God, Is That You?
// Kenneth W. HAGIN
"The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly."
— Proverbs 20:27
There's only ONE way you can successfully run the race God has set before you and live in His abundant provision. It's by learning how to receive guidance from the Holy Spirit as you listen to your heart—your recreated human spirit. Learning to be led by the Holy Spirit according to the Word of God is the most important lesson you'll ever learn in life.
What am I referring to when I say "listen to your heart"? Are you supposed to listen to your physical heart—to the muscle that pumps blood throughout your body? Of course not.
When the Bible refers to believing with the heart, it is referring to something entirely different than a physical organ. It's referring to man's spiritual heart or inward nature. First Peter 3:4 calls it "the hidden man of the heart."
The physical heart is just a part of the outward man—the physical man—which will one day perish. But the hidden man of the heart or the inward man is the real man—the spirit man who will live forever.
You Are a Spirit
Therefore, in order to learn how to listen to your heart or your spirit, you must be aware of the fact that you are a spirit being. If you live only conscious of your physical body or your feelings, you will never learn to be led by the Holy Spirit through your own spirit (Rom. 8:14).
The Bible says that God communicates with His children through their heart or spirit.
ROMANS 8:16
16 The Spirit itself [Himself] beareth witness WITH OUR SPIRIT, that we are the children of God.
The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. That means God communicates with us through our spirits because God is a Spirit (John 4:24). And He made us in His image as spirit beings (Gen. 1:26). Because our spirits are born again under the New Covenant, we can't commune with God in soul or in body, but only in spirit— with our recreated spirits.
Notice what Proverbs 20:27 says: "The SPIRIT of man is the CANDLE of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly." In modern-day terms, we could say the spirit of man is the light bulb of the Lord. What does a light bulb do? It gives illumination. When a light bulb is turned on, darkness is dispelled.
In the same way, when you become a new creature in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17) and your spirit is made alive unto God, the light of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, comes to abide within you to give you illumination (John 14:17, 23). When the Holy Spirit dwells within you, communication with the Lord through your spirit is then possible.
However, even though your spirit is made new when you are born again, it still needs to be trained and developed. You don't grow from a baby Christian to a spiritually mature Christian overnight. No, just as your body and intellect must be trained and developed in order to use them to their fullest potential, so you must train and develop your spirit so it can reach its fullest potential.
The Bible clearly says that we are responsible for our spiritual growth
(Rom. 12:1–2; Eph. 4:22–24; 1 Peter 2:2). If we don't train our spirits to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit's direction, it will never be done.
Meditate on the Word
The first principle in training your spirit is to meditate on the Word of God. The word meditate means "to focus one's thoughts on, to reflect on," or "to ponder over." You meditate on the Word of God by continually thinking on scriptures.
A person will never train his spirit if he only reads a psalm or proverb a few minutes every morning. You must let God give you more light on scriptures and expound on their meaning until the Word becomes a living reality in your spirit.
Practice the Word
That brings us to the second principle in training the human spirit: Practice the Word. As you become a doer of the Word you have been meditating upon, you will prosper and have good success in life.
A doer of the Word praises God when circumstances in his life look bad, as well as when they look good. Why? Because his faith is not based on what he sees, but on what God has said. If you have trained your spirit by practicing the Word, you won't be fretful because the Bible says, "Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything" (Phil. 4:6 Amplified).
Give the Word First Place
As you meditate on and practice the Word of God on a daily basis, you are giving the Word first place in your life. This is the third principle in training your spirit.
If we don't train our spirits
to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit's direction,
it will never be done.
Jesus said, "the words that I speak unto you, they are SPIRIT, and they are LIFE" (John 6:63). You can feed on the Word of God until your heart and mind are saturated with the life of God. Then when you face a test or trial, you won't wonder what to do; you'll know what to do. The Word will reign so supreme in your life that no matter what you face, that first thing that comes out of your mouth is what God's Word says about the situation.
Instantly Obey
When you've saturated your mind and heart with the Word of God and have put it first in your life, it becomes much easier to practice the fourth principle in training your spirit man: Instantly obey the voice of your spirit.
Remember, God through the Holy Spirit communicates with you through your recreated spirit, not through your head. So you learn to obey the Holy Spirit's leading in your life as you learn to obey the voice of your own spirit.
The Holy Spirit's Presence within you is a continuous miracle and a precious gift, given by a loving Heavenly Father who wants you to be successful. So develop your spirit by the Word of God and always allow the Holy Spirit to lead you.
As you do that, you will get to the place where you can hear the Lord clearly when He speaks to you through your spirit. Receiving the counsel and wisdom you need for every situation you encounter in life is easy as you learn to listen to your heart!
Read More
To learn more about training your spirit to follow God, go to http://www.khm.com/1t9e and read Kenneth W. Hagin's article "Feed on the Word."