I talked about having balance in our lives both spiritually and physically. Now I am starting a series in both areas. I pray that each one will be a blessing to you as we all grow.
Balanced!
In any of our lives, it can be difficult to have balance but it is crucial that we do what we can to create balance in our lives. In this series on being balanced in our spiritual lives I will be covering these areas.
Be open to the Holy Spirit
Acknowledge that you’re a sinner
Lament for your sins
Allow God to work in your life
Nourish yourself with God’s Word
Commune with God
Exercise faith in God
Draw strength from God
In part one I will be focusing on Be open to the Holy Spirit.
Be open
After Jesus died for our sins and went back to heaven He sent us the great gift of the Holy Spirit. And we cannot do anything without the Holy Spirit. Christ works in our lives through the Holy Spirit and as Jesus said, “…Without me ye can do nothing…” John 15:5.
It is the Holy Spirit that draws our hearts and does the work within our hearts. We wouldn’t even know anything about God and His love for us if the Spirit didn’t draw us. He may impress others to share their testimonies, pray with us, or even share some truths from the Bible. I call this seed planting. But Jesus makes those seeds grow through the power for he Holy Spirit.
God never forces anyone. He draws but it is up to us to be open to His drawing. I believe every one of us, if we are honest with ourselves, can think of a time that we felt the drawing of the Spirit. And there are times we listen and other times we don’t. I can think of different times in my life that I didn’t listen to that “…still small voice” 1 Kings 19:13. He comes to us so gently. It starts with Him every time.
Think of someone, it may have been you, who grew up not even knowing anything about God and who He is. God is drawing their hearts through the Holy Spirit. They don’t know what it is but at times they listen to that still small voice. I recall my mom telling me about getting the impression that she should or shouldn’t do a particular thing as she was growing up even though she didn’t really know anything about God. Now that she is a Christian she can look back in her life and see when those times were and what the Lord was trying to save her from.
I have given my heart
Once we have been drawn and learned about Jesus and what He has done for us and we accept Him, He continues to speak to our heart through the Holy Spirit. Is it an audible voice? At times it may be but for me mostly it has not been audible. It is really hard to explain what it is but for those that have experienced it they know what I am talking about. You might call it an impression.
For me, I always like to invite the Holy Spirit to speak to my heart through God’s Word. As I read His Word the Spirit impresses me with those things that need to change in my life. He has also spoken to me through individuals around me. Sometimes when the Lord uses people we tend to not listen. It can be a little more difficult but we need to be open to what others share with us. Go before the Lord in prayer and ask the Lord if He is using the person to show you something. If we are honest in our hearts we will know if it is from God or not.
What I love
What I really love about God is how caring He is. He cares about everything in our lives and sends the Spirit to speak to us about the every day mundane things as well. You would think that He would only care about the big things but not God He is interested in every part of our lives. He wants to teach us that we can trust Him. We don’t have to worry about anything that is going on around us. He has our back. And everything that happens will work together for our good, even though we can’t see it at the time.
What I realize is how much I really need to write down the things the Lord speaks to me about and whether or not I listened. It would be good to be able to look back and see those things.
I remember one time when I was grocery shopping. We all have our particular stores we go to and what we buy at each of those stores. Well, this particular day I had an item that I wanted to get that I always bought at a particular store because it was less expensive. I went to two other stores before I was going to the store where I would get that item. At each of the previous stores I walked passed the very item and a little voice said, “Buy them here”. But I was determined to get them at the store where it was less expensive. You have probably figured this out already. When I got to the store where I wanted to buy it, they were out. It definitely would have made my life easier if I just would have listened. But what amazes me about this story the most is that God cares about it. He wants to help us with everything. And it starts with listening to that still small voice.
Test the spirits
We do need to realize that there is more than one kind of spirit. We need to be sure to test the spirits, whether they are of God. Now obviously it wouldn’t matter to God if I buy a particular item at one store or another He is just trying to make my life easier. But there are other things that do matter. We need t always test the spirit by the Word of God. Because there are evil spirits as well that can speak to us and people do mistaken it of the Holy Spirit. But if we stay in God’s Word and test everything by His Word we will be safe.
This is why it is so important to spend time each day in God’s Word and in prayer. We need to have knowledge that will help us discern the spirits throughout the day. If we have hidden God’s Word within our hearts we will have the discernment that we need.
Dear Father,
We want to have Your Spirit drawing us. It can be hard at times with our selfish hearts to listen but it is our hearts desire. You have promised that You will never leave us or forsake us. We claim that promise and ask for Your Spirit to soften our icebound natures that want to take over.
I pray that the mighty energies of Your Holy Spirit with all quickening, recuperative, and transforming power, may fall like an electric shock on our palsy-stricken souls, causing every nerve to thrill with new life, and restoring us fully from our dead, earthly, sensual state to spiritual soundness.
In Jesus Name,
Amen
Be opened to the Holy Spirit starting today!
Love you all!