One of the most wonderful gifts God has given His children is the privilege of speaking to Him and hearing His voice. Jesus taught His disciples that they must pray always to the Father in His name, with a promise that He would ask the Father to send the Comforter, even the Spirit of truth, which shall teach them all things, and bring all things to their remembrance (John 14:14-17, 26). That Comforter was the Holy Spirit.
Why is Hearing the Voice of the Spirit so Important?
Jesus explained that the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of truth, “will guide you into all truth… and shew you things to come” (see John 16:13). Hearing the voice of the Spirit not only gives us wisdom to solve our problems, but it also protects us from being influenced by misleading voices and philosophies of men that are designed to turn us away from God.
How Do We Recognize the Voice of the Spirit?
At first, communications from the Holy Spirit can be hard to recognize. You can easily get it wrong and may not act upon its promptings only to realize afterward that it was the Spirit talking to you. I have had that kind of experience in the past. However, just like developing certain skills, I observed that recognizing the promptings of the Holy Spirit required diligent study, obedience, and a strong faith in Jesus Christ.
The scriptures are an excellent place to start looking for clues on how to recognize the voice of the Spirit. ” In the Old Testament Elijah explained the Spirit speaks in a “still, small voice.”
The Apostle Paul gave a more profound description of how the Spirit communicates to us. In his letter to the Church in Galatia, he explained that the Spirit communicates the truth through feelings of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance (Galatians 5:22-23).
In my experience, the Spirit comes most of the time as a strong feeling of comfort or confirmation that what I am doing is right.