What I think I need

May 24, 20193 Comments

The bible speaks of a danger in praying amiss. It says “you do not receive because you ask wrongly”. So with time, we learn that praying without understanding is almost just as bad as not praying because when we pray without an understanding of what we’re asking for, there is the possibility that we are even praying against the Father’s will and knowing the Father we serve, we know that His loving nature would not allow Him release to us anything that will destroy us, even if we ourselves don’t know it.

A lot of times, we come to God and we do not even know really the need we have to raise to God in prayer. We get so carried away by the covering of the need that we do not look deeper to see the root of the need and pray with regards it.

For example, you might see people praying for money a lot of times and you rarely hear them ask God for a job. A job has the capacity to satisfy the need for money over a long period of time, but in the moment, such a person is blinded by an absence of money and so is constantly praying that God provides money.

Similarly, you hear people raising requests constantly about a spouse, whether a wife or husband and you rarely hear people pray for God to make them the right person for whoever God is sending their way. Here again, were blinded by how the need appears and unable to actually decipher and pray concerning the root need, which is to be the person God wants you to be before He even hands another human being to you in matrimony.

I call this The kingdom perspective and for me, it is a constant prayer always that I see always through God’s eyes. The way heaven is seeing it. This is the understanding we need when we stand in prayer and the assurance that comes in ‘whatever you ask in my name, I will do for you’. Emphasis on ‘Whatever’. So long as it is in accordance to the will of God, it will be answered.

Looking again at the Samaritan woman at the well with Jesus. Notice how she is introduced. ‘She came with her water jar to get some water from the well’. At the end of that story in John 4:28, the bible records “leaving her water jar, the woman went back to town and said to the people…”

She was thirsty right? any sane human knows that if I am thirsty, I need water to drink. So she went off to get that water. What she did not realise and what she had been blinded to see was that her thirst wasn’t merely a biological longing for physical water. Her real need was to meet with the one who had the capacity to quench her thirst forever and as we see in the end, Jesus did exactly that! Even bringing her to forget her original need seeing as she left that meeting without the water jar she had come with.

When we come to Jesus, we always leave with the things that matter most. It is a trend in the bible. Elijah came in tears and regret after Jezebel had threatened Him and He left Gods presence with instruction. Hannah came with taunting and pain and she left with a Son, this thirsty woman came with a water jar and left with salvation.

Jesus knows most our deepest needs and so even when we approach Him and it appears like were not receiving what we’ve come for, we need to trust He knows exactly what He is doing because usually the need we think we need satisfied is really minute compared to the bigger need behind what actually needs satisfaction.

It also reveals the value of our need. That our needs attract us to God who is then able to show us the bigger picture.

Some of us are with God now with an apparatus in hand to hold what we think we need and it appears like God is not even acknowledging the presence of that apparatus and that’s fine. Just stay trusting and open to receive whatever He does send, because He alone sees the bigger picture and that’s what He wants to open your eyes to see as well.

Needs

Eat and stop crying!

May 17, 20192 Comments

redirect

Do we ever go to God with one thing and find that we’re being focused on something else, sometimes in relation to the original request, but most times, in something completely unrelated.

I remember a time in my life when I was praying for my Dad’s salvation, It was a daily prayer request and it had almost become second nature to mention in my prayers. One random day, while praying the exact same prayer, I felt God stop me from saying the words and He began to ask me questions about my dependence on Him (God) and about where I put my confidence in.

It was so random but I obliged and began to do some soul searching and it was not until my dad suffered a stroke and had to leave work that it all began to make sense to me the other angle God was opening my eyes to see.

Similarly, remember when Elijah has been threatened by Jezebel and He had ran away, from fear that Jezebel was truly going to kill him, remember when he arrived under the tree, all depressed, angry and suicidal, telling God to just ‘take his life’. Do you remember God’s reply?

After the very much deserved silence, God sends an angel with food, a lot of food and The angel tells him to ‘eat! for the journey ahead is great’.

When I tell people that God has a very funny sense of humour, they think I’m joking. How can I come crying to you about one issue and your next reply to me is to eat? Can you fathom how Elijah must have been confused? like is this Guy even hearing me at all?!

There’s a similar play of event as well in the old testament where people were off to war and before they go, they would enquire of God on what to do and God will either give the most comic reply that appeared as jokes, or sometimes, ask that the simplest things be done, like raising songs of praise and worship or playing instruments.

Half the time, this leaves us puzzled, like Elijah, were wondering ‘is he even listening to me?’, like me, were asking ‘but God, what is the correlation?’. Frankly, we don’t even see the full picture until it is done.

God is never insensitive or elusive about our feelings and requests, usually, He just recognises that there are moments of human myopia where we see so shortly and from that short sight, were getting overwhelmed. He takes it on Himself to redirect us to the larger picture like He did with me and also with Elijah, by asking those ‘unrelated’ questions which refocuses us usually on the big picture we are not seeing in that moment.

Don’t be scared or surprised if God is redirecting you in your prayer time, or if you get up after praying and God is leading you in a whole new direction. As long as were sensitive of His leading, we’ll be fine. There’s no better place to be than in His perfect will.

What Friend are you? Flowwww or Flow?

May 12, 2019Leave a comment

I realised that there are mainly two types of friends in this world.
The “it has happened, it has happened, let’s move on” gang, and the “it happened, but you were wrong, you know better for next time” gang.

On first glance, the first gang appears more understanding, accommodating and even more supportive and the second is definitely more in your face and also very direct.

I think we all need a combination of both in our lives. Especially among our friends.
If we’re too full of the first gang, we’ll get used to going with the flow even after we’ve done wrong, and if too saturated with the second gang, we might harbour guilt and shame of whatever it is that has been done.

I personally would say I fall into the second category and a caveat with being in that category is being careful that we’re not making the person feel worse than they already do about something.

2 years ago now, My best friend had a life episode which actually threw me off emotionally and cause were a close knit of friends, it was quite easy for everyone to tell something was wrong. We met up together with her and another mutual friend of ours (who by the way is chief of the first gang).

After getting my best friend comfortable, we got to the crux of the matter and after she opened up, our mutual friend was really quick to dismiss it in the name of “well it’s fine, you’re good and life goes on” and we were almost leaving that line of discussion but I didn’t want Her to go only in the feel-good factor mode, I needed her to understand her part in the ordeal and learn from it so it didn’t happen again in the future.

It’s honestly usually a tougher conversation with people in our gang but I think it’s always worth going down that line.
It’s definitely important that we be sensitive of the timing and manner of approach, but the level of relationship with a person will determine more these things.

At service today, we spoke about the Samaritan woman at the well. The one who had Jesus attention without even soliciting it, I bet in her day, she was object of envy to a lot of people, women in particular. We actually looked at her in the Bad Girls of the bible series, so please click the link and check her out.

I wanted to take our attention to the conversation that ensued between herself and Jesus when He asked her to ‘go and call her husband’. I love how Jesus appeared oblivious to a lot of people in the bible, in the sense that He knew already an answer, but He still asked the person. Same thing happened in Eden when God appeared and asked where Adam was and why He was hiding. He obviously knew that His highest creation had given into sin, but in asking a person to admit something they’ve done, there’s a level of awareness that comes to the person who realises their fault in confessing it out, which we see is what Jesus did often.

Her response to Jesus question about bringing her husband revealed that ‘she had no husband’. Which was accurate, but not the complete truth.

Jesus could have stopped there, He already knew the truth about her past with the husbands saga, but He still pressed on, telling her exactly what she had covered in the one sentence reply she had given. If we read on to verse 19 & 20, we see her attempting to outsmart Jesus by changing the line of conversation, and Jesus indulged her in the change of direction because the message was still going to go across either way.

After the conversation had ended, what happens???

She goes back to town and is screaming to everyone who will hear about how Jesus had revealed her past to her and possibly even disclosing that past, because it didn’t matter anymore, she was now changed by encountering the one who covered the sins of her past, present and future.

I’m drawing our attention to the fact that if Jesus hadn’t made known what she attempted dismissing by responding with one line answer, she would not have seen her fault, or even a need for the Messiah, because it was that part of the conversation that led them to Jesus revealing His identity to her.

Jesus Christ displays the effect of the second gang here, but doesn’t mean He was predominately in this gang.

We have to be well equipped in the people that characterise our support groups. We can’t have a group that has representatives of just the first category or just the second category alone.

Even in friendships, there must be balance. Let’s be intentional about that balance, make a review of your friends and ensure you’re well covered. If we’re friends, congrats, you already have a name down for the second gang! *wink*.

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That’s a picture of us 2 in our elements….

Uncomfortable at Home

May 8, 20192 Comments

not enough

There’s been a consistency in the lessons I’ve been learning in this period of my life, but what I’ve seen is that it is not just for me, it is a mass-teaching by the Holy Spirit to all the saints in preparation for home.

Hey guys, lets get up-close and personal. I know there is a deep desire within each and everyone of us to make-it in this life, even before we get to heaven and while ‘making it’ does have a vary of meaning based on the individual, there exists some constants in everyone’s definition, some of which include happiness, peace, acceptance and true fulfilment in whatever we do.

So what happens is that, in a bid to achieve and accomplish these desires, in a bid to make our relevance known on this earth, we sometimes get distracted and forget that it is not as important as where we are headed and so even while we do exploits here for the kingdom and for One purpose, we cannot neglect the initial and most impactful call which is to do it all for His glory while also multiplying those in the kingdom.

I came across a post on Instagram and this is what it read “If you died and went to heaven today, chances are that you would not want to stay. Your life on earth has proven that God’s presence alone is not enough“.

Please do you have any idea what this means? Have you any clue the gravity that these words carry?

That we get to the habitat for which we were created but because we got used to the temporary habitat, we are unable to enjoy that for which we were made. That we get into the presence of the I Am, and yet still feel as though we’re not. Should this not scare us? should this not cause us to run to the feet of ABBA and just beg for a renewal of our hearts and mind? should this not push us to ask for an identity that is in tune with our real permanent habitat?

We’ve been so carried away with the ‘ideals’ of this world to the point where we forget that it is all so temporary and does not end here.

In the last few days I’ve seen God give various people the same message in a vary of ways. Reminding us not to get too comfortable to the point where we don’t enjoy the comfort of our real home.

How can we get to heaven and be strangers??? How can we get there and be learning the ropes of worship and prayer when all of this time has been devoted for it??? How can we get to heaven and be learning the songs of praise when we should have learnt it all here?

But no, we’ve been carried away by the ideals of the media in visuals and music. We’ve got so used to scientific knowledge to the point where we question revelation knowledge. We’ve accepted that there must be physical proof to validate a thing when God is the only proof received by faith that we really need.

God started my year with a deep hunger of a revival and He accompanied that hunger with a promise to fill us up. To prepare us and to equip us with all we need for home. Are we sleeping on His equipping? are we blinded by the world we don’t even see the revival? Have we been carried away by the ideals that we don’t even recognise the divine?

We cannot get home and be strangers. That would be tragic.

The Default settings

May 3, 20191 Comment

I think the devil has a very cunning way of getting us to do the exact thing we said we would not, whats funny about it is how we sometimes convince ourselves of having thought through whatever it is and made the best loving and logical decision.

I remembered this morning how I use to prepare myself subconsciously with come-backs (a response to someone who has said something unpleasant to you). Like I would have the entire conversation play out in my head in advance and prepare myself for what to reply and at what point. So in my mind, I had done the right thing by ‘thinking before responding‘, I was not responding in haste but from thought, however that thought was merely preparing my attack, not even taking a defence, both of which was wrong when it came to dealing with people.

Similarly, I was speaking with someone yesterday about something I had posted on social media that she had contrary thoughts on and she started with “I wanted to come say it to you personally here before a stranger will insult me and I won’t take it”, so after she shared what she wanted, I responded starting with a quote of her ‘I won’t take it’, so she could buttress further and she went deeper saying that if someone came for her, she was definitely going back for them, so to avoid that, she privately messaged me.

Together with this and my remembrance of the past, I realised how ‘self’ is set to ‘attack’ by default. We aren’t programmed to love first when faced with anything unpleasant, we’re mostly programmed to defend and then attack, which only explains why we think through our comebacks before they happen and shield ourselves from the attack of people so we don’t also attack back.

For the beginning part of my christian journey, I deceived myself into thinking that the more I stay on my own, the less likely i’ll be to sin, I won’t need to receive or give offence, so it was like ‘Lone wolf speaking only when spoken to’. This meant I was limiting my social interactions and also my reach to people who I was suppose to be light and salt to. I didn’t realise then that the test of our faith is when we’re faced with the exact things that could cause us to fall and then we overcome. Anything that is not tested cannot be proven.

I cannot be claiming to be something or someone without being tested on it. Interactions with people always brings that test, it’s where we learn patience, kindness, gentleness but ultimately, unconditional love.

We have to reset our defaults to ‘love’, we have to submit to the Holy Spirit to the point where we really don’t mind being attacked, all were concerned about is giving love, even though it means us being trampled upon. We also need to know that we cannot run away from that which is meant to grow us. Christianity does not mean limiting social interaction, it is even more a call to go and distribute love anywhere and at any time.

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“(S)He has to be God-fearing”

May 1, 2019May 1, 2019Leave a comment

god-fearing

Who usually has this title as a response to “What do you seek in a spouse?”

Even if you don’t, you’ve probably heard someone else say it. We all want to be with someone who is sold out to God, who believes, activates and walks by scripture and who honours God above all else! That’s key in the believer’s dream of a spouse.

People ask me the “what do you seek in a spouse” question very often, I think almost more than I am asked “how are you?” (Okay, i’m definitely exaggerating) but honestly, the frequency is high, but usually, half way into answering them, i’m cut off and asked how God-fearing didn’t top the list and I always struggle to even tell them that ‘it was never on my list’.

A criteria is like a benchmark a person should meet right? But I realised that ‘being God-fearing’ as a Spirit-led woman makes my desire of a godly spouse a standard and not really a criteria to be met. Do you have any idea how many God-fearing men and women there are in the world? Requesting he/she to be God-fearing is almost like saying he/she must be male or female. Funny right?

I think sometimes people also say ‘He/she must be God-fearing” because they haven’t even weighed other characters, traits and attitudes that could be found in a person. Christian couples don’t only pray and do bible study in marriage, please don’t be misled believing this is all that is done. I always challenge people to step forward, for a believer, God-fearing is almost bare-minimum, what else are you looking out for? A particular gift or fruit of the Holy Spirit perhaps? a trait or character like being able to learn from a person? and not even only in spiritual matters. Other aspects as well.

Your spouse should be God-fearing by default as a believer and by God’s grace, my faith does not allow me believe it is open for debate, so let’s press in, let’s ask God more questions. Questions like ‘what we might be deficient of that requires complementing’, it helps us prayerfully seek these things in a spouse as led by the Spirit of God.

By all means desire a God-fearing spouse, but please don’t stop there! Because even in your personal love-relationship with Jesus, you people don’t only pray and do bible study. Jesus is the complete-package lover, there’s laughter in the relationship, there’s gentle correction, there’s patience is working you through getting the hang of something, there’s teaching of what you don’t understand, there’s even dealing with pain together.

How do we now take this complete, all-in-one package and just say God-fearing?

What’s the difference???

April 30, 2019Leave a comment

There’s actually an urgent need for us to grow and mature as Christians and get to the point where we become labourers in the vineyard too. But remember you cannot be a labourer without the knowledge of a labourer so you will first attain a specific level of knowledge before you will be sent into the vineyard to get more harvest.

A few days ago, I was reading the parables of the kingdom.
Shortly and concisely, in that parable, Jesus planted wheat and then went to sleep, while He slept, an enemy came and planted weed. When Jesus helpers woke up and went out to check the farm, they saw that there was both wheat and weed growing. They came back and asked Him.
“Didn’t you plant only wheat?, where has the weed come from?”
Jesus answered and said the enemy came and planted the weed.

So the very wise servants then asked, “should we go and uproot the weed??” I mean farmers do it a lot today don’t they!?! Uproot weed when they notice them.
But Jesus said this “no, lest while you gather the weed, you also uproot some wheat, so wait till the harvest”.

The only reason why Jesus would be careful to not send his servants out to the field to uproot the weed is because He is concerned they might uproot some wheat with the weed.
And I sat asking myself how this could be a possibility because skilled farmers know distinctly, the difference between weed and wheat, and I realised why there’s a possibility of that? It’s because there’s almost no distinction now.

From the image from this passage, especially in our time, we’re too joined and entangled with the weed the enemy has planted to the point where even if they want to uproot the weed, there’s every possibility that we’ll also be uprooted, so Jesus saying ‘no’ is for our safety and benefit, but I believe there wouldn’t have been a need for the safety measures if the servants are able to see clearly which are the weed and which are the wheat.

But everybody is claiming wheat and in as much as you truly might be wheat, you’re somewhere joined or entangled with weed which puts you and the rest of the body in so much danger, your way of life is so identical to the weed that there’s almost no difference, but you’re suppose to be wheat.

You see, the reason why we need to grow and mature as Christians is because we’re actually holding the whole body of Christ back. Remember? Different members but same body. When you come to Christ, despite the fact that your salvation is personal, were all working as members of the same body for a sole purpose.

Jesus said at harvest they’ll bundle the weed and throw them in the fire and gather the wheat and put it in His barn. Even at that harvest, I often pray that there’ll be a clear distinction to separate the weed from the wheat.

There has to be a difference in the way we live our lives, there’s no two ways about it, we can’t be identifying as wheat but being identified as weed! This transcends to every aspect of life. God is asking us to be wheat without shame, bold wheat that can be identified from miles away.

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The Human Butterflies

April 29, 2019April 29, 2019Leave a comment

I totally believe when people speak of the ‘transformation power’ that lies in the gospel. Until you have been changed, I don’t believe you have experienced the ‘hit’ of the gospel because that’s the purpose of knowledge, to bring change, and the purpose of the gospel is positive change, not just change. The kind where you’re stripped of self and daily being moulded to resemble Christ who is the ‘First begotten’ and not ‘Only begotten’ anymore by what He did on the cross.

It is always a working of inside-out, never outside-in because the gospel aims for the core of us and not just the do’s and don’t’s. It is more concerned about the root than the fruits and that explains why I usually have a little problem with stewards of the word who attack the fruits and not the root.

I also usually say to people often willing to stop bad habits never to attempt doing it by themselves because it will not work. Will-power won’t betray itself. But the Spirit of God remains supreme to will-power, so rather than attempting doing it by yourself, hand that will to the Spirit of God within you and watch Him bring the never-going-back change that only He can produce. He works step by step, there’s no magic about it because the transformation He allows us experience prepares us to also administer to other people who go through the same issues.

Paul put it like this ;

He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. – 2 Corinthians 1:4

So if you’re struggling with stopping any habit or trait in your life that you have identified as limiting and toxic, don’t just wake up and say ‘Today, I will not do this and this’, ask the Holy spirit to empower you against whatever it is because by Jesus death on the cross, we are no longer slaves to sin!

I daily see the Holy Spirit breaking ‘self’ in my life and honestly, it remains my biggest testimony because everything that limits and causes me to stumble is in self, so my daily prayer is ‘God please save me from myself‘. I can’t begin to tell you what the answers to this prayer has done for me.

Yesterday again I was reminded, coming back from church, normally i’d get home and get preparing for the coming week and all, but the Holy Spirit just dropped names in my heart, and when I finally settled down to understanding these names, I realised it was the people who would usually be in church that weren’t, so the instruction was simple ‘message them and check they’re okay’. Despite stalling, I finally got to doing it and as I did it, God took me to realising that I could only do this by His power, because if left to me, I won’t be too bothered about who turned up and didn’t turn up to church, so He was breaking self-centeredness in self and honestly, it felt sooo good!

Fast forward to early this morning, I got a notification of a follow on my Instagram and opened it up to see who it was and after a few scrolls over the person’s page, I realised I didn’t appreciate their use of profanity in captions as well as their approach to loads of things which was evident in the captions and I mentally decided I couldn’t follow this person back cause I didn’t want to be exposed to that on my timeline.

Moments later, I felt a nudge to go follow her back and I heard in my Spirit that ‘Since you’re both following each other, she sees your captions, you see hers, so we can hope that she’s convicted by the slightest by the words that you could have in yours and you’re conscious not to allow her words or mannerism rub off on you’, and it made perfect sense to me, so I followed her back.

All these seeming small and mundane things that I see the Holy Spirit speaking to me about shows me the changes He’s making in me. It is never really the massive things as we usually think, it always starts from the small.

Let’s be intentional about this submission to change shall we? Grace is sufficient!

Have a beautiful, productive and blessed week! You’re graced in every way for it.

free

Adjust the Crown

April 29, 2019Leave a comment

caged

If you’ve watched Tyler Perry’s Acrimony movie, you know exactly what an anchor it, it is that thing that sunk her down into the sea in the end after her attempted murder. Obviously that’s not the dictionary definition but it is easier to use experiential scenarios to define something rather than just read it from a dictionary, which is my best tip to anyone trying to expand their vocabulary, don’t just read and write down definitions, it is more useful to write down sentences using the word, you’ll remember it more than writing down the definition. You’re welcome! lol

That’s not the point of the post though, I just needed to be sure I was not assuming that we all knew the definition of an anchor.

There’s 2 ways to understand this post and i’m coming from a certain way which i’ll make clearer as we go on.

Saying ‘Jesus Christ is the anchor of the church’, does not mean, He is the lover who doesn’t want to see the church flourish and progress. As a matter of fact, it is His desire that the church continues to grow and flourish daily, so His anchoring the church is not Him standing in the way of the progress of the church. It is anchor to keep her grounded in what will cause her to flourish even more.

A friend was sharing with me how Marriage isn’t in the cards for her for a vary of reasons which were quite vague, so I probed further and asked her to explain the general words she kept using and her fears were mainly tied to what she’d seen, heard and witnessed in her home as marriage, so it did make sense that she automatically concluded that this was what marriage was all about and clearly not what she wanted. There were a lot of instances she made referring to her having to do something just to keep her husband happy and the marriage afloat and the majority of her reasons echoed one who feared becoming a prisoner to someone or something.

For her, a husband was synonymous to an anchor which she stayed tied to and did things according to, if she did not want to sink. And I began to share with her my view of what really it is from my study of the bible as well as experience and godly counsel.

Any godly man who’s going to come for you will be more of wings than an anchor. His desire is not to ‘tame’ you, but to promote your flight, because your flight is his flight as well. I shared how the man would always desire to see her win, just as Christ constantly desires the church to win, while cheering us on, equipping us daily with all we need to make it a reality.

Here’s how convinced I am of this, there’s this verse in the bible that gives me goosebumps each time I read it. It is the verse that refers to a virtuous woman as ‘a crown on her husbands head’.

A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband, but a wife who puts him to shame is like bone cancer. – Proverbs 12;4

If you need to re-read that verse, please do, because it will give you a picture of the the value and importance of the wife to her husband as it is being compared to a crown on a king’s head.

Speaking real life now, a king never, never jokes with His crown. In fact disrespect of that object is outright disrespect to the king himself because only one person wears that crown during their tenure. The kings crown is value not just to him, but to his kingdom because it basically has power which it gives to whoever wears it. So It is well taken care of, maintained and constantly refreshed because it is a representation of the King Himself.

A godly man takes proper care of His crown which includes fostering her progress and not limiting it because the crown is his representation.

Marriage is really twisted in our generation as a result of a lot of factors which really are all rooted in the ploy of the enemy to destroy such a powerful ministry which God ordains.

For those of you who keep check-lists for future hubby, feel free to add ‘Wings and not Anchor’ because God will never lead us into the hands of someone who will limit His work in our lives rather than facilitate it.

Is it You or Me???

April 26, 2019April 29, 20194 Comments

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;

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.

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