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139 | How to Hear God's Voice
184 Plays3 months ago
How do you know if you are hearing God's voice, your own internal thoughts, or the truth twisting advice of the enemy? Phylicia answers this question and encourages you to pray the truth to God, reject untrue thoughts, and trust in the Holy Spirit's help in discernment. Referenced in this episode: ⦿ Every Woman A Theologian Resources: https://phyliciamasonheimer.com/our-books/
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Transcript
Self-Prayer vs. Divine Wisdom
00:00:00
Speaker
And so often, when I'm worrying, when I'm trying to figure out the way I should go, in my head, what I'm really doing is I'm going through the motions of prayer, but to myself, as if I can give myself the wisdom I need.
Distinguishing God's Voice
00:00:24
Speaker
Hi friends, and welcome back to Verity Podcast. Today we're going to be talking about how to discern God's voice and His truth from your own thoughts or the temptations of the enemy. I know that
Renewing the Mind with Romans 12
00:00:38
Speaker
this is something I've struggled with in my own walk with God, and if you're new to the Christian faith or even if you've walked with God for a very long time, you've probably wondered this as well.
00:00:48
Speaker
How do we discern when God is speaking or when it's just something that we want or that we're thinking? And how do we discern when it's our own thoughts and our own patterns of behavior, or it's the enemy tempting us or causing spiritual warfare in our lives?
00:01:06
Speaker
There truly is a spiritual war. Ephesians 5 and 6 talk about this. But at the same time, not everything we experience is spiritual warfare. And not everything that we hear in our hearts is directly from the Lord. So how
Transforming Values by the Spirit
00:01:21
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do we discern?
00:01:23
Speaker
That's what we're going to look at today. I have quite a few Bible verses to share with you on this topic, and we're going to start in Romans 12. You may have heard this verse before. It's one that's often quoted and memorized, and there's a good reason for that. It's an amazing passage, and I'm going to read it to you now.
00:01:41
Speaker
Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
00:02:02
Speaker
I want to start with this verse because the end of this particular passage basically sums up what we're after. We all want to discern what is good and acceptable and perfect. What is the perfect will of God? That's what we want to know. And that's why we're trying to hear God's voice.
00:02:21
Speaker
And so to do that, Romans 12 says, we have to kind of back up. And he says, if you want to discern what is good and pleasing and perfect, you must renew your mind. Well, what does that mean? That's what we're going to be looking at today. The Bible doesn't use the word renewing your mind in every single setting that it talks about how we think.
00:02:43
Speaker
But this concept,
Process of Sanctification
00:02:44
Speaker
this idea, is something that we can trace through the truths of Scripture in the Old Testament and the New, and it is key to us being able to discern God's voice and obey Him. Baker's Bible commentary talks about Romans 12 verses 1 through 2 in depth, and this particular section is very helpful to this conversation. It says this,
00:03:09
Speaker
Since the age to come penetrates into the present evil age due to the revelation of God's saving righteousness through Jesus Christ, the worship of Christians who live out the logic of the Gospel in everyday living involves resistance to the values and thought patterns of the secular world, transformation of their values as God's Spirit renews their thinking and discernment of the will of God for their everyday living.
00:03:37
Speaker
So what this passage is saying is that for Christians in the early church and Christians today, we are encouraged and empowered to resist the thought patterns of our evil age. And we are encouraged to instead be transformed into the values of God's spirit, that our thoughts may be renewed and that we are able to discern God's will. And so what we're doing when we allow God to renew our minds and to move us
00:04:07
Speaker
towards His will is we're submitting to the work that the Holy Spirit wants to do, His sanctification. And if you've watched through all of the videos in this Beginner Believer series, you know that sanctification is the work the Holy Spirit does in us to make us more like Jesus as we walk with Him every step of our journey.
00:04:29
Speaker
And so that doesn't mean an immediate transformation in our thoughts. Sanctification is a process. Once we are saved and walking with God, He is going to slowly make us more and more like Jesus. But this is
Spiritual Warfare and Thought Management
00:04:42
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not automatic. We have to submit to the Holy Spirit's work. We have to allow Him to actually transform our thought patterns. We have to bring our thought patterns into step.
00:04:57
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with the work of the Holy Spirit. See, if we just expect God to magically fix us without us having to participate in His work at all, we have misunderstood what the Christian life is. We are not saved by our works or saved by our efforts. But in response to God's grace, there is some effort in submitting our natural desires, our fleshly desires as the Bible puts it, to the Lord and to the Spirit's sanctification.
00:05:24
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So what that means when it comes to our minds is that our thoughts aren't permitted to simply run rampant on whatever thing we want to think about. This is particularly
Philippians 4 on Managing Anxiety
00:05:34
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challenging to me because I have a very vibrant internal world. I'm very imaginative and I like to play out conversations and how they might go or how they should have gone or what I should have said or maybe I want to think about a concept and
00:05:48
Speaker
kind of argue it out in my mind. And I'll be so busy with these internal thoughts that I'm not actually stopping to ask, should I be thinking about this at all? And that brings me to Philippians 4, 4 through 9. This passage is another popular memory verse, and it would be worth memorizing if you're struggling with your thoughts.
00:06:07
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Here's what it says. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
00:06:31
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Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence or anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
00:06:46
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So my question now in my mind wants to run rampant and think about all of these different concepts, thoughts, people, conversations is do these thoughts line up with what is true about God, about me, about the world, about this other person? Are these thoughts honorable? Do they bring honor to the person I'm thinking about or to me and to God?
00:07:10
Speaker
Is this just, pure, lovely, commendable? Is it excellent or worthy of praise? Or am I thinking about things that are not commendable? Things that people would not praise? Things that are not worthy? Things that are ugly? That are impure? That are unrighteous and unjust? Sometimes my mind will even dwell on things that are true
00:07:38
Speaker
but they are unjust or they aren't lovely or they aren't pure. And I think there are times when we have to wrestle with really hard issues and we have to think through those ugly things in the world. But if all we ever do is meditate on the impure and the unjust and the unlovely, the ugliness, the hardship, if that's all we ever think about, then naturally we will be pushed towards anxiety.
00:08:07
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which is what this passage is talking about. It's talking about not being anxious about anything. And in this letter, Paul is not being unreasonable in saying that we should not be anxious. He's linking two things together. He's linking anxiety with the things we set our minds on.
00:08:28
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He's linking anxiety with meditating on what is untrue and dishonorable, unjust and impure. And so, something may be actually happening in the world that is all of those things, and I have to discern with the Holy Spirit how to think on those things in a righteous and upbuilding way.
00:08:50
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So in my line of work in theology, I end up interacting with a lot of current issues, a lot of news stories, and they can be really heavy and really hard. And I have to think about them in order to speak about them if I'm called to speak on them.
00:09:06
Speaker
But there's a limit on how much I should be thinking about that and how I should be thinking about that. And the Holy Spirit gives wisdom for how to do that. I think there comes a point where we have to say, all right, I've thought this through, I've done my research, I've talked about it, but now I'm handing it over to you, Lord, and I'm not going to meditate on these things anymore.
00:09:26
Speaker
I'm going to hand it to you and believe that you are sovereign and that you are working all things together for good for those who love you and are called according to your purpose. And I'm not going to sit here trying to play God by thinking over and over and over about these things. I'm going to start making a habit of releasing these thoughts to you and trusting you and having faith for you presently as the God who is in control. This is what I have to do.
00:09:56
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in my daily life.
00:09:58
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and saying, you know what, I see
Prayer as a Tool Against Anxiety
00:10:00
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what's going on in this news story and it's really hard for me to see, it's heartbreaking, but Lord, I'm not going to dwell on what's unjust. I've done what I can. I'm going to pray about it when it comes to mine. And then I'm going to meditate on your justice. I'm going to meditate on your purity, on the good and beautiful and strong things that the church is doing in the world and in this situation. That's where my mind will be fixed.
00:10:27
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So the question I ask when looking at my own thought patterns is,
00:10:33
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Is this true? Is this just? Is it pure? Is it lovely, commendable? Because these things echo God's character. And ultimately, when you are discerning the voice of God and discerning your thought patterns from his voice or from the enemy, you always have to look for truth. Because the enemy's voice is always a little twist on the truth. Just like in Genesis 3, when he's speaking to Eve, the enemy said, did God really say,
00:11:01
Speaker
He just twisted the truth a little bit, and he cast doubt on God's goodness. When that voice comes into your mind, you know that you can reject it. And to measure that voice, to have a check for it, you have to be in the Word of God. Because the Word of God is how you fight the enemy in your thoughts. If we were to go to Matthew 4, we would see Jesus in the wilderness with Satan, the enemy.
00:11:30
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And when Jesus is arguing with the enemy, what does he do? He quotes scripture. At one point, Satan actually quotes scripture to Jesus, and Jesus quotes scripture back, and he stands up to him.
00:11:43
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See, Satan had taken scripture and twisted it for his own ends, but Jesus used it in its appropriate context and truth. And so we have to be consistently in the Word of God, not memorizing it in your own effort, but remembering that every time you spend time in the Word of God, the Holy Spirit will use that. He will bring it to mind when you need it.
Aligning Thoughts with God's Will
00:12:03
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He'll do it on his own. And you can trust him to do that.
00:12:07
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So your effort, your submission to God's Spirit is staying close to the word of God, being in the word of God. So there is material he will use to speak truth to you in those moments of discernment. Isaiah 26.3 says, you keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. I have this verse right by my stairway in our kitchen.
00:12:37
Speaker
It's a beautiful little leather piece that was made by a friend of mine and in her shop. And every time I look at it, I think, that's so true. That's the reminder that I need. Is my mind fixed on Christ? Is it stayed on Him? Do I trust Him? Or am I trying to work this all out in my own effort, all up here in my mind? That's often what I'm doing. And so often, when I'm worrying,
00:13:07
Speaker
trying to figure out the way I should go. In my head, what I'm really doing is I'm going through the motions of prayer, but to myself, as if I can give myself the wisdom I need.
00:13:25
Speaker
Think about it. Prayer is giving God all of our concerns, all of our worries, all of those things that we're so concerned about. And yet so often we circulate these thoughts that could have been prayers. We circulate them in our minds back to ourself.
00:13:41
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and were the people who don't have the wisdom to know which way to go. So take those thoughts, take those anxieties, take those worries, and direct them to the one who does know the way to go. Bring them to Him. Release them to Him. And this is important. In prayer, it's important to not just pray all these requests, but to pray the truth to God.
00:14:08
Speaker
What do I mean by this? I mean, you pray the scriptures that you have before you. So what I might do when I'm struggling in this way is I'd say, Lord, I'm really worried about these things, or I see these news stories, and this is overwhelming. It's making me anxious and worried, and I feel like I need to do something, but I don't know what to do. I need your wisdom to know what to do. All right, I release it to him, but my mind is going to want to pick it back up, and I'm going to want to recirculate this. So what do I do now? Now I pray the truth.
00:14:36
Speaker
Lord, help me to rejoice in you always. I know that you are at hand. And because of that, I don't need to be anxious about anything. So I'm coming to you and I'm thanking you and I'm asking God that you would help me to trust you. And I know that your peace
00:14:55
Speaker
which goes beyond my understanding. It bypasses my own way of thinking and it will guard my heart and my mind. I'm asking you to guard me against anxiety. I'm asking you to give me peace. And I know you promise this because I'm praying Philippians 4 to you right now. So fix my mind on what is true, on what is honorable, what is just, what is pure, what is lovely. God help me to think about these things.
00:15:21
Speaker
Often why prayer doesn't work for people is because they use it just as this litany of requests and they use it as a way to worry and to kind of circulate the same requests over and over and they never stop to pray the truth. So you are welcome to pray the concerns of your heart. God knows them and he wants to hear you verbalize them to him because that's relationship. But don't stop there. Then you pray the truth.
00:15:51
Speaker
And you're praying the truth, not because God doesn't know it, because he does. You're praying the truth so your soul can hear it. You're praying the truth in faith that God will do what he has said he will do. So as you do this and make this a habit, a pattern, even putting scripture around your house or in your car or at your desk at work,
00:16:13
Speaker
you will begin to see that your thoughts more quickly align with God's heart. And peace comes so much more quickly. Sometimes it's multiple times a day that you're doing this. Sometimes it's every hour or every minute that you're doing it. It doesn't matter how frequently. What matters is that you're bringing it to God and you are allowing him to renew your mind that you may discern what is the good, pleasing and perfect will of God.
00:16:41
Speaker
You're allowing Scripture to wash your mind clean of all of the things that are clogging it up to help you receive the will of God and to have the clarity of thinking that you need to discern between His voice, the enemy's voice, and your own thoughts.
00:16:59
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Now
Condemnation vs. Truth in Scripture
00:17:00
Speaker
let's talk briefly about discerning between your own thoughts and the enemy's voice, because I think this is where a lot of people get confused. When it comes to God's voice and our own thoughts, God's voice always lines up with Scripture, of course, but sometimes when it comes to our own thoughts versus spiritual warfare or the enemy's voice,
00:17:18
Speaker
The enemy can't read our minds. He's not omniscient. And there's this idea floating around in some church spaces that you shouldn't pray out loud or you shouldn't write out your prayers, which is what I do to stay focused because the enemy can see it and then he can use it to manipulate you.
00:17:35
Speaker
This gives the enemy too much power. The enemy is no more powerful than God. God is the one on the throne. And so when the spiritual enemy sees you praying or sees you writing your prayers, that's not giving him an advantage. That's a disadvantage for him because you are accessing the ultimate power in the universe, which is the Holy Spirit of God. And he is the victor.
00:17:59
Speaker
So do not think that in praying out loud or writing out your prayers, this gives the enemy some kind of foothold. What gives the enemy a foothold is when we walk in sin and unrepentance and when we don't listen to God's voice and we don't allow him to lead us.
00:18:14
Speaker
When you pray, you are partnering with God's strength. To back up again, how do I discern between my thoughts and the enemy's voice, temptation, whatever he is throwing at me?
00:18:30
Speaker
tend to be kind of reflective of my past experiences. My childhood, negative patterns I've had with friends or maybe hurts that I've had in the past, those things are just a part of my experience of this world and they might come up now and then. Or maybe worries that I have based on what I'm seeing in my life. It's just a part of being human and those thoughts will pop up.
00:18:57
Speaker
But when it's the enemy, it's much more insidious than that. When it's the enemy, it's condemnation. So when it's my thoughts, it might be an intrusive thought that just pops in my head, like, do you remember that friendship that you no longer have? Do you remember what it was like being friends with that person eight years ago? Now, that thought is kind of amoral. It's just there. It's just, yeah, that was a, you know, it's sad to not have that friendship anymore. But when it's the enemy,
00:19:28
Speaker
The thought will sound more like this. You're terrible at friendship. Everyone's gonna leave you. The reason your friend hasn't texted you back is because you're such a terrible friend. Remember what you did eight years ago? You remember how you failed in that friendship? Well, that's what's happening now. You're going to lose this friend too because you just can't stop these patterns. I've learned to discern between just remembering something and this voice of condemnation.
00:19:56
Speaker
because we know that the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He wants to steal our joy. He wants to kill our relationship with God and with others. And he wants to destroy any peace that we could have. And so when this voice of condemnation comes, I now know to recognize that and to say, no, I'm a daughter of God.
00:20:16
Speaker
And I am a flawed daughter of God, but I am under grace. And yes, I have failed in friendships, but I'm going to ask the Holy Spirit right now to tell me if there's anything I do need to take care of in a relationship and ask for his conviction because I know he's going to empower me to do what's right. He's not just going to leave me here condemned and feeling like a failure. He's going to help me to restore a relationship if I am in the wrong.
00:20:43
Speaker
So discerning between God's voice, your own thoughts and the enemy's voice, I think comes down to knowing the truth because God's voice will always line up with the truth of God's word. Recognizing that you have patterns of your life and your own experiences that will bring thoughts to mind that may or may not be true and you have the power to reject those in Christ. And then when it's the enemy's voice, it will be marked by condemnation and it will try to isolate you from God and people.
00:21:11
Speaker
And
God's Voice: Love, Power, and Self-Control
00:21:12
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you can rebuke that in the name of Jesus and say, I'm not receiving that. That's not true for me because I know what scripture has said about me. 2 Timothy 1.7 is the verse I want to end with. And it says this, For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. The Holy Spirit of God who is given to you gives you power, authority to rebuke anything that is untrue.
00:21:35
Speaker
to reject it, to cast it out of your mind, and to just move on and say, that's not the voice of my God. And so I'm not going to even dwell on that. You don't get to stay here. And then love. The voice of God is a voice of love, not condemnation. Now he will confront your sin, but he will do so in a way that is hopeful, that allows you to always find your way home.
00:21:56
Speaker
And then self-control. He's not going to encourage you to walk into a pattern of sin that damages you or damages other people. He's not going to deny that sin exists or that there are things we do that grieve God and that hurt us. And he's going to invite us to walk in restraint. But that restraint, those boundaries will actually lead to our freedom.
00:22:21
Speaker
When you wonder how to discern God's will, remember to renew your mind in the Word to allow the Holy Spirit to continue to sanctify you. Ask Him to help you discern His voice, remain close to Scripture, and pray the truth of God until you believe it, until your heart and your flesh can catch up to where the truth is taking you. God is for you having peace,
00:22:52
Speaker
and He gives perfect peace to those whose minds are fixed on Him. If you enjoyed this episode and would like some more help in your walk with God, you can head to FeliciaMasonheimer.com slash books and check out our full library of verse by verse Bible studies, quick theology guides, and even children's discipleship resources. If you would like more free content,
00:23:15
Speaker
You can go to Verity Podcasts in iTunes or Spotify and check out our full backlog of episodes. We have about 150 episodes on there on a wide range of topics. And of course, you can also follow me on Instagram or Facebook at Felicia Masonheimer.