Queston for Christians

Amazing1914

If you are a Christian, how do you personally relate to the Holy Spirit?

Do you hear an audible voice external to yourself when He speaks to you?

Do you hear an inner voice when He speaks to you?

If an inner voice, how do you distinguish between your own voice and His?

Do you not hear a voice, but just have an awareness of what He wants?

If you have only an awareness, how do you distinguish between Him and your own conscience?

Do you hear the Holy Spirit by other means, such as through wisdom from people, the Bible, the Church, or when you commune with nature?

Finally, I would like to compile your responses as part of my BRCI paper. I will not quote you or your exact statements. Rather, I only wish to get a general sense of experiences with the Holy Spirit, if any, and categorize these accordingly.

Thanks, Jim Whitney

katiekitten

I have never related to the holy spirit.

I tried and tried, prayed and prayed, cried, begged, performed good and secret works, never asked for anything worldly or selfish. The holy spirit totally eluded me.

I decided it was all a cruel mind game that I couldnt play for some reason only known to god himself.

jgnat

If you are a Christian, how do you personally relate to the Holy Spirit? Do you hear an audible voice external to yourself when He speaks to you?

Never.

Do you hear an inner voice when He speaks to you?

Once.

If an inner voice, how do you distinguish between your own voice and His?

I don’t know. It wasn’t me. It was clear as day, and a command. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I made the phone call as commanded, and it was my first step away from my abuser.

Do you not hear a voice, but just have an awareness of what He wants?

Sometimes.

If you have only an awareness, how do you distinguish between Him and your own conscience?

Most often it’s prescience. That is, a sense of overwhelming peace and His presence just before a traumatic or dramatic event in my life. EVERY TIME I've sensed that overwhelming presence, disaster struck shortly after. It’s like, “Don’t worry, I know what’s coming, and I will take care of you and carry you through.”

Do you hear the Holy Spirit by other means, such as through wisdom from people, the Bible, the Church, or when you commune with nature?

Yes. I believe the Holy Spirit directs me to be sharper with some people than others, to warn them.

proplog2

I tend to think of Holy Spirit like Budhist think of Chi.

proplog2

I meant to say Tao not Chi.

kid-A

Do you hear an audible voice external to yourself when He speaks to you?

Do you hear an inner voice when He speaks to you?

If an inner voice, how do you distinguish between your own voice and His?

Do you not hear a voice, but just have an awareness of what He wants?

If you have only an awareness, how do you distinguish between Him and your own conscience?

>I hope not. These are all symptoms of Schizophrenia.

jgnat

Sheesh, THANKS, Kid-A! I guess I have more in common with my son and my in-laws than I THOUGHT.

My son's voices have helpfully warned him of the Invisible Robots lasering his back, the spy network coming through his cable, and to stay on his medication Or Else.

This last voice, I'd like to mail some home-made muffins to him.

lovelylil

Hi Amazing,

here are my thoughts on Holy Spirit. I believe that Holy Spirit works somewhat differently in each believer but the the main function of Holy Spirit is to guide Christians into the truth of God's word, and help them cultivate the fruits of the spirit. I have been influenced by Holy Spirit in both these areas but in different ways. Here are two examples and the scriptural references as to why I say these two areas are work of the spirit;

John 16:13
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come

When Christians continually learn and grow in God's word, that is the influence of Holy Spirit on them. Sometimes I do get an inner voice when the spirit works on me in this capacity. I will be reading the bible and a scripture will stand out to me for some reason. It will stay in my mind for a long time and I will be constantly mulling it over. Sometimes I think about it when I go to bed and the very next day wake up, still thinking about this verse. Why? well usually this is the "inner voice" of Holy Spirit and I am beeing guided into doing more research of this text to get the proper meaning. This has happened many times to me and after the fact, I always find out when studying the verse more thouroughly that my long held view of this scripture needed to be adjusted because I had the wrong view. The verse recently that this happened to me was on the 144,000. Thus, the Holy Spirit did guide me into the truth. If I accept the truth that I am taught, I will continue to be taught more.

Another way the Holy Spirit has influenced me is by helping me cultivate the fruits of the spirit mentioned in Galatians 5;

Galatians 5:22
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness

When Holy Spirit helps me in this way, (cultivating the fruits of spirit), sometimes I do feel a presence - for lack of a better term, upon me. Here is one example;

I once had some people become very abusive to me for being a Chrisitan (not a JW, but a Christian) and although they screamed and hurled insults at me, telling me I was stupid for believing the fairy tales of the bible, I felt a calming presence that helped me to keep my calm composure. After the fact, several people who witnessed this occurance told me they would have totally punched out the people doing the insulting but were very impressed that I was able to be calm. I even ended the confrontation by telling the abusers I was sorry they were so upset. One of these people needed my help a short time later - and yes I did help him without bringing up what he did to me. You see, when you are influenced by Holy Spirit - you do not keep account of past injuries.

So here I had both an inner voice experience and a feeling of a presence on me helping me to remain in the spirit.

For those who have not had this experience, are you a Christian yet, baptized into Christ and not an organization? Do you firmly believe in the Holy Spirit and that it can and will influence you?

No one can really say who has Holy Spirit or not as we cannot read people's minds and hearts so we should not judge them, but I have found that you have to be a true believer in its power for you to be influenced by it. And the bible does give us some things to look for to know if someone is influenced by God's spirit. It does not mean they will never get upset or have a bad day but they will usually be consistant in being peaceable, loving, caring, kind, etc. for the most part.

Another way we could know we have Holy Spirit is that we will slowly master over our sins. Paul speaks about this in the book of Romans. If we are a Christian and our personality is changing and we are not continuing in our fleshly sins - but becoming more like Christ, the Holy Spirit is on us.

Hope this helps, nice to hear from you, Lilly

gumby

I have never related to the holy spirit.
I tried and tried, prayed and prayed, cried, begged, performed good and secret works, never asked for anything worldly or selfish. The holy spirit totally eluded me.
I decided it was all a cruel mind game that I couldnt play for some reason only known to god himself.

I'm with Katiekitten. No less than two weeks ago I did this very thing. It was something I hadn't done in a long while....but I did it. It took alot me for me to do this. I called out, I begged, I asked, pleaded, whatever.......and nothing happened. The same thing happened as every other single time I had done this in the past...nothing. Why do you suppose the only time god or jesus spoke to others was in times past? Why doesn't he do it now? he did it for 4 thousand years, but the last two thousand he's quiet in this manner. They say it's because he speaks through his son.....but I haven't heard his son either. His son said he would send the spirit to teach me....but in all my searching, asking and waiting, I found more confusion and no answers......so I gave up and do not plan on doing anymore begging. If he really wants me....he knows where I'm at I suppose. Sorry Amazing if I said things you weren't looking for, but it's my experience I felt was as good as anyone else's comment. Gumby

Sad emo

I've heard an inner voice loud and clear twice. Both at times when I was about to make critically life-changing decisions (well actually, one was about to be a life-ending decision!). All I can say is that it was audible and definitely not me thinking words in my head. Also at times when I've been ill, I've been aware of a voice but not known what it was saying, I was aware of a deep inner peace though. I spoke with others about this and they suggest that it was the Holy Spirit 'ministering' directly to my spirit.

Many times I have an awareness of what he wants, this is difficult to separate from your own conscience I feel, because I think that the conscience is trained and guided by the Holy Spirit. However, there have been other times when I believe I've been guided apart from my conscience too, again experiencing a deep peace and knowledge that I'm doing the right thing - and equally a deeply unsettling feeling when I'm not.

And I definitely hear the Holy Spirit through other people (maybe what you'd call 'a word in season'?), when reading the Bible, sometimes a verse will 'jump off the page' even though I've read it a hundred times before! The Bible is so 'alive' to me! And when communing with nature, I feel I sometimes learn lessons from what I see and hear. I try to stay 'tuned in' to everything that goes on around me.

He just brings a deep inner peace to my whole life. It's hard to describe, but it doesn't matter how hectic or crappy my life is on the surface, there's always this unruffled part of me within. To me, this is the presence of the Holy Spirit.

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