Can You Hear God's Voice? Are You Listening?

Romans 8:12-14   12) Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation-but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.  13) For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.  14) For those who are led by the sSpirit of God are the children of God.   We, as the Children of the Father, are led by the Holy Spirit.  You see, the Holy Spirit has a function, which is to guide us in our daily walk in life.  We can no see Him, but He is there none the less.  He is the one that keeps us on that straight and narrow path, which leads to eternal life.  We must listen to Him with our heart, for He will guide us to do all things that are good.  Romans tells us that we have an obligation as Christians to be in spirit and not in a sinful way.  One thing that is constant here in our life, is the fact that we are truly failures when it comes to living a Godly life.  Between Gods grace and our Savior, we reach the security of our salvation.  This is something we would not be able to have on our own.  The flesh can not reach that high.  So then we must listen to our heart, because this is the place where you are going to hear the voice of God.  Paul affirms to the Jews and also to the Gentiles, that it is the merciful forgiveness from God and nothing else by the flesh that sin is forgiven.  Now that we have received Him, we need to listen to Him and also to use Him.  He wants us to use Him for the purpose of good.  Fine tune your hearing and listen to the voice of God.  So, you may be asking, "how do I hear His voice?"  There are four practical ways to hear the voice of God.  1)  We must listen to our very own voice.  This is obvious and practical.  It is the images in our mind that we must pay attention to.  Our mind is a powerful and persuasive part of our being.  It produces our thoughts, what we think and all the feelings we have and display.  Your mind wills the flesh.  So if we  us our minds in negative thought, bad things will surely follow.  It speaks the voice of the flesh, and how we approach our life that others will perceive and visualize as of; a product of our imagination.  Now, if we use our mind for good and holiness, then  the thoughts and  use we  have to approach our self, others or  type situations will serve well.  Nevertheless, if we  use our mind and flesh for  a  negative purpose, then this will surely bring us into a sinful nature.  2)   This voice is the one we use to listen to others.  One will say everything in life is fantastic!  You listen to another person and they grieve; for everything is life is terrible!  Here, we can see good and evil working in the world.  The evils of the world is in a dark area, which we allow to filter into our life, if we are not living in the light of the world.  This is where we battle to contrary feelings, opinions and views, which we live with everyday, pitting rational and irrational thoughts into action.  Remember, God is never wavering.  He only has rational thought.  So to hear His voice, one must listen to the rational input and not adhere to the irrational influences.  3)  The third voice is that of the devil, Satan.  It may scare you a bit, for if we are not careful our minds and our lives can be littered with his crafty ways.  He is quite sly, you know.  He can persuade our hearts to do evil, like he did in the garden with Adam and Eve.  He will find a time and a circumstance to sneak in on us, perhaps when we are most vulnerable.  Pay attention, for he speaks to us through the world and media.  He creates worldly ideologies that will destroy our homes, business, and good service, through things like pornography idolatry, immorality, many ways.  Once he is allowed in, he will destroy the very essence of ones soul.  He is the destroyer.  You can though listen to the Light the Truth and the Way and push the devil aside.  Use your entire soul for good, this way evilness has no opening to filter in and destroy you.  4)  Finally, the most important voice to listen to is that of God.  It is the subtle way in which He communicates to you.  He uses the Spirit to speak with us.  In order to hear His voice you must focus on the heart.  Romans 8:7 tells us; Thesinful mind is hostile to God; for it does not submit to Gods law, nor can it do so .  You see, we can not please God in the flesh alone, but in the Spirit that dwells in us.  Once we have Christ, it is important not to push Him away.  We then will live a Godly life of righteousness and listening to His voice in all that we do.  His voice shows in our attributes towards others, to see, to have, to share and to follow.  Man in his irrational thought wants to change the thinking of others.  He will use any means possible to pull us away from the Lord and into the world.  Set your hearing to the fine tune mode and allow the spirit to take presedence over the heart, by listening to the voice of God.     God bless, Deaconess Barb