Walking in the Spirit

Does God actually talk to us? Is it an audible voice, an inner voice, an impression or feeling or thought in our mind? How can we hear God's voice?

We start by developing a physical "closet" in which to meet with God: Under the tree in the garden, a path where we are walking or jogging all alone, a chair in our home where we are uninterrupted, the spare bedroom, the attic or basement, or an actual closet space in our home. 

We go there with our journal and nothing else. No Bible, music, TV or radio. Just a chair and some breathing room without any distractions. We spend time here for thirty minutes to an hour any time during every day and we journal whatever comes to our mind.

At first, it may be lists of things we need to do. Go ahead and jot these ideas in the journal. When we write them down, we clear them from our mind and quiet those "voices" in our head.

Then we may think of Bible verses, a movie clip, a conversation or some event we had in the past; jot it down in the journal. Again it clears our mind of this inner clutter.

Write down concerns or problems as a prayer to the Lord. Then we spend some time praising God for who He is and what He already did in our life. We think of His goodness and grace, and we overflow with gratitude toward Him.

Next is the hard part, which gets easier with practice… LISTENING. With a cleared mind, we listen with our inner, spiritual ear in our spirit to any words the Holy Spirit may whisper to us (1 King 19:12).

We heed and obey His directives and enjoy His comfort and encouragement every moment of every day of our life (Galatians 5:25). We live with His praises on our lips and His peace in our heart, and we eventually learn to pray without ceasing throughout the day (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Prayer:

Father God, teach us to walk by Your Spirit step-by-step. We may falter as we mature from crawling to walking and then running, but we are soon sprinting through life by the direction of Your Spirit, in obedience to Your Word and under the guidance of Your peace.

Help us to yield our life to You, to walk away from the deeds of the flesh (Galatians 5:15-25) and to allow Your peace, which transcends human reasoning, to guide our hearts through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). Fill us with Your fruit and wisdom; and teach us to do only Your will in every circumstance (Galatians 5:22-23; Ephesians 2:10).

Thought for the Day:

We encourage others by offering to pray for them, showing them love even when they are unloving toward us and sharing a testimony of God's love - sometimes without even using words.

Draw Me Close to You

As we trust in God alone, He establishes our path and provides us with the resources we need to walk in His victory. Were He leads, we follow. We keep our spirit in tune with Christ in us, and our soul – our mind, choices and emotions – led by His Spirit (Romans 13:14). We submit to God, resist the devil and he must flee from us (James 4:7). Even if Satan uses pain and suffering to sidetrack us, we firmly stand on the faith of the Son of God who loves us and gave Himself for us (Galatians 2:20). We rest, as God restores or replaces everything that Satan tried to steal from us.

We find our rest in Christ during every time of trouble. As we abide in Him, He is our portion forever (Psalm 73:26). We learn from Him as we draw closer to Him. Once the current, negative circumstance is over, we find our roots clinging more firmly to Him. Even during prosperity, He remains the center of our focus and the joy of our soul. We walk by faith in God’s faithfulness, and He joys over us with singing (Zephaniah 3:17). The abundance and gentleness of His love is more real to us with each passing day.

The power and the draw of the world, the flesh and the devil decreases as we are transformed into the likeness of Christ by the Spirit of God (2 Corinthians 3:18). Our rebellion, self-centeredness and love for this world diminish as we abide in Him and He abides in us (John 15:4). As we partake in His holiness, our union with Him deepens, His comfort fills our soul and His joy is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10). As God’s Spirit removes the carnality in our flesh, He fills us instead with His fruit, which is the nature of God (Galatians 5:22-23).

His compassion in us allows us to comfort othes with the same comfort He provides for us (2 Corinthians 1:3). His love fills our soul and our cup runs over with agape love for our everyone we meet (Psalm 23:5). We lose our self in Him and care more for His Kingdom and righteousness than we do for the pursuits of this world. When we see adversity approaching, we hide under the shelter of His wings and we abide in Him moment by moment (Psalm 91:1). This pruning results in more fruitfulness in our life, all for His glory (John 15:5,8).

Prayer:

Father God, daily we come closer to the point of finding our satisfaction totally in You and our heart in deeper harmony with Your purpose for our life. We enter times of aloneness to become all-one with You. We find our comfort in You, rather than in any person, place or thing. You are our all sufficiency (2 Corinthians 12:9). We bear the fruit of Your Spirit to edify and nourish Your Body and all those in our world that You bring our way.

Thought for the Day:

Jesus is the tree of life and we are His branches.