One of the most tragic things for any Christian is going through the day-to-day grind, but never discovering the real purpose of why God put you on this earth. Just because you’re born again or even Spirit filled, doesn’t mean you’re going to fulfill the calling God has for you unless you purposely seek out His plan for yourself. In this video we will talk about how to do just that.
Here is a complete transcript of the broadcast (below)…
Today I wish to talk about your heart, and the importance of listening to it. You know one of the most tragic things for any Christian is going through the day-to-day grind, but never discovering the real purpose of why God put you on this earth. Just because you’re born again or even Spirit filled, for that matter, doesn’t mean you’re going to fulfill the calling God has for you, unless you purposely seek out His plan for yourself.
Hebrews chapter 12, reveals there is a race that is set before you, that only you can run. I can’t run your race for you friend; neither can you run mine. I truly believe that learning to be led by the Holy Spirit in line with God’s word, is the most important lesson we can learn in our lifetime. To live out God’s purpose, we must listen to our heart, in conjunction with reading His word, on a daily basis. By listening to your heart, you will be better able to navigate the path God has for you, but oftentimes we ignore our heart’s prompting’s and keep on plodding along, to our detriment.
Truth is, the Christian life is one of discipline. We must develop daily habits which anchor our soul to the heart of the father. By doing so, we will remain connected and susceptible to His guidance in our everyday decision making. So, the obvious question is, how exactly does the Spirit of God lead us? Well, He leads us in one of three ways. Firstly, by His word, Secondly, by the inner witness and thirdly, by His still small voice. However, of these three promptings, I sincerely believe the inner witness is the one we most often ignore or even override.
When it comes to receiving spiritual guidance, God’s Spirit will never contradict His word because they operate in unison. Consider Proverbs 20:27 “the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, Searching all the inward parts of the belly.” Notice the spirit of a man is searching the inward parts of our being and our spirit man is our guiding light. The entrance of God’s word brings greater light to our spirit.
We are tripartite beings, (which is a fancy word for three parts), namely; spirit, soul, and body. Our spirit man becomes born again from death to life, when we receive Christ. This is an instantaneous transformation. From that point forward our soul, (comprising of our mind will and emotions) is being conformed to Christ’s image, as we meditate on His word. Once we are born again, the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit man, that we are the Sons of God. It’s this witness inside our belly or spirit man, that some call intuition, 6th sense, or gut instinct. This internal witness or knowing on the inside, does not come from our external senses or the sense realm. Yes, our soul can access the intellectual and emotional realms, but our spirit-man is our primary guide as it remains connected to the Holy Spirit living on the inside of you.
Now, have you ever had an incident where, you just knew something was going to occur, before it happened? I believe this was the Spirit of God communicating with your spirit man. This was your intuition in operation. It could also have been a manifestation of the spiritual gift of the word of knowledge, spoken of in 1st Corinthians chapter 12. Another way Holy Spirit guides us, is through our inner peace or lack thereof. In other words, if we are in the process of making an important decision, and we lose our peace on the inside, God could be warning us not to proceed or to be cautious, at the very least. Consequently, one of the ways I personally test whether an unction is from God or not, is to monitor it over time.
If the Lord really wants me to proceed forward with my decision, this feeling of peace, will remain when I ponder the decision. I’m not saying the Lord will nag you, but He can be persistent. An ongoing nudging or reminder, is one of the ways God’s Spirit communicates and scripture says we should make peace our umpire. It talks of this in Colossians 3:15. So peace or a lack of peace, can also be another way God guides us.
In truth, most of us make decisions with our heart, not our head. Quite often those decisions are based on this inner witness or intuition, not facts necessarily. But may I suggest to you, that if your heart is wounded right now, it might not be a reliable guide. If we harbor, hate, jealousy, bitterness or unforgiveness then the candle of the lord inside of us, may be stifled. Whenever the bible speaks of the heart, especially in the OT, it’s not speaking of the blood pump inside our chest cavity but the center of our being. In the Bible, the heart is referred to 830 times and describes the unseen center of man. I would say the heart comprises of the spirit and soul combined. You see friend, the nature of man is spiritual firstly, not physical. If you recall in the Garden of Eden, God made man a spiritual being, in His own image and after His likeness.
Our physical body is merely an earth suit which houses our spirit and soul, until the time of our death (which is fast approaching I might add). The reality is, we are spirit beings just like God; we possess a soul and we live in a body. Just as God is three parts (Father, Son and Spirit), we too are tripartite (spirit, soul and body). Without doubt the gatekeeper of man’s final decision making; is the heart. Yes, God gave us a brain and we need to use it, but reasoning too much with our mind, can sometimes get us into trouble. If we allow past circumstances, wounds, or even our past successes, to influence our decision making, we might be led astray. Instead, we should remain receptive to our inner witness and the peace within.
Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but at the end of it is death.” Everything can look right about a decision in the natural realm. Everyone might agree with you, your family might be on board, your friends concur, yet it’s still the wrong decision in God’s eyes. But friend, do you have the guts to make a unilateral decision and go God’s way, even if persecution comes knocking on your door? In doing so, you will follow the likes of Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David and the rest of the saints, who saw the goodness of God come to pass in their lives. My advice today, is don’t let your head rule your heart. Instead, let your heart rule your head. Consider the following passage that speaks of the importance of our heart in everyday life; Proverbs 4:23,” Keep thy heart with all diligence; For out of it are the issues of life.”
Friend, I ask you today, take inventory of your heart’s condition. Is your heart grieved; is it joyful, or full of sorrow? Only you and God know its present state. If there are issues which need to be resolved with the Lord, then don’t hesitate any longer, reach out to the Father and pray in the name of Jesus to let go of any ought you might have toward anyone. Let go of offense or wounding, so that times of refreshing may come in the presence of the Lord. I know I’m speaking to someone right now. Let go of the past, let go of regret, let go of the pain of yesteryear and start afresh today. Be sincere with God and pour out your heart to Him. I want you to have a great year, I want God’s best for you, but the longer we go along the road of life, without letting go of the baggage we’ve accumulated, the further we stray from God’s ideal. Friend, because God is a spirit being, He communicates through our spirits primarily and because our spirit man is connected to the Holy Spirit, then hearing God’s still small voice should be easy for us. Trouble is we’ve made it unnecessarily complicated. Some people tell me God never speaks to them, oh really?
In this book are 783,133 words written to you personally. If you don’t take the time to listen to the words God’s already spoken to you, you have not positioned yourself to hear His Spirit. The still small voice of the Holy Spirit will speak to you regarding which spouse to marry, which house to buy, which college to attend, and which job to take but we must be found faithful in reading His word, firstly. As you do so, your capacity to hear from Him will increase, because the entrance of the word brings light. As you bask in the light of God’s word, the light of your own candle will shine brightly, illuminating which path to take in life.
Friend, seeing is not believing as far as Christians are concerned; believing comes first. We’ve had the cart before the horse in Christian circles. We walk by faith not sight. Sometimes God’s leading can be in direct opposition to what looks like the right path in the natural. This is not always the case. If this message is tugging at your heart, I urge you to make the adjustment today by shifting your focus away from social media, the news outlets, movies and TV. Set aside time away from the constant barrage of negativity and hopelessness, and delve deeply into God’s Word.
If your attention is on the daily news, you’re going to become negative very quickly. For every bad piece of news, there is twice as much good news, that’s never been told. If we’re not careful this negativity can influence our intellect and emotions. One aspect of God’s word, is its ability to divide the soul from our spirit and bring us back to the truth. Listen to…Heb 4:12, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
Friend, by meditating on God’s word you will reach clarity in your decision making. Our soul can be negatively impacted by life’s struggles, yet God’s word sheds light on our situation and will reveal our true intentions compared to God’s ideals. The Bible reveals our hearts, gravitate toward wickedness by default, so we must judge our intentions and actions in light of God’s word. Without a time of daily devotional, reading God’s Word for yourself, you’re not allowing the Lord to influence you in making small decisions, let alone the big ones.
Did you know there’s energy attached to God’s word? I’m not getting weird or New Agey here, this is Bible. In the King James Version, the word ‘quick’ in Hebrews 4:12, means alive not ‘fast’. Hebrews 4:12 is explicit that God’s word is alive. The Greek word for powerful in this passage, is ‘En-er-gace,’ the same root word we get the English word ‘energy’ from. Jesus said, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”
Jesus said the flesh profits nothing, but His words energize and activate His desire in us. Friend, God’s word is alive. This Book, is not just another book on the shelf; it has power to bring life to those who correctly apply it and death to those who do not heed it. It can set an alcoholic free, put a demonized man in his right mind and even heal the sick. Clearly, I cannot say enough of God’s innate power that stems from His word. In fact, the Bible says in Jeremiah 1:12, that God watches over His word to perform it. We just need to engage with it, to see it performed in us.
So, friend, here’s my personal challenge to you, commit today, to read one chapter of the bible, just one chapter, every day is all I ask of you. The internet has many Bible reading plans you can download at your convenience, but for God’s word to impact our mind, will and emotions, we need to read and apply it daily.
Listen to this scripture from the Book of James, 1:21 from the New Living Translation, “so get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.” Our spirit man is instantaneously saved, the moment we choose to believe upon Christ, however, the salvation of our soul (mind will and emotions) is an ongoing affair until the day you leave this earth. We must plant God’s word in us for our soul to flourish. This is what the bible means by the engrafted word.
Jesus told us in (Luke 21:19) that we are to ‘possess’ our souls, in other words to safeguard our soul, for His kingdom. We are to steward our soul and watch over it. With the daily reading of His word, our soul will remain anchored to Him and our mind renewed, so the decisions we make will be the right ones and in accordance with God’s will.
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95% of all Christians down through history were treated like dogs and murdered.
The vanity of believing that God has some special revelation just for you is seriously spiritually criminal and a Western delusion.
His plan is for you to witness, get persecuted and die. Everything else is down to you.
Firstly, persecution is guaranteed, in this life for the godly. This persecution comes from government and the apostate church (Mystery Babylon), primarily, 50 million protestant souls martyred by the Catholic church alone (1000 yr. span), according to most historians.
People often get offended when they are called to account for the words they speak. Clearly this has hit a nerve with you, for whatever reason. Maybe Holy Spirit is tugging at you to make a change in that area.
I am merely quoting the word of God in this series regarding the importance of words spoken over ourselves and others.
The vanity of me believing that I have some ‘special revelation’ has never been mentioned by me. I am quoting verses of the importance of shaping our lives with the words we speak as the bible instructs.
And if one’s speech is in conformance to God’s word and if my throat is cut by a nazi, or my body burned by a Jesuit, then I bring greater glory to Him as I submitted my tongue for His glory, during the process.
Please don’t be offended Tony. Just write down the scriptures I reference, read them in your own bible and ask yourself, is this applicable to me? I believe that as you make changes in the verbal arena, you will see God move to a greater degree.
Love you brother.