You have heard me speak often of the need to be filled or controlled by the Spirit of God. Not only is this spiritual discipline necessary to maintain fellowship with God, but is also necessary to hear from God as we seek his answers. Often Christians do not hear from God and then wonder why. There are a few reasons for that. Sometimes God wants us to wait as I talked about Sunday. But one reason Christians do not sense that they hear from him is because they are not living in the Spirit. Dr. Charles Stanley makes a poignant statement in his book “How To Listen To God.”
-Pastor Byron
One of the reasons God commands us to be filled with the Spirit is that He not only empowers us for service, but also is essential to our hearing God. If the Spirit is quenched and grieved, He cannot deliver the message of God because we are not listening. If we refuse to hear what the Holy Spirit says to us, then our praying is useless babbling into heaven and God does not hear it. How we live makes a difference as to what we hear. A believer can live what most would characterize as a normal Christian life and still be in error, because he is not listening to the Spirit. We can never get enough education, enough experience, to live independently of the Holy Spirit.
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