lord, is that you?

Hello friend! Welcome to the blog!

How are y’all doing today? Ok, I know I ask this every time and that I can’t physically hear you in the moment, but I still feel like y’all might answer me out loud or respond. I don’t know but I do care about you guys and genuinely want to check in and see how y’all are doing. We are a family, and I want us to do life together! So, even though we can’t physically talk out loud to each other right now, I hope it still feels like we are having a conversation in a way if that makes any sense :)

So y’all I really had no idea what we were going to talk about today until legit like 10 minutes ago. (Well, 10 minutes ago since I was writing this) The Lord just laid the topic of hearing and distinguishing His voice on my heart. This is something that I have definitely had to walk through in my life, and it used to be very hard for me to hear the voice of God, and distinguish it. I used to think that God just wasn’t speaking to me and I didn't know if it was something that I was doing to cause this. I just didn’t know what I was missing. It felt like God was just up in the sky and not near to me. And then even when I did start to hear God, it was very hard to distinguish His voice between all the other voices inside my head. Have you ever felt like there was just a tornado of thoughts swirling around in your mind constantly? Yeah, this is pretty much exactly what my mind was like. Thoughts of anxiety, fear, and insecurity were constantly consuming my mind. And this isn’t to say that it doesn’t still happen sometimes. The enemy is constantly trying to get control of our minds so we are distracted and can’t clearly hear the voice of Abba. But God has equipped us with the tools to fight the enemy. Abba wants to clean our minds! Y’all the truth is that God is always near and speaking to us. He wants us to be a Father to us; speaking and guiding us, comforting and defending us!

I didn’t hear the voice of God until I started reading the Bible. Point blank period. The Bible is the main way that the Lord speaks to us, and it says in John chapter 1 that the Word is God. Jesus is the Word made flesh. The Bible is living and active (Hebrews 4:12), it is our sword that we use to fight the enemy (Ephesians 6:17). I love this quote from Pastor Jarod Smith, he said:

“I think you can hear God. You may just need to spend more time in His Word so you can understand His language.”

God is always speaking to us, but we need to be able to understand Him and distinguish His voice. How do we do that? By reading our Bibles! I am a living testament of this! It wasn’t until I was reading my Bible every day that I was able to hear and understand God’s voice. It says in James 4:8 to “come close to God and He will come close to you.” (NLT) By desiring to hear God’s voice, taking action to draw near to Him, being still in His presence and giving Him space to speak/move, (Psalm 46:10) we are putting ourselves in the position to hear God’s voice. So, if you want to hear God’s voice, then you need to be reading your Bible-everyday. We need to be constantly renewing our mind, and washing it with the truth. (Romans 12:2) The world tries to fill our heads with all these distractions- all these thoughts that will turn our attention away from the Lord. Satan tries to fill our head with lies to take us out of the game. If we aren’t constantly washing our mind in the Bible, then we are literally letting our mind be a playground for the enemy.

When you are reading God’s Word, then you will be able to understand His language and distinguish between God’s voice, and the enemy’s voice. Here are the attributes of God’s voice that we find all throughout Scripture:

loving, kind, patient, compassionate, forgiving, still, powerful, with authority, peaceful, sometimes convicting, truthful (always in line with the Bible. God never contradicts His Word)

When God speaks, you will feel His loving kindness. You will feel His peace comfort and strengthen you. It will be powerful and with His authority (cause He is literally God!). It may convict you- not condemn- convict. God wants you to get rid of anything that is getting in the way of Him, so He will reveal these to you in His amazing Fatherly way, so you can repent and turn to Him. And then, He is already there, ready to forgive you. God’s voice is truthful- always in line with the Bible. God never contradicts His Word, and He will speak the truths of His Word over you- this may look like Him bringing certain Scriptures to your mind that you had stored in your heart from being in the secret place. God’s voice empowers you, it strengthens you, it gives you hope and confidence!

Now, what does the enemy’s voice sound like?

fearful, anxious, makes you doubt and question the truth, lies, manipulative, shameful/guilt, condemning, anger, self doubt/insecurity

Satan tries to fill your mind with fear. Satan tries to tear you down with anxiety and lies. You weren’t born with anxiety, it’s not a part of you. It isn’t your portion. That is Satan trying to take hold of your mind- because if he can do that then he can control your actions. Satan tries to make you doubt and question the truth. It’s like the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 1! Satan asked Eve if God “really” told her she couldn’t eat the fruit. That is causing her to question, and doubt- that is manipulative. Satan will try and get you to feel so bad about yourself- so bad that you can’t hear/see others or God. He tries to get you to fixate on your imperfections (we all have em!), and to obsess over the things that don’t really matter in life! He will try and get you to focus on things that will take you away from the Lord- tempting you to go after things that he makes seem appealing, but that actually end in death. Satan tries to get you to remember all your past mistakes- condemning you and shaming you for your past.

Satan calls you by your sin- but God calls you by your name. So whenever you are having thoughts that are not from God, you need to grab your Bible- your sword of the spirit- and go to war over your mind. The thing is, the battle is already won! Jesus has already won the battle! Don’t let the enemy try to convince you that he is this big ol threat; he’s actually tiny! So you need to pray- and when I say pray- I mean pray! If you have to literally stand up and punch and kick the air, then do that! Get intense with the enemy! Use the authority and power that you have in Jesus Christ to rebuke him!

In order to clear our minds and get the enemy out, we have to one, confess. It says in James 5:16 to confess our sins to each other so we may be healed. We have to first confess and bring the mind whirlwind to the light, so then it can go away! God can’t heal what we keep in the dark, (because He has given us free-will) so we have to be honest with Him and confess. Then, we need to repent of giving satan any footholds or power over us. We need to come out of agreement of the spirits we were believing and letting dwell in our minds. Then, we need to rebuke satan! We gotta tell him to go sit in that corner and watch us live with power, love and sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth , satan you have no power here and you need to get out of my mind!” Then we need to replace it with God’s truth! It says in the Bible that if we don’t replace it, then it will just come back 7 times worse than before. (Matthew 12:43-45) So whatever satan is trying to attack you with, you gotta find verses that combat those lies. Replace every lie and attack with God’s Word!

And some battles are harder to fight than others. There have been times in my life where all it took was a simple rebuke and replace and my mind was clear in the Lord again. Other times, it took some more combat. Actually, there was a season of my life where I was having really bad dreams. And this was happening every night for weeks. I would pray and go to war in the Spirit every night. But y’all I actually started sleeping with my Bible, and that is what made my bad dreams go away. So yeah, prayer, and the Word of God works. Now, I sleep with my Bible every night, and haven’t had a bad dream since!

I also want to mention, that if we want to have a clean mind that is fixed on Jesus, then we have to be careful of what we allow in, and what or who we allow pour into us. It says in Proverbs 4:23 to “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” The movies you watch, the music you listen to, the people you listen to, all of those are gateways to your heart and mind. Are the things your are watching and listening to bringing your closer to Jesus? Are they refining you? Are they cleaning your mind? Or are they adding to the temptations, and the distractions that pull you farther away from God. Are they influencing you to do things that are against the Lord? Are they adding more wind to the mind tornado? There are so many things the enemy tries to put in your brain so you can’t truly follow God. Things that hinder you from going all in with Jesus. I want you to take inventory right now. Are there things you need to take out of our life in order for you to be closer to God? In order for you to have a clean mind? If so, please take action to cut these things out. I promise, that there will be amazing breakthrough, and new depths of intimacy with Jesus on the other side.

One last thing- I do think that everyone hears the voice of God a little differently. I think that for some people it is kinda like an email- you say something to Abba and then He responds after a while of you just being still in His presence. For some, it’s more like texting, where it’s more of an immediate response or more conversational. I also think that Abba speaks in different ways too. For me, it’s more of the texting or very conversational- like Abba is physically right there with me. But no way is better than the other- it’s God who is speaking! You don’t have to hear God’s voice in this particular way in order for it to count. God speaks to us in different ways!

Let the Lord clean your conscience today. The world tells you that you can do a bunch of things to clear your mind. And while some of these yes indeed do clear your mind, only Jesus can CLEAN your mind. Don’t let the enemy distract you with the things of this world. Don’t give him your attention. Take every thought captive, continually every day. (2 Corinthians 10:5) Set your mind of things above (Colossians 3:2), and meditate on The Word, day and night (Psalms 1:1-2).

Thank you so much for reading friend! I hope that this helped you win the war of your mind today! Now, walk in the sound mind that God has made available for you! Can we do something really cool today y’all? Can we tell somebody about how amazing Jesus is? Let’s live and walk like Jesus today! Stay tuned for the next blog post! I love you and Jesus loves you more! :)