions of the Holy Spirit, I was letting my own self take the place of God. Yet I did not even realize it. The more I choose to listen to myself and my flesh, the more I was falling away from God. Selfishness leads to complacency, complacency leads to apathy, apathy leads to dependency, and dependency leads to bondage. Once we fall into the bad habits of ignoring the Holy Spirit and the enormous part He plays in our lives, we come into dependence on those habits instead of God. As humans we are naturally dependent, because we were made to be dependent on God. Yet so many times we let that dependence fall onto another person or habits, or even ourselves. The Holy Spirit is here to guide us in every aspect of our lives, from something as simple as what we eat, to the bigger things like who we marry or where we live. To ignore that is moving directly into the line of enemy fire.

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8

Through our dependency on man, ourselves or things of this world, we fall into the bondage that Jesus died to save us from. We were once children of darkness, forsaking God and living a life trying to find fulfillment in things that never gave us any. We were in bondage to these things, because we did not know any better. But once we gave our lives over to Jesus, we become new creations, and seated in the heavenlies with Him. It is only through obedience to the Lord that we move forward into a life of freedom from this bondage. How can we be set free, if we refuse to walk out of the prison cell and into the light? If someone comes and opens the door and tells you “step out” do you not have to obey to move forward into that freedom? And if you have been in a prison for most of your life and you do not know what it is like to live a life of freedom, do you not need to learn how to be free?

That is where the Bible comes in, and the convictions of the Holy Spirit. Set free from your bondage they give you all the guidance and help you need to understand how to live that life in the glorious richness and freedom that only the salvation of Jesus Christ can provide. How well did you do before, when you let yourself rule over your life? When you lived in darkness and bondage? If you are anything like me, you did not do well at all.

Do not be fooled. You my Christian brothers and sisters can fall right back into that bondage again, and it all starts with disobedience to the One Who Made You. He knows you better than anyone else ever can or will. He knows what is best for you in every situation and He knows how ever option is going to play out. Trust in Him – God will never lead you wrong. Even when it is difficult, even when you don’t understand.

As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 5:9

Thank God I finally was able to pull myself out of my apathy and move back into a relationship with Jesus. It has taught me how easy it is to forget what life is like without God, and how easy it is to move away from dependency on Jesus, and not myself. God has more than blessed me for my eagerness to continue to obey. And He has also asked me to do many more things that I thought were too hard. Things I did not want to do, and things that I did not understand. Yet I moved forward in obedience and trust, knowing full well that God has always been faithful to me, and has always taken care of me.

The Holy Spirit is your friend and wants nothing more than to show you that you are no longer captive. You are a citizen of heaven, and a child of the King. Let Him teach you how to live like it. Let the Holy Spirit move you into a life full of excitement! If you just step out into obedience, just watch what God will do in your life! You will be amazed, I promise!

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 1 John 1:8-10