Discerning The Holy Spirit

Hello, welcome to Self Talk. I'm Dr. Ray Self, your host. What is this show about? It's about getting free. Getting free from what you may ask? It's getting free from anything that keeps you away from God's plan for your life. Anything that hurts you or suppresses you or causes you harm. That's my heart, that's my passion. I want to see you free, I want to see you living your God-given dream, I want to see you being the person God created you to be. Stay tuned for our next exciting topic. Thank you for joining us today, God bless you.

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Hello and welcome to Self Talk. I'm your host, Dr. Ray Self himself; very glad you're listening. I have a very important topic I really want to talk to you about today and again, I have to thank Dr. Jess Youngblood who made this show possible. He's an incredible sponsor. Dr. Jess Youngblood runs uh, Premier Family Care in Arab, Alabama, Bluntsville, Alabama and Guntersville, Alabama. If you need medical help, Dr. Jess Youngblood is a Holy Spirit-filled doctor; you need to see him and I'm just grateful for him. So I want to talk about discerning the Holy Spirit and I want to talk to you from my heart. I don't want to talk to you as a theologian or teacher, I just want to talk to you as a fellow Christian. 

Discerning the Holy Spirit is critical, it is important. Recently I've been in meetings and um, where people are claiming the Holy Spirit said this, the Lord said this, and they're claiming they're flowing with the Spirit and I'm sensing nothing, I'm just not sensing the presence of God. Now, I'm not claiming that I'm any kind of super Christian or anything, but I do believe I am sensitive to the Holy Spirit and I do believe– I'm just, I'm tired of being in churches and meetings that are claiming the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit's not moving, He's not there. They're out of sync, they're grieving, they're grieving Him. We as Christians must understand what is the Holy Spirit and what is not the Holy Spirit. It is so important that it can be the difference between life and death, it can be the difference between joy and sorrow, it can be the difference between prosperity and poverty, it can be the difference between a disease and healing, it can be the difference between successful relationship and failed relationship; it's everything to us.

Jesus's ministry, He made it clear that He didn't do anything except what the Father instructed Him to do. Jesus told us in the bible, in the gospel of John, this is in chapter 16, He said something really amazing to His disciples. Imagine that you're a disciple and you're walking with Jesus over 2000 years ago and all of a sudden, Jesus turns to you and He says “But I tell you the truth. It's to your advantage that I go away…” What? It's to my advantage that You go away? I imagine Peter thinking this, “What are you talking about? How can– what? You're going to leave us and that's good for us?” He said, “It's to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you…” The Helper, He's referring to the Holy Spirit, “...but if I go, I will send Him to you.” So Jesus was saying “Look, I'm going to ascend into heaven and when I do, I'm going to send something that's going to be to your advantage, and it's not something, it's someone who's going to be to your advantage.” And He was talking about sending the Holy Spirit. Why? What's the advantage? Well, the Holy Spirit is everywhere. The Holy Spirit will reside - can reside and should reside - inside of all Christians. And so what Jesus was saying, instead of having God external, after He ascended into heaven we were going to have the Holy Spirit and have God internal. The Holy Spirit.

So the Holy Spirit is here now. He's here. He's on earth, He's inside of us, He's also outside of us. He is here. It is critical that we discern what is of Him and what is not of Him. The bible said in Romans chapter 8, “Those that are sons of God are led by the Spirit.” It's one of the evidences. If you're a child of God, you're led by the Holy Spirit. Well, you cannot be led by the Holy Spirit if you cannot discern Him and that requires maybe some practice. It also requires some prayer and it requires some sensitivity. So this is something I learned a long time ago and it really changed my life. It's a very simple statement and it says “Man creates dead things, God creates life. Man is a manufacturer, God is a creator.” And so what happens is man creates things that are dead. When, when man is doing something or making something, man can only create things that are dead. Man makes objects, man will make a piece of furniture, he'll make an automobile, he'll make a computer. Man manufactures all kinds of things but everything man creates or puts together is dead. When God is in something, it is alive and so what I have experienced in church, in churches where the Holy Spirit should be, it's a worship hour, it's a time of praise and worship and we invite the Holy Spirit to come but I think what we end up doing is we end up ignoring Him when He gets there. And so you have a lot of-- hey listen, I'm not trying to be critical, I'm just pleading that we've got to get back in the flow, in the sync and discerning the Holy Spirit. But in these services, there's a sense of lifelessness. There's a lot of people talking, a lot of music being played, a lot of words being said, but there seems to be no life in it. And the reason there's no life in it is because it's man-made. Man does not create life, man creates things and so sometimes church is lifeless because it's man-made. When a church feels alive, it's God made and it's the Holy Spirit.

If you're a leader listening to me, you know this and you, you need to hear this. You're, you're like a choir director in a church service. You have to direct the direction of the Holy Spirit. Your job is to get the congregation in sync with what the Holy Spirit is trying to do or wants to do and when - you know this - when we're in sync with the Holy Spirit, there is this feeling of peace, this feeling of, of love, this feeling of power. It's like nothing else. I remember years ago, I could walk into the church. I remember opening the back door of the church and walking inside side the church and immediately feeling the presence of God - I'm talking about a tangible feeling of the presence of God - walking into the sanctuary and you could just feel this incredible sense of peace and love. It was all over the atmosphere. We used to say the anointing was so thick you could cut it with a knife. I don't think you'd want to do that but it was just saturating and it felt so wonderful and so peaceful and so much love. And it's like you could hear God and God could hear you and things would happen in this atmosphere. When you were in the presence of God, prayers are being answered, people were being healed, people were being saved and worship was going up and the lord was speaking through prophetic words coming down and it was just incredible. And I'm wondering, I'm thinking, what happened? What happened to us? Where, where is that? Have we lost the ability to discern the Holy Spirit? Have we gotten to where we're so anxious to please man that we're not worshiping God? And that's a real temptation and I think some churches and some people, we fall into, we fall into that because we want people to come to our church and we want people to be happy and we want people to have a good worship experience and we want to grow and we have you know, we have needs that we want more people to, to come and we want to, to you know, reach out to as many people as possible. But the danger of that, it sounds great but we can become a man-centered church instead of a God-centered church because we're missing the Holy Spirit.

Here's the thing: when you allow the Holy Spirit to move in a service, in your life, when the Holy Spirit is given time and He is welcomed, He will move and He will do things. But you have to be in tune with what He's doing because what'll happen is if you're not in tune with what He's doing, you will interrupt Him or the bible talks about grieving Him. And the Holy Spirit, it's like the presence of the Lord just goes, goes away. And then maybe we get back in sync and the Holy presence comes back. But I've been into too many, too many meetings where people are grabbing the microphone and claiming the Lord is doing this and the Lord is saying this and, and you see these things, and claiming it's all God directed and there's just no life in it. It just, it just seems like it's, it's man. It's just man, it's just people, it's just flesh and it's lifeless and people are not being transformed and people are not being healed and delivered and set free and the captives are not being released. This is what I'm pleading and I really want, want to talk about.

It is critical that we can discern what is our human nature, what is the Holy Spirit and what is demonic because generally, it's one of those three things happening. It's the flesh or human nature or just uh, natural, it's our natural self… It could be the Holy Spirit - I hope so - it could also be something demonic. And discerning is called the discerning of spirits and that's where you can discern what's going on and if you cannot discern the Holy Spirit, you cannot get in sync with the Holy Spirit. We must be in sync with the Holy Spirit. We have a commandment to be led by the Spirit of God. “the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, the mind set on the flesh is death,” according to Romans chapter 8. So discerning the Holy Spirit has never been more important. Well, how do you do that? Well, the first thing is, what I'm saying right now is introduction. I want you to be aware of the importance. You can miss what God's trying to tell you if you don't discern the Holy Spirit. You can miss what the Lord wants to do in your life, in your church, in your job, and your family, if you cannot discern the Holy Spirit. God's ways are not our ways, His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and in Ephesians, the bible tells He will– can do– “to Him who will do exceedingly and abundantly more than we could ever think or imagine.” So when we are discerning the Holy Spirit and then we're in obedience, or I call it in sync or in the flow of the Holy Spirit, wonderful things happen, amazing things happen. Not only does it feel right because you see, you have the Spirit in you and He's bearing witness with the Spirit that's moving, which is Him, the Holy Spirit. Not only does it feel right, but there's so many benefits. Again, that's where the healing comes from and that's where you hear God speak so clearly - when you're discerning the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit's being allowed to move.

So there's many things that stop Him from moving in our life or in a church service. There's many things that stop Him. I really don't have to tell you this, you know that it's just our flesh, business, we're busy, we're just so so busy taking care of life and handling life and doing our stuff that we're missing Him, we're ignoring Him. Now, the Lord, know He loves you and He has no problem with you living a normal life. But even living a normal life, you can still be aware of the Holy Spirit. In a church service, it is absolutely critical. We've got to stop allowing the flesh and human nature to dominate the service and let the Lord be Lord of church again. Let the Holy Spirit be Lord of the church again. Let Him be lord. That's where the things happen. And here's the thing: we're so busy wanting to please man that we grieve the Holy Spirit but if we'll stop grieving the Holy Spirit and allow the Holy Spirit to have His way, man will benefit. Man– if you really want to please your congregation, if you're a pastor listening to me, let the Holy Spirit have His way. If you really want to have success in life, healing in life, answers to your problems, allow the Holy Spirit to have His way. And that takes discerning. You have to learn and I want to talk to you about how to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

How do you know when it's the Holy Spirit and it's not the Holy Spirit? Well, I will tell you this right now: nobody's perfect at this, everybody makes mistakes. I make mistakes, I think it's the Lord and it's not the Lord. And we do that because you know, we're human beings and we're, we, we do fail. But it's critical, it's so critical. I could go on and on and on about the benefits. In Corinthians chapter 12, the Apostle Paul talks about nine manifestation gifts of the Holy Spirit, gifts of the Holy Spirit, and one of the gifts is called discerning of spirits. Discerning of spirits is the ability to discern what spirit is operating and I want to tell you something. All of us need this particular gift. How do you get this gift? You pray and ask God for it. “Lord, I want the discerning of spirits. Lord, I receive that now. You said we should earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially we'd prophesy but pursue love, earnestly desire spiritual gifts. Lord, I want to discern the Holy Spirit. I don't want to miss Him anymore. I don't want to miss what the Lord's trying to tell me, I don't want to miss the direction of God in my life, I don't want to miss what You're trying to tell me, what You want me to do. I don't want to miss the answers to my problems, I don't want to miss Your healing, Your love, Your anointing, I don't want to miss it anymore. Lord, give me the gift of discernment and trust and belief.”

Now, if you're saved, you're listening to me, and you've been born again and you've been filled with the Holy Spirit, what happens is your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. The book of Romans tells us that the Holy Spirit is residing within you. Well, the Holy Spirit is omniscient, omnipresent. He is also residing without, He's residing in the world. He's here, He's in the room, He's in the house, He's in the car, He's at your job, He's there, He's there. And He may be speaking and trying to get you to do something but you're so busy you're not listening to Him. But inside of you is the Holy Spirit and the way discernment works, the way I believe it works is the Holy Spirit in me can recognize the Holy Spirit moving. In other words, it's like the Holy Spirit recognizes Himself. I know it sounds kind of silly, but it does. The Holy Spirit within you recognizes when the Holy Spirit is moving without you. 

If you're in a church and something is going on, if what's happening in the church is of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God living in you bears witness of that or is in agreement with that. When what is happening in the church or what is happening in your life or happening on your job is not of the Lord, there's no agreement in your heart with that. So it's not so much of a mental activity as it is a spiritual activity. Being able to discern the Holy Spirit, there's an agreement in your heart. Some people, some– you know, we used to talk about a gut feeling. Well, gut is actually-- means a center of your being, the center of your being is where the Holy Spirit resides and sometimes that gut feeling is how we discern the Holy Spirit. It takes practice, it really takes practice. There'll be times you think things are the Holy Spirit moving or directing and it's not. There'll be times when you miss Him and there'll be times when you get it. And you know the direction the Holy Spirit's trying to move and you go with Him. You join Him and amazing things happen. 

I've often said this, the Holy Spirit moves. We talk about a move of God, a move of God. Well, the Holy Spirit does move. He's not always stationary, there's things that He, He wants to accomplish. It may be in church and the Holy Spirit wants certain songs to be sung and He wants worship to go on a little bit longer and maybe He wants to appear to stillness, for people just get still in front of Him. And maybe He says okay, it's now, it's time for the word and He wants the pastor to bring forth just the word of God and not funny stories but the, the word of God. And maybe the Holy Spirit at the end of the sermon, there's an anointing for salvation and there's an anointing for healing, there's anointing for deliverance or theres an anointing for prophecy. Whatever the anointing is, if you know what it is and you're in sync with what it is, amazing, powerful, incredible things happen. 

I know I'm getting excited but I've seen it so we must get in touch. I know one key that I learned when I was pastoring for so many years, one key I learned was uh, you know, we had a church program that we'd print out every, every week and pass out and there was a, an order of service. Well, praise God for orders of service. We need to be orderly, God's not a God of confusion, but in that order of service, we need to allow time for the Holy Spirit. I tell my students many times, when you're preparing a sermon and let's say you have a– I've seen students who you know, been invited to give a 20-minute sermon and they have about an hour's worth of notes and I tell them, “Where's the Holy Spirit? I mean, how's the Holy Spirit going to speak? You have so many notes there's no room for the Holy Spirit. Give Him room.” I know in my little church that I was pastoring, so many times during the service - it may be at the beginning, it may be at the end of the service, it may be in the middle of service - I would get up and I would say “Holy Spirit, we welcome you. Holy Spirit, come. We welcome You now. We welcome You.” And then we would get still and as we got still, all of a sudden the presence of the Lord would come into the room and things would happen. Amazing things. People would begin to praise spontaneously, people would get healed, people would be– some people be crying on their face, some people be worshipping but just, powerful things were happening and you became unaware of time. All you knew was it was an incredible feeling. The peace of God was in the room, the power of God was in the room, the love of God was in the room and it was wonderful. And I remember so many times all I did was invite Him and then wait on Him and He came.

Maybe in your life right now what you need to do, maybe just invite the Holy Spirit to come. Invite Him to come, invite Him to lead you. Ask forgiveness. Lord, forgive us for not being led by Your Spirit and just led so much by our flesh. Father, help us to be sensitive to you, sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Help us, Father, to be led by You, Father, and to follow Your direction. Father, You said “My sheep know My voice and they follow Me.” Lord, forgive us for not following You and paying attention to You and being in sync with the Holy Spirit and going the direction the Spirit of God is going. Lord, You’re our example. You only did what the Lord told you to do and Lord, that's our model, that's our model. So Lord, help us. For those listening to me, God, I pray that you'll give them the gift of discernment so they will be able to discern what is of You, what is not of You and put our life in order with You, put our life in order with the Holy Spirit. Let us move in Your direction. Let us do what You ask us to do, let us be what You call us to be. Holy Spirit, come. Holy Spirit, come in the name of Jesus Christ. I thank You, Father. I thank You, Jesus. I praise You, Lord.

You know, I, I hope this little podcast has blessed you. Please do the usual stuff. I need reviews and I need you to download and review and rate and all that kind of stuff because it– share… it really helps me reach more people with the message of Jesus Christ. You know, I need your help uh, I've got some special offers. You know, I'm president of the International College of Ministry. As a matter of fact, if you can enroll before the end of the year - I'm not sure when this podcast is coming out - you get a $300 free scholarship. Icmcollege.org, accredited online college. I've got some free courses on my website, icmcollege.org. I've also got some courses that will really help you, they're only 35 bucks for an entire college course, it's called an audit. If you want to audit a course, I've got a– an offer is in the description here and it's also in the uh, in the promo article and it's also in this description of this podcast. There are some special offers where you can get a course for 35 bucks and uh, appreciate you. You know, all that kind of good stuff, all that promo. Love you much, thank you for listening. This is Dr. Ray Self. Father, we choose to be led by the Holy Spirit. Amen, amen and God bless you.

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