{"id":3223,"date":"2021-11-02T06:48:38","date_gmt":"2021-11-02T11:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/?p=3223"},"modified":"2022-01-10T21:35:58","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T03:35:58","slug":"the-holy-spirit-continued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/?p=3223","title":{"rendered":"The Holy Spirit (continued)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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How to Know the Spirit<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t be overly amazed about this. Just experience it. Be willingly led by the Spirit wind as you come to apprehend or hear His leading and come to see what He is doing. Jesus told Nicodemus that he could. And he\u2019s telling you that you can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not hard! You don\u2019t have to understand it completely. In fact, you won\u2019t! John 3:8 and Proverbs 3:5-6 tell us not to lean on our understanding, rather expect to be moved by the wind of the Spirit. You have to sense it and follow those leadings and impressions. By training your senses through obedience to what you hear, you will improve. It\u2019s a sixth sense, one the world does not experience, but one the believer uses to see into the spiritual realm and bring heaven\u2019s goodness to bear on earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You will learn to recognize synchronicities. You will know to pay attention to some dreams and reject others. You will expect visions. You\u2019ll not be surprised when awakened at 3:33 AM anymore. You will get up and journal or meditate in silence and listen to what thoughts come to you. You will listen for what the Spirit might say. Through practice, you can learn to distinguish between your ideas and His thoughts. Through familiarity, you will learn to discern His voice from others, like you recognize the voice of a family member or close friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hindrances to Knowing the Spirit<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does this spiritual exchange of information get to be foolproof? I\u2019d say no, it does not. The Scripture would indicate that dark spirits can operate on these same frequencies or spiritual impressions. The Scriptures record that even \u201cSatan can appear as an angel of light.\u201d So that scares many away from desiring social intercourse with the Holy Spirit. But it shouldn\u2019t. Trust God, He\u2019s more powerful, and He is good. We know this spiritual communication is a fact of life, whether we want to bury our heads in the sand and ignore it or not? You have undoubtedly had bad dreams that disturbed sleep, had no rhyme or reason, and scared you. They seemed disjointed with no discernible message. Do you think those came from God? Yet, we know that dreams can be valid from the Scripture and shared human experience. They may warn us about something or someone. They may give us a glimpse into our destiny or what God intends for our future. We may need the help of interpretation or more dreams, but they don\u2019t scare us, and we don\u2019t forget them when we sense their validity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another thing that drives many with a western mindset away from this spiritual communication is the fear of making mistakes. What if I hear incorrectly? What if I hear from a dark spirit or my imagination? Fear of failure and fear of making a mistake robs us of life that might have been ours. Trust God. Get to know Him through His record of interacting with people in the Bible. Then you will know if what you hear sounds like something He would say. But don\u2019t wait until you are a Bible scholar. Remember He also sent a guide, the Holy Spirit. He will help you. He will train you. He will show you the way you are to go. Sometimes it will involve courage. Obedience to what you hear will always require faith and trust. Each obedient action leads to better hearing, more confidence, more trust, more spiritual insight. Initially, the Spirit probably won\u2019t speak to you the same way He spoke to Moses, Elijah, the prophets, the apostles, or Jesus Himself. But He desires to speak and commune with you. It\u2019s both a gift and a learned skill to hear. It\u2019s to your great advantage to listen, obey, and enjoy that relationship of intimacy, seeing, and adventure\u2014godspeed on your journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Joy of Knowing the Spirit<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You will come to hear of someone having a word of knowledge and see it for what it is. You won\u2019t be surprised, seeing it as the Holy Spirit wanting to illuminate something or help someone. I know of many examples personally, but not as many as I would like to see and experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It only stands to reason that if you know it happens and that it\u2019s a valid expression or communication of the Holy Spirit, you\u2019re going to participate in it by faith. All of the gifts work by faith and leading, by leading and faith, by hearing and obeying. Afterward, the spiritual power flows, and you see it, sense it, and are in awe of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are times you are not aware of it. Only the person receiving your word of encouragement, word of knowledge, or prayer, is affected deeply by it. They may not even show you this outwardly. But inwardly, between them and the Lord, they know and are moved or stunned by what is said, prayed, or laid bare. It will affect their life, if not immediately, in the days to come, as they surrender or come to know the Spirit themselves. God is very understated like that. Expect it often to work this way. Have faith that you delivered the message and trust God with the results. When people sense a message is supernatural or from God, they\u2019re seldom inclined to shoot the messenger. Relax, be humble, be caring, be loving, be gracious, be courageous. \u201c\u2026 wisdom is proved right by her deeds\u201d (Matthew 11:19b).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, it stands to reason that if you don\u2019t understand how the Holy Spirit works, even a little bit, or haven\u2019t seen Him in action, you\u2019re going to stand by and gawk. You\u2019ll be more in shock and doubt than a willing participant in God\u2019s grace as it\u2019s pouring out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“…because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high.” Luke 1:78<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I have eight examples listed in the journal I\u2019m referencing right now. And I\u2019d love to share them as demonstrations of what I\u2019m talking about because they\u2019re convincing and fun to recount. But I feel the Spirit impressing me not to do so, instead to let my words be few and leave the convincing between Him and you, the reader. He\u2019s reminding me of the Scripture, \u201cYour ears will hear a word behind you saying, \u201cThis is the way, walk in it\u2019\u201d (Isaiah 30:21a).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How to Know the Spirit Don\u2019t be overly amazed about this. Just experience it. Be willingly led by the Spirit wind as you come to apprehend or hear His leading and come to see what He is doing. Jesus told Nicodemus that he could. And he\u2019s telling you that you can. It\u2019s not hard! You […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10,9,12,11],"tags":[32,33,98,137,21],"class_list":["post-3223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friendoftheking","category-be-a-leader","category-be-a-man","category-bread-for-the-spirit","category-understanding-our-times","tag-christian-life","tag-faith","tag-grace","tag-holy-spirit","tag-jesus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3223"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3244,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3223\/revisions\/3244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}