TOPIC: THE VOICE OF THE SPIRIT
“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,” – Romans 9:1 (KJV)
Your tripartite nature makes you a spirit with a soul that lives in a physical body. Your body has a voice known as feelings. The soul (which is where your mind is located) has a voice known as reasoning. Your spirit man also has a voice known as your conscience through which God speaks to you. While the Holy Spirit doesn’t lead you by your feelings and reasonings, He communicates and leads you through the voice of your spirit – your conscience.
Every person has a conscience whether they are born again or not. Even when you weren’t saved, your conscience spoke to you. That’s why you said things like, “my conscience will not allow me to…,” what you were saying in essence is that your spirit is speaking to you just the same way your flesh will speak to you through your feelings when you were perhaps poked by a sharp object.
When you got born again, you became a new creation; your spirit was recreated, and your conscience became alive to the Spirit of God as a channel through which He can lead and instruct you.Your conscience however MUST be trained by the Word of God because when you weren’t born again your conscience could be blistered by the environments and conditions you found yourself. Paul wrote to Timothy concerning wicked men in the last days and said in 1 Timothy 4:2 that these people,” Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;” When the conscience is seared or branded, it becomes impossible for the Holy Ghost to lead and speak to you through that suppressed conscience. Through constant meditation in the Word and fellowship in prayer your conscience is awakened to God’s Spirit.
This voice of your spirit is also known as the ‘still small voice!’ More often than not, it will rise up within you when you find yourself in a situation such that you can literally hear it with the ‘ear’ of your heart. The Apostle Paul acknowledged in Acts 23:1 that he always followed his conscience, and you should too. The way the Holy Spirit does this is what we read in our text today. Your conscience will always speak to you through that still small voice as the Holy Ghost lights your spirit. Your conscience will receive information from the Holy Spirit and pass it to your mind especially when you have to decide. This is why you need to learn how to get quiet in the midst of all options shouting out at you, and as you listen, you will hear that voice speak to you. The still small voice is always persistent and consistent.
Note, however, that the devil can also use a ‘weak’ conscience that is not yet trained by the Word of God to try to bring people into condemnation and shame. When it is the Holy Spirit, it will always agree with God’s Word. It is always the Word of God over the conscience because the Holy Ghost will never speak against the Word.
Prayer: Father, grant me the grace to listen to that still small voice today and make the right decisions in Jesus’ Name.
Pastor Alfred Samuel