The Holy Spirit #2
I once asked God, “How do I know that it is the Holy Spirit of God speaking to me and not some other spirit? The following story is how He answered me.
When I was in college, it had become a custom of mine to stop during the day for a café mocha at the school’s café. It was a popular California coffee shop with a popular name (Java City). There were plenty of other cafés with similar names and if you weren’t careful, you could mistake one for the other. One day I left school early and I hadn’t had a chance to purchase my daily mocha, so I stopped on the way to my destination and ordered my normal mocha: 2%, extra hot, extra chocolate. As soon as I tasted the mocha, I knew there was something wrong. I let them know and they made me a new one, and this time I watched them closely. After all, I had to satisfy myself that they had made it correctly. So I knew without a doubt that it had been made correctly. However, this mocha also tasted wrong. I walked out trying to figure out why the mocha tasted differently than on every other day. It was then that I looked up and noticed that this café had a similar name (Java Centrale) and a similar look, but it wasn’t the same as the one I frequented on a daily basis (Java City). I knew just by tasting my mocha that it just wasn’t the same. They may have used different chocolate, and I know that they used different espresso beans. When I tasted the mochas, even though I didn’t know they had used different brands of ingredients, my taste buds recognized the difference! I had experienced my mocha every week day for almost 4 years, and I knew the taste; so when I tasted an imposter, I knew immediately that it was indeed an imposter. Well, in that still small voice, God let me know, that in just the same way that I knew I had an imposter café mocha, I would know an imposter spirit. If we spend time with God daily, we get to know Him. If we read His Word, we get to know His Word. So when the Holy Spirit of God speaks to us in His still small voice, we will know it is the Holy Spirit, and we will know when it isn’t the Holy Spirit. Later that day, I did indeed go to the correct café and enjoy my daily mocha. To this day café mochas remind me of God.
Getting back to the point, the trick is to read the Bible daily and pray daily, and you will learn to hear the Holy Spirit’s still small voice. Some of you may want advice on how to read the Bible daily and on how to pray daily, but this is where differences come into play. It doesn’t matter. God made us to be unique, and your individuality is important to God. Start where you feel comfortable. God will come to you where you are, and will reveal Himself to you. He will insure that you start in the correct place and read it in the correct order, according to what He is working on in your life. We will all develop an individual relationship with God. The relationship is the important factor. God Himself will lead your learning. All through my life, the events and the inner thoughts that I was experiencing, all worked together to make me who I am. For example, I was going through a period when I began questioning the sanctity of life. Lo and behold, everything that happened to me in the next few weeks had to do with that topic. These experiences have been so frequent, that they have made me know that God is in charge of my life. It happens too often to be coincidence and it is evident that God is leading the way. In Seminary, I read the Bible from the beginning to the end according to what was assigned. Personally, I have read the Bible according to need and pleasure. When I need to know something, I read according to topic and when I read for pleasure I either choose a specific place in the Bible, such as Psalms or Proverbs, or sometimes I just open the Bible and read at random. The important, even crucial, point is that you truly seek God, and then you will find God. You will begin to hear a still small voice. It is a voice within, but it is not your voice because you wouldn’t say what that voice says. Think of a family member that you converse with daily. You, through experience, have come to know how they would react and the things that they would say. You are able to distinguish between what you would say and what they would say in the same circumstances. That is how you know the difference between your thoughts on a subject and the Holy Spirit’s still small voice that you hear within.
In the last article we discussed trusting God. We talked about understanding that God must reveal Himself and we must know and believe this in order to receive the revelation from God. We must believe that He will reward us with success, if we truly seek Him. This is a promise in the Bible. Your homework last time was to find this promise in the Bible and contemplate it. And now we know how we can know that it is truly the Holy Spirit speaking to us. We also know that God has promised us the Holy Spirit of God, and that He will give us a Spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. You should have found this promise in the Bible also. If you didn’t find it before, then find it now. And remember, when you hear that still small voice in your head, or if you prefer, in your heart, then you will know it is the voice of the Holy Spirit of God, and not your own voice.
Lastly, my daughter feels that I should give you Bible verses. I refuse to do this. Look them up for yourself. Test me in these things. After all, you are commanded in the Bible to test all spirits. Find the verses for yourself. I know that this sounds harsh, but even Jesus made references to things and expected that we should look them up. If it is important to you, then you will look them up. Today, in the day and age of information and technology, it will be fairly easy.
When I was in college, it had become a custom of mine to stop during the day for a café mocha at the school’s café. It was a popular California coffee shop with a popular name (Java City). There were plenty of other cafés with similar names and if you weren’t careful, you could mistake one for the other. One day I left school early and I hadn’t had a chance to purchase my daily mocha, so I stopped on the way to my destination and ordered my normal mocha: 2%, extra hot, extra chocolate. As soon as I tasted the mocha, I knew there was something wrong. I let them know and they made me a new one, and this time I watched them closely. After all, I had to satisfy myself that they had made it correctly. So I knew without a doubt that it had been made correctly. However, this mocha also tasted wrong. I walked out trying to figure out why the mocha tasted differently than on every other day. It was then that I looked up and noticed that this café had a similar name (Java Centrale) and a similar look, but it wasn’t the same as the one I frequented on a daily basis (Java City). I knew just by tasting my mocha that it just wasn’t the same. They may have used different chocolate, and I know that they used different espresso beans. When I tasted the mochas, even though I didn’t know they had used different brands of ingredients, my taste buds recognized the difference! I had experienced my mocha every week day for almost 4 years, and I knew the taste; so when I tasted an imposter, I knew immediately that it was indeed an imposter. Well, in that still small voice, God let me know, that in just the same way that I knew I had an imposter café mocha, I would know an imposter spirit. If we spend time with God daily, we get to know Him. If we read His Word, we get to know His Word. So when the Holy Spirit of God speaks to us in His still small voice, we will know it is the Holy Spirit, and we will know when it isn’t the Holy Spirit. Later that day, I did indeed go to the correct café and enjoy my daily mocha. To this day café mochas remind me of God.
Getting back to the point, the trick is to read the Bible daily and pray daily, and you will learn to hear the Holy Spirit’s still small voice. Some of you may want advice on how to read the Bible daily and on how to pray daily, but this is where differences come into play. It doesn’t matter. God made us to be unique, and your individuality is important to God. Start where you feel comfortable. God will come to you where you are, and will reveal Himself to you. He will insure that you start in the correct place and read it in the correct order, according to what He is working on in your life. We will all develop an individual relationship with God. The relationship is the important factor. God Himself will lead your learning. All through my life, the events and the inner thoughts that I was experiencing, all worked together to make me who I am. For example, I was going through a period when I began questioning the sanctity of life. Lo and behold, everything that happened to me in the next few weeks had to do with that topic. These experiences have been so frequent, that they have made me know that God is in charge of my life. It happens too often to be coincidence and it is evident that God is leading the way. In Seminary, I read the Bible from the beginning to the end according to what was assigned. Personally, I have read the Bible according to need and pleasure. When I need to know something, I read according to topic and when I read for pleasure I either choose a specific place in the Bible, such as Psalms or Proverbs, or sometimes I just open the Bible and read at random. The important, even crucial, point is that you truly seek God, and then you will find God. You will begin to hear a still small voice. It is a voice within, but it is not your voice because you wouldn’t say what that voice says. Think of a family member that you converse with daily. You, through experience, have come to know how they would react and the things that they would say. You are able to distinguish between what you would say and what they would say in the same circumstances. That is how you know the difference between your thoughts on a subject and the Holy Spirit’s still small voice that you hear within.
In the last article we discussed trusting God. We talked about understanding that God must reveal Himself and we must know and believe this in order to receive the revelation from God. We must believe that He will reward us with success, if we truly seek Him. This is a promise in the Bible. Your homework last time was to find this promise in the Bible and contemplate it. And now we know how we can know that it is truly the Holy Spirit speaking to us. We also know that God has promised us the Holy Spirit of God, and that He will give us a Spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. You should have found this promise in the Bible also. If you didn’t find it before, then find it now. And remember, when you hear that still small voice in your head, or if you prefer, in your heart, then you will know it is the voice of the Holy Spirit of God, and not your own voice.
Lastly, my daughter feels that I should give you Bible verses. I refuse to do this. Look them up for yourself. Test me in these things. After all, you are commanded in the Bible to test all spirits. Find the verses for yourself. I know that this sounds harsh, but even Jesus made references to things and expected that we should look them up. If it is important to you, then you will look them up. Today, in the day and age of information and technology, it will be fairly easy.
posted by R.A. Holloway | 8:20 PM
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