How many times do we ask for advice from someone else instead of going to God? It is sad that so many Christians look to others for counsel and never expect to hear from God. The idea of them personally hearing God isn’t even considered. Many believers have no idea that they can hear God.
The Holy Spirit always speaks to us. He will guide us into all truth. What He speaks to us is not from Himself. He speaks only what He hears from the Father. He will tell us of things to come (John 16:13).
If the Holy Spirit is speaking, why aren’t we hearing Him?
Not hearing God comes from the fact that many Christians still live their lives much as they did before they were born again. They allow what they feel and their emotions to rule them. They look to others for acceptance. They seek the counsel and opinions of man instead of seeking God. They live by “bread alone.”
—But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”
—Matthew: 4:4
As born-again believers, we are created to live by the words of God. When we disregard the words of the Holy Spirit, we are creating an environment in which we will look as lost and confused as unbelievers. We will never thrive in our new life in Christ by the words of our feelings or the opinions of others. We thrive by the Word of God alone.
Yes, godly advice is helpful and necessary as we grow in wisdom, but godly wisdom doesn’t produce faith. Faith only comes by hearing God (Romans 10:17). “Is any among you afflicted?” James writes in James 5:13. “Let him pray.” James makes it clear how we hear God. We hear the Holy Spirit speaking to us in prayer.
An affliction is an illness, condition, disorder, infirmity, weakness, or difficulty. It is any deficit in your life that stands against the truth of God’s Word. God has the answer for it. Prayer is the answer to your affliction because prayer is the “environment” for hearing God. Prayer takes our vision off our needs and places it on God’s answer. Prayer doesn’t see what is lacking. It sees the unseen. Prayer tunes in to the voice of God. It expects to hear Him.
Anticipate hearing God and exercise your faith to believe. Make sure what you hear is based on God’s Word. The Holy Spirit guides you to the truth of His Word. Faith will come alive, and your life will enter a new dimension in God.
—That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
—Ephesians 3:17-19
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