It’s 4 days to May guys! Whoop!, 4/12 will soon end and we’ll usher in 5/12, actually, whether or not we usher her in, she’ll still come so the best we can do is prepare and await her arrival! Praying every reader of this is well, sound and whole, and should this not be the case, I pray for wholeness, healing and peace in any area needing it!

You’re graced for this season!

I was reading some of my writing some days ago on my phone notepad and I noticed how often I had ‘The Holy Spirit told me…’ or ‘I sensed the Holy Spirit nudge me…’ and I began laughing because I know how sentimental it is for a lot of people who have a problem with such statements, I’ve seen posts where people have attacked users of such statements asking ‘How do you know it was the Holy spirit?’, ‘what if it was your thought process?’ and on and on. And frankly, it is a valid concern. That we’re believers doesn’t mean that every thought of our mind is influenced or birthed from the Holy Spirit and so it’s important we’re kept in check often, rather than ascribing every thought of ours to the Holy Spirit.

By God’s grace, I’ve been and still going through the phase of recognising acutely the voice of the Holy spirit in me and knowing when it’s just my thoughts or mind speaking to me and I know how a lot of Christians struggle with differentiating the 2 so I thought i’d write a blog post to address this issue, hopefully it helps someone.

So here’s an inexhaustible list below of knowing the difference between The Holy spirit and your mind;

1. The word/voice/nudge is not accusing or condemning

The Holy spirit never, and I mean, never comes in an accusatory or condemning tone or voice. As a matter of fact, the bible tells us expressly of an accuser who constantly stands, laying accuses on us. When you hear or sense voices in your spirit that come in an accusatory, condescending or condemning manner, it can never be the Holy spirit but our mind condemns us sometimes by its nature.

It helps to know however that the Holy spirit does convict us occasionally when we’ve done things we shouldn’t have but even in those convictions, there’s no blame or condemnation.

2.  The word/voice/nudge is liberating and assuring

The bible says that whoever the Son of man sets free is free indeed!, often when the Holy Spirit brings words to us, we feel a certain freedom, a certain assurance on whatever it is that has been spoken, and this sense is not merely one of just our mind, its our whole being responding to something from our Spirit, because that’s where He drops it. The Spirit, before it bursts through to the rest of our being.

So if you have thoughts and you find yourself trying to convince your spirit of it, that might be something worth further checking.

3. It stands consistent with the Word of God

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the word, He echoes what the Word says and so, sometimes, when you get some thoughts and words that stand well in contrast to what the bible says, it’s a red flag to investigate further and see the source of that word. Sometimes, subconsciously we motivate ourselves to do certain things and say certain things convincing ourselves it is God, but we know better because whatever it is isn’t even consistent with God’s word.

4. It brings wisdom, knowledge and light that you’re not capable of producing

We all know ourselves, or at least I personally know myself so sometimes, when the Holy spirit speaks certain things to me, even me i’m screaming “Jesus”, because my mind doesn’t even have the capacity to ‘invent’ such wisdom or knowledge. The Holy spirit always comes with divine wisdom on what is being meditated upon.

Now this is very important because if there’s an input needed to produce the output, it means that we must actively feed on an input in other to generate the output. That input is the word of God, it’s godly conversations and edifying books and gatherings.

The Holy spirit won’t invent scenarios and examples for you if you’re not focusing your mind on something that could edify you. I’m personally so conscious of the Holy spirit to the point where in every single thing i’m doing, i’m consciously asking the Holy spirit ‘Do you want to teach me anything from this?’ sometimes I get an instant response and other times, after I might have left the place or things and even resting, He just brings back a reminder of it and further breaks it down. It’s like we give Him raw materials to work on by the things we feed our spirit.

5. It brings peace and joy

As a writer, one of the confirmations I get on whatever God delivers to my Spirit is peace and joy, He accompanies it with the word as an assurance that ‘This has come from me, and it would bring you and every reader or hearer peace and joy’.

And I’ve seen that I don’t struggle to write and once I struggle, I take it as a ‘not yet’ from God, because maybe God is till trying to teach me something on the subject area and thus does not release the flow until it is complete and usually when He’s done, it flows expressly.

Ultimately, it is to be able to recognise the Holy spirit’s voice. Any thing that is frequent breeds familiarity. Our frequency with spending time with Him and in hearing His voice, builds the confidence we need to know Him whenever He speaks. There’s no double guessing ‘God was that really you?’ because you’ve recognised Him long before now and He’s not inconsistent to suddenly change His way of meeting with you and even if He does, He’ll give you the understanding and peace to recognise and accept it.

Don’t look like this again when the Holy spirit says something to you and you’re sat there questioning if it’s your mind! lol