we see this woman she sees this prophet who passed her by who came for a meal
and now she decides to host him in her house and she sets up four pieces of
furniture and these four pieces of furniture was to accommodate the men of
God who was coming by and today I just wanted to prophetically look and they
digest just simple simple instruction of how these four pieces of furniture
actually relate to four facets of your relationship with the Holy Spirit in
your life what happens next was the Bible says that he put a lamp in
the room the lamp speaks the Bible says in Proverbs that the lamp of the Lord
the spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord this is your spirit your spirit has
no effect on your spiritual life when you don't know Jesus Christ and to
follow your gut like Oprah says when your gut has not been following your God
it will lead you into a rut to follow your spirit when your spirit has not
been born again it's like following this lamp in the dark how many of you know
this lamp in the dark is not gonna give you any elimination and direction are
you with me and so until your spirit is born again your spirit is dead and
therefore to follow your gut or I'm just gonna follow what what what my heart is
saying your heart is dark even though it's painted white it produces no light
and so the Bible says that the Spirit of the man is the lamp of the Lord when we
develop intimacy with the Holy Spirit the second facet of our relationship
with the Holy Spirit is to learn his voice and I want to share with you just
practically on how to hear the voice of God we have to understand jesus said my
sheep they know my voice he didn't say my sheep they only know my words to know
the voice of God is the greatest privilege in life because when you know
what God wants you to do you don't have to compete with your neighbor you don't
have to be jealous of someone else because you know what's
expected of you and you know that it doesn't matter what somebody else is
doing what God asks you to do is really what matters in life are you with me to
know the voice of the Lord is the greatest treasure in life and to know
God's voice is not that difficult I want to show you something about the lamp in
order for the lamp to shine the first thing that must happen is the court has
to be connected to the power and that means intimacy with the Holy Spirit
whatever you are filled with you will be led by meaning when you're filled with
the Holy Spirit you will begin to sense his leading in your life the Bible says
when the Holy Spirit filled Jesus only then Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit
Jesus was not led by the Holy Spirit until he was filled with the Holy Spirit
the focus is not to hear God's voice the focus of our life has to be to be filled
with God's Spirit because when you fill with God's Spirit you will be able to
discern his voice automatically when I was younger I prayed and I fasted I said
god I want to hear your voice and I tried to pay attention but it's actually
a lot more simpler if you don't focus on hearing God but you focus on being
filled with God you'll be able to discern between his voice your voice
your neighbor's voice the devil's voice and the Society's voice the same way you
discern your voice and your mama's voice why because you know her why because
you're close to her and in order to hear the voice of God you got to be filled
with the Spirit of God it means constantly fill yourself with
the Holy Scriptures constantly fast constantly pray constantly fill yourself
with memorizing the Bible constantly fill yourself with surrounding yourself
with believers constantly surround yourself in a small group so you are
filled with the Spirit of God and it will be interesting how the same
thoughts came to you before but now they're not going to be your thoughts
they're gonna be Holy Spirit speaking and giving insights and whispers to you
that would be leading of the Holy Spirit are you with me are you with me say man
if you're still here not only the lamp is connected but I
wants to see this this lamp has to be on a socket for it to produce light not
only you have to develop a prayer life and an intimacy with the Holy Spirit
where you filled but the second thing that I believe is very important to
hearing the voice of God is that you gotta go on the socket of the Holy
Scriptures in order for what you hear not to be deception heresy and delusion
it's called the holy scripture the Holy Spirit never leads us outside of the
boundaries of the Holy Scriptures amen it means the Holy Spirit will not tell
you to marry a drug dealer the Holy Spirit is not gonna tell you to go and
make money by selling your body in the street the Holy Spirit is not gonna go
against the Holy Scripture why because the author doesn't contradict his
writing he is the author of the Bible there was 40 writers but he was the only
one after in the Bible and the Holy Spirit doesn't contradict the holy
scriptures are you with me church amen and thirdly let's I believe and this is
very important is when you start hearing God make sure you have some people who
cover your voices I call them man tours and pastors because when you start
hearing God you actually can sometimes miss God and end up in the problem and
therefore you have to have a pastor around you a home group leader around
you a youth pastor around you somebody who is older in the Lord who you can
sometimes double check things with and if you marry of course your spouse
people will say well if God spoke to me I don't need nobody to approve it I
don't doubt the ability that you hear God the only problem is that you have a
filter inside of you through which you hear God with and secondly is the Bible
says in the New Testament let one or two prophesy and the rest judge interesting
if God is speaking why does God give us the right and the command to judge his
voice it's not the voice of God we judge it's
the fact that vessel God is using can be polluted
have you heard prophets whom God uses powerfully but they're so judgmental why
because the vessel is detrimental the Holy Spirit is not going to overpower
you the Holy Spirit will flow through your personality through your knowledge
through your tradition the Holy Spirit will flow through you and therefore in
order to protect your life always be submitted to your pastor even though God
speaks to you because if you're not submitted to your pastor if you're not
submitted to the leadership in the church and you develop a prophetic
anointing where you start hearing God and seeing visions and all the time
but in your life that is no fruit you might end up as being a crazy nut not a
spiritual fruit and the prophetic will quickly slip into pathetic and very soon
you will find yourself not being productive in the kingdom of God I
cannot tell you how many times I felt strongly the Lord led me to something
and I double-checked with my wife and my wife beat that out of me quickly
double-checked with my pastor and my pastor was a flat but it sure this is
the Lord but I'm not sure this is the right time without the covering your
light will blind other people but with the covering your light begins to
illuminate your life get somebody say Amen somebody say intimacy somebody say
leading of the Holy Spirit