As a child of God, a Spirit-led life-style is not just a choice to consider but a very important requisite to which we need to adopt ourselves, in order to continue in His lordship/son ship and be fruitful for the scripture clearly says in Romans 8:14- ‘For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.’ Being Spirit-led is nothing but listening from Holy Spirit God and doing just as He says. It’s very clear that only a person who could hear from the Spirit could be further led by the Spirit. Primarily, a person must cultivate a practice of hearing to His still small voice speaking to us from within, and then the person could start obeying to that voice. Let’s further explore how this works in us.

Firstly, we need to be aware that, all those who believe in Jesus Christ and accept Him to be the Lord and Savior, receive the gift of Holy Spirit instantaneously, and the Spirit God comes and resides in the believer from then (Acts 2:38).

Secondly, Spirit God starts talking to those who incline their ears to Him. John 14:26- But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Yes, He speaks to us very actively. If we continue to obey His voice, He communicates with us, furthermore teaches us many new things that we would not have known otherwise, and He even reminds us of those things which God had revealed to us previously. So, here we understand Spirit God talks, communicates, teaches, and also reminds us of what God had already told us at various points in our life.

Here we are clear, Spirit God is in us; and He also actively speaks to us but how do we hear this voice and understand His leading is the next question. We hear His voice only when we have ears to listen to Him. One could see Jesus repeatedly quoting to the large crowds which had gathered to listen to Him during His ministry, “If only you have ears to listen, you will hear me. (Mat 11:15; Matt 13:9, 43, Mark 4:9 Mark 4:23, Luke 8:8.)” He was certainly not talking about the natural ears, but the spiritual ears which could recognize the voice of Holy Spirit amidst all the chaos, over the voice of the devil, over the voice of one’s own self.

Five things to strictly note when you want to hear from Holy Spirit God personally:

1. He speaks with a still small voice- We must always be aware that Spirit God is a gentleman(Mt 11:29), He is a Person and He is very gentle. He never forces His opinion on us, He never speaks on His own (Jn 16:13), He never frightens us or obsesses us that He could be heard. He speaks as a still, small voice from within us. John 10:27- “My Sheep will listen to My Voice.” And further in John 8:47 – “Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” Yes, it’s very true; a child of God can understand and hear the voice of his Father even in the midst of a multitude of voices just as an earthly child recognizes his own father’s voice over others. He recognizes the voice of the Father because he has the habit of hearing Him over and over again. Spirit God’s voice is always still, it never changes by our feelings, opinions, or our circumstances. He speaks very gently and softly to us and every time we obey this voice, we have peace in our hearts. I would firstly recommend you, as a child of God, to cultivate the habit of developing this spiritual ear towards your Father in heaven, by reading His word, by listening to the anointed ministers of God, by spending a good amount of time in conversing with God through prayer.

2. He speaks in alignment with His Word: At first, it could be unusual for us to recognize the voice of our Lord over others. How do we rightly claim that this voice is of Spirit and not? Purely by knowing His word, because Spirit God never speaks on His own, He speaks according to the word of God; John 16:13- “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” He speaks only of what is written in the Word for us. He reminds us of these scriptures when we rightly need them, He teaches us the depth of the scriptures when we are slow to understand, He uses the Word of God to direct us in the way we need to go as written in Isaiah 30:21- “And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.” Apart from the Word, He doesn’t speak anything new to us. Those who read His word could quickly recognize His voice. Those who understand God’s heart in the scriptures will know when the Spirit God is speaking. The language of Spirit God is pure scripture driven, to master this language; you must first read His word.

3. He doesn’t speak when He is quenched: As we learned earlier, Spirit God is very gentle; He never compels us to do His will. As a result of which, we could fall in the danger of quenching Him (Eph 4:30; 1The 5:19) if we fail to quiet ourselves to hear Him. Every time we move/act/lead against the Word of God, we tend to quench the Spirit. Quenching is stopping the move of Holy Spirit in spite of Him talking to us and as a response to this, Spirit God is grieved. Quenching is what we do to Him when we go against the Word and grieving is how He responds to us on being quenched. He doesn’t speak any further when He is grieved and we lose the peace of God in our hearts. Those who walk according to the Word do not grieve the Spirit as in Gal 5:16- But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

4. He resists the proud but reveals His ways to the humble: A person who is in a strong conscious of listening to the voice of Spirit God will always make sure that he/she is in right standing with the God. Scriptures clearly say in 1 Peter 5:5-“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble’.” The good thing about a humble, lowly, and meek person is that he has a receiving heart. Receiving heart always signifies of a good soil, where every seed sown by the Lord will be fruitful. It’s very important for us to always maintain a humble heart, not allowing pride in any manner to make room in us. Remember, pride is always blinding, every time we allow pride we are blinded to see the things of God just as they are. In Proverbs 11:2 it says- “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.” The proud are led away by their own sin, but a humble person even if he goes wrong would quickly repent and receive the correction of the Lord. Such a lowly heart will always be a welcome place for Spirit God to actively move.

5. Receive His correction and He will freely operate through you: This is the greatest level in being led by Holy Spirit God; to be corrected by Him. Yes, not everybody can accept the correction except the wise. The wise and understanding of heart perceive and know that correction leads them to the next level in the anointing. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says “..for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” Through correction, one is actively transformed and prepared for greater work of Spirit. Woe to those souls, who are shut to corrections, they hinder their own growth as quoted in Proverbs 12:1 -“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.” Correction leads to growth, and growth leads to greater fruit of the Spirit. Spirit God in us actively convicts us of our sin (Jn 16:8), which we need to readily confess and do away with. Every form of sin in us hinders the move of Spirit in us. It is a wise thing to respond to the conviction of the Spirit and correct our lives according to His leading. Then, Spirit God would be free to operate through us.

With this, one could understand how he/she could be led by Spirit God and grow in the greater move of Spirit practically. Humbly, put these steps into practice and live your life to His fullest pleasure.

Be led by His Mighty Spirit as you obey His leading. Amen.
God Bless You.
– Sis. Shruti