Hear My Voice

Open your Bibles to John chapter 10 and meet me at verse 27. John chapter 10 and verse 27. I'm going to be brief today, but I'm also going to share something with you today that will start a series on the Holy Spirit. We've been talking about the Holy Spirit, but we'll begin to continue to talk about the voice of the Spirit of God. Jesus tells us in John chapter 10, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. Read it with me together as loud as you can. Ready? Read.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. In today's message, the Lord has inspired me to share with you about the clarity of hearing the voice of God. Many of us will admit that we want to hear him more clearly. We want to make sure that he is speaking to us and that we can understand the gravity by which he is sharing with us. There are many people that will say they don't hear from God, or there are people that say, I wish I could hear from the Holy Spirit better.

There are some people that miss God a lot. I know people that God said this, and it's not him who is speaking. So there's a lot of confusion around the voice of God, and today I want to bring some clarity regarding how to hear from God. First and foremost, we must understand that Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice. And so in scriptures, a lot of times the people of God are considered sheep because Jesus is considered a shepherd and he's the great shepherd. He's the good shepherd.

And so we're considered sheep and we have a really good shepherd who leads, feeds, and protects us. And sheep hear the voice of their shepherd. Matter of fact, sheep are very good at hearing the voice of their shepherd. And Jesus says here, my sheep hear my voice. Now this is a promise from Jesus to you and I that we hear the voice of God.

Go ahead and release your faith and say this after me. I hear the voice of God. We hear the voice of God. So if Jesus has promised that my sheep will hear my voice, then we have to understand that we are not deaf. All right, listen to me. We are not deaf. And so if someone comes to you and they say, I don't hear the voice of God, then you can conclude one of two things, that they are not part of the sheepfold of Jesus, Jesus?

Or you can conclude that they're lying. That's the only two, because Jesus said, my sheep hear. So you either are not a sheep and you don't follow Jesus, or you're just lying to me and you're doing whatever you want to do and you're ignoring the voice of the good shepherd. And so sheep hear. You and I hear. We're created to hear the voice of God. And this word hearing is not just, you know, hearing sounds or having heard something.

This voice here means that my sheep actually listen to the voice of the good shepherd. And one of the major functions that the Holy Spirit is in us, on us, and with us is so that we can hear from heaven, that we can hear Jesus, that we can listen to him, that that we can comprehend, that we can know and we can understand what Jesus is saying to us. And the primary way we hear from heaven is through reading of the word of God.

Every time we read the word of God, we're hearing from heaven. But there is another way that we can hear the voice of God, and that's through the spoken word of God. So listening requires focus, right? Listening requires you giving God your attention. Listening requires that you sacrifice any and every other thing in order to hear what God is speaking.

There are many times I've noticed this, that when my children get on my nerves, and how many of you know it's true, your children can get on your nerves. And I hear that grown children get on nerves too. But one of the things I've noticed when listening and hearing and being frustrated or being upset with my children is I'm distracted with other things. So when they come to me and say, Daddy, this, that, and the third, I get really upset. Why? Because I was doing something else.

And that something else caused me to be distracted from which what they're asking me to do. What's more important? My children are whatever I was doing. My children are more important, right? And so what typically happens is because of distractions, and how many of you know we live in a world of distractions? Everything is trying to distract us. That is the goal of the enemy is to get you distracted. That distraction will cause you to not be able to listen and hear the voice of God.

And so when I let go of my distraction and listen to my children, they actually don't frustrate me as much as I originally thought. So why? Because I stopped being distracted and I gave them my full attention. When you give the Holy Spirit your full attention, you're going to be able to hear from him. And one of the most important gifts we can give God is our attention. Okay?

Giving him our concentration, giving him our life, giving him our ear, giving him our focus is one of the most important things that we can ever give God because he is a speaking spirit and he wants to talk to us. But because we are distracted, then we can't hear correctly from him.

And so we've got to give him our attention and not just, you know, three minutes a day when I'm reading the Bible all day long. Have an ear to hear what God is saying to us through the Holy Spirit. And so he says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them. That means they are skilled in listening to my voice. You and I ought to be skilled in hearing the voice of God. We need to be professional hearers and listeners to what God is saying. And Jesus is telling us, they know me.

Say, I know Jesus. They know me. You know him. So you know his voice because you know him. And when you know him, you can trust his voice. And I'm going to get into this later on today and in the next couple of weeks of how to hear God clearly, but we can trust His voice when we know Him. Many years ago, I had a, something happened abruptly that I had to be out of town, and I recorded a message for Sunday mornings, the first time we had ever done this.

I pre-recorded a message, and we had this big old screen right here on the platform. It was a blow-up screen, and Joshua Genie owned one of these screens, but it was really big, and it was me. I recorded a message, and I was preaching to you guys because I was unable to be here. Now, this was before COVID, right? Now, COVID taught us we can use a lot of TV and technology and that sort of thing, so this was before, and I was nervous that I'm not going to be able to make it.

I had to be out of town, but I put this screen up, and hopefully people get engaged with the screen and hear the words coming out of my mouth because it's words from God. And I was prayerful. I was hoping and mispressed them. Robert's wife who transitioned to heaven, she said to me something that just blessed me. She said, you weren't there in the flesh, but we heard your voice and we can trust your voice. I thought, man, that's it right there. That's a voice I can trust.

Even though you weren't there in the flesh, I trust the voice. And this is where we have to get with Jesus where we just trust his voice. His voice is speaking and we are professional hearers. We are intentional listeners. We give him our focus and our attention because he is speaking to us. Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they, my sheep, they follow my voice. Say, I follow the voice of Jesus. I follow the voice of Jesus.

Now, in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, and look at verse 23, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, and in verse 23, the Apostle Paul tells us, now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now I want to take a moment here and dissect this verse for you because I want you to understand that you are a three-part being, all right? You are a spirit, you have a soul, and you live in a body.

And Paul's saying the God of peace is going to sanctify you completely, your spirit, your soul, and your body. Let's start with your spirit. You are a spirit. When God created you, he created your spirit first and then placed your spirit inside of a body. You, when God said, let us make man in our image, he wasn't talking about flesh. He was talking about spirit. And so he created a spirit that's just like his spirit. A spirit likened unto himself and put that spirit, you, inside of a body.

So you are in the image, you're a reflection, you are a copy of the spirit of God. God is a speaking spirit. You are speaking spirits. When God speaks, things change. Because you are a spirit, when you speak, things change.

This is why it's important what is coming out of your mouth because if you keep saying I'm broke busting and discussing I'm broke I'm broke I'm broke you're gonna start grabbing a hold of being broke and brokenness is going to come to you but I start saying I'm blessed I'm rich I'm prosperous I'm healthy I'm strong I have a clear mind and I'm good looking come on somebody say Amen. It matters what you say. And so you are a spirit creating in the image of God.

That's who you are. You are not this flesh. You are not a black man, a white woman, a Mexican woman, a Puerto Rican. You are a spirit created in the image of God. And God decided for you to be Be whatever sex you are in junior year, that's why God don't make mistakes, all right? So if he placed you inside of a female body, you are a female. He didn't make a mistake. I thought I could bet any man in that, but it's true. No, and we're here to help people.

We're here to help people understand that we don't want to make fun of them. We're here to help understand that God don't make any mistakes, so you must be confused. And so God put your spirit inside of a male or a female in order to dominate this earth. And then he gave you a soul. And your soul is your mind, your will, your emotions, your thinker. How do you think? How do you process?

How do you make decisions? decisions. Your soul is the part of you that is dealing with reasoning and analytics and thought process and decision making. He gave you a soul which is full of emotion. Sometimes theology and some ministers try to tell us that I don't feel anything.

Well, it's hard not to feel anything thing because you have a soul so you're gonna feel something now I'm not moved by what I feel I don't make decisions by what I feel I don't act out how I feel but I do feel something, I feel something and so and and a lot of times I'll say this men males men are very.

They're very caught up in their thinking and the ladies females are are caught up in their feelings but one of the things that I think is so very important is men and women need each other because Stacy helps me feel and I help her think through things here's what's important one time this happened to me somebody Somebody said something bad about me, stabbed me in the back, made me look bad, lied on me. I mean, it was getting spread around. That happens a lot in my profession. And guess what?

I'm grown to the point that I'm going for it, even though all that kind of happens. It happens, and I just keep it moving forward. You know what I mean? And so, one time somebody had really did me bad, and CeCe said, you know, how you feel? And I started telling her how I think. Well, I think that he's lying, and I think that I have some things I want to say to him about that and I think he's making up stuff. She said, well, how do you feel? I said, well, this is what I think.

I told you what I feel. I'm telling you what I think. And she said, no, no, how do you feel? I told you. No, that's not telling me. I feel you're telling me what you think you're going to do and how you're going to respond. How do you feel? And I paused and I said, I feel hurt. I feel disrespected. I feel like this person was my friend. And now they're saying, and then I started. Getting almost emotional. I didn't realize that I was hurt by what that person was doing and saying.

And you can't begin to heal until you recognize the hurt. And a lot of times in conversation, if you listen, men, listen, when your sister, brother, wife, not brother, excuse me, sister, aunt, wife is talking to you, listen, because they're telling you how they feel. And ladies, listen, when your brother, husband, father talk to you, he's telling you what he thinks.

And in order to get on the same page, you have to ask the right questions so that you can now begin to communicate, okay, I see what you're saying and I feel what you're feeling. And a lot of times us men can't feel, somebody needs to hear this today, we can't feel what our wives or aunts and sisters, mothers are feeling because we have yet to get tapping to the emotional side of us because we're very hard and tough and we don't get upset.

You know, we get angry. We don't get upset. We get angry. It's okay to say, man, that hurt me. Now, this is generally speaking, some men are very in tune to their feelings more often than not. One time I had a particular friend that he was, something happened and he was upset about something, and I told Stacey about it. I said, he's really upset with me about this. Stacey said, you're going to have to treat him like a female. I said, what do you mean? She said, how would you do that if I did it?

And I said, this is how I respond. You've got to respond the same way with him. So I did. I said, man, I am so sorry, man. I should have done that. And he's like, yeah, that's what I was thinking. You should have. Everybody's not the same, but he needed to be treated a little differently. He got his feelings hurt about, let me tell you how he got his feelings hurt. I was working in corporate America, and we were all talking about going to the

movies, a bunch of guys. We're going to go to the movies. And he said, well, I ain't going to the movies with a bunch of guys. So we said, well, we're not going to invite him, right? He said, we're going. So we ended up going to the movies, and then he got upset that he didn't get invited. So I was like, dude, why you don't say it to me? Why you coming to me? You didn't want to go. You said you weren't going to go. And she's like, calm down.

How would you, how would you, I would tell you, well, I'm sorry, I shouldn't invite you. She said, you do that when you're, I said, man, I'm sorry, I shouldn't invite you. He was like, I'm okay, you know, you guys should have invited me. I don't know where I'm going with this, except we got to be on the same page. We got to feel what people feel. And we got to think the same way. And it's okay to know that there are differences.

This is why God made us different. and we need to embrace the differences and stop getting angry with each other about it. And too many divorces and breaksups are happening because someone's feeling a certain way and we're thinking a certain thing and we're not getting in line with each other. Take a step back and say, okay, this person is really emotional about this. Maybe I need to feel what they feel. Take a step back and say, this person is really analytical about this.

Maybe I need to be a little more analytical as well. Come on, somebody say amen. man. So you have a soul and you live in a body. This body we live in is here today. It's gone tomorrow. It's the temple of God. It's temporary. God's chosen to put the spirit and the soul inside of a body. This body comes in different shapes, sizes, sexes. This is a body that is not Not really you, but you are housed in this body. And what I want you to understand in this body is there are things that we have

to do, spirit, soul, and body, in order to operate in the earth. We're all three, okay? The spirit, your spirit contacts the invisible realm. There is another realm that we can't see with our eyes. It's invisible. God is invisible. But you believe he exists, right? Radio waves are invisible, right? But they exist. Spiritual things are invisible. And our spirit man can contact the spiritual realm, the invisible realm. Your body can't, but your spirit man can.

Your soul can contact the intellectual realm. Your soul can contact the realm of what you can see your soul can is is is an operation to to facilitate what happens with what your eyes can see it's almost like it's linear right this is how your soul can contact your spirit the invisible realm your soul can contact what you You can see in your body contacts the physical realm. Or what you can feel, what you can touch, taste, hear, see, and what else am I missing?

Touch, taste, hear, see, smell. Thank you. And smell. Your body can contact that realm. There was a particular time, I got to tell you all this story. I debated telling the story on the way in, but I'm going to tell you anyway. So I used to work a job, and this particular job was 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. And I enjoyed it because I got up early and had the rest of my day.

But sometimes when you get up there early, you don't always take care of all the things you need to take care of, such as lotion, okay? I can be a little ashy sometimes, okay? So I used to have lotion sitting at my desk. So I would come in, and if I forgot to put lotion on, I would grab the lotion at my desk, get my elbows, my wrists, you know. And this man says to me, he was a Christian man, he says to me, he says, I see you put that lotion on every day.

I say, yeah, man, I'm a little ashy sometimes, and I need a little lotion. He said, I don't need any lotion. I said, well, good for you, man. That's awesome. I mean, I don't know why you even brought it up. This is my lotion, okay? He said, I read the Bible. Well, I do too. And the Bible moisturizes me. So what you're doing, you got that fake moisture. When I read the Bible, the Bible just moisturizes. and I don't even need to use that lotion. This man was serious when he said this.

I said, man, I got work to do, man, you know, and I let him go on. So I had told a friend of mine this story and this particular friend of mine was a pretty heavyset guy, but he had lost a lot of weight. He said, the Lord told him, I need for you to begin to lose weight. And I'm gonna tell you why. The Lord told me to tell you the story. He needed, he was believing God for a spouse and all these beautiful women, He was like, man, he was attracted to this beautiful woman, this one.

The Lord said, would that woman be attracted to you? And he thought, oh, I don't know. And he said, the Lord said, I need you to start losing weight. So he started losing weight. Now, this man started working out, like, all the time. Like, I knew him. He was always working out, changing his diet. And he ended up losing close to 150 pounds.

I mean, he lost a lot of weight. And just working out and eating right and doing what the Lord said do, Well, he's talking to this particular guy, and the guy comes up to him, the same guy. The guy comes up to him and says, man, I've noticed you lost a lot of weight. My goodness, you have trimmed down. You lost a lot. What are you doing? And he knew my story. He said, all I do is just read the Bible. When I read the Bible, weight just falls off me. While I'm reading, it just comes off.

The guy said, for real? LAUGHTER. And he said he had the guy going for a little bit, and he finally told the guy. He said, no, man, I've been working out a whole lot. I've spent a lot of time in the gym, so on and so forth. And the guy was like, oh, oh, oh. And so we laugh about that story. And the man still thinks reading the Bible moisturizes his body. I don't know.

But I said that to say in the physical realm, because your body touches the physical realm, you're going to have to do some physical thing.

You are a three-part being spirit soul body and each of these three need to be addressed all right your spirit needs the word of God Jesus said my words are spirit and they are life your spirit needs the word of God your soul needs the needs needs needs to be renewed with the word of You need to start changing the way you think that lines up with what the Word of God says. So your soul needs to be renewed with the Word, and your body needs physical contact, touch, physical activity.

Your body actually needs something physical. And the Lord spoke this to me back in 2013.

I had gotten real sick in my body. I was losing a pound a day. I don't know. We still to this day don't know what was happening to me. And I had gotten really, really weak to the point I couldn't pick up my children. My wife used to have to push me out of the bed. I was weak. She would, like, put her leg and try to, you know, get me out of bed. And I couldn't get out of bed. I was really weak. We didn't know what was going on. And I was crying one day in the bed. Lord, heal me. Heal me.

Lord, I believe I received my healing. And the Lord said something powerful to me. He said, my people don't prepare for long battles. Teach my people to prepare for long battles. And what happened was when I had first started, felt the symptoms coming, but I thought it was a 24-hour sort of bug. So I didn't do nothing about it until that lasted for three weeks.

And I kept getting weaker and weaker and weaker. And the Lord told me, you prepared for a 24-hour fight, and this fight was going to last 21 days. And so we need to prepare for long battles. We really do. You go into a battle prepared that it might be long. Now, believe God it might happen fast, but prepare that it might go a lot longer. And let me tell you something that I've learned in ministry and in life. Everything takes longer than I think.

I mean, everything does. Everything takes longer than I think. And so the Lord told me, prepare for long battles. So now when I go into battle, I prepare. Because if you prepare to fight forever, you won't be fighting long, right? And so I prepare for long battles now. But here's the part where the Lord spoke to me. My spirit was getting the word. I had the word going. I was playing the teaching of the word. I was reading my Bible. I had the word going when my spirit was strong.

And then as I'm reading the word, my soul was getting stronger. I'm healed, I'm healed, but my body needed a little kick. And I went to the doctor and Stacey heard by the spirit of God, she said, your iron's low. Tell them to check your iron. And they were like, oh, we don't normally check iron this and that. I said, check my iron.

And they said, okay, we checked it and it was really, really low. and they gave me an iron boost and right a couple days right after that I was back I was fine glory be to God what what happened I needed all three I needed the word I needed to renew my mind and my body needed a little boost and what typically happens especially with Christians is we think well I'm speaking the word speaking or speaker have you gone to the doctor no go to the the doctor.

Get your checkup. Find out what the doctor's saying, because it might be something real simple that they can help you in your body. Your body needs addressing as well. Your spirit does, your soul does, and your body. But here's the point I want to make to you today.

Each of the three have a voice. So when you say I'm hearing voices, the truth of the matter is you are hearing voices. I'm going to come down because I want to talk to you. You are hearing voices. You are. I'm hearing voices. Tell me multiple things to do. Yes, because you are a three-part being. The voice of your spirit is your conscience. Conscience, the voice of your soul is reasoning, and the voice of your body is feeling.

Now, this is vitally important because when you are sitting and attempting to hear from God, you are hearing lots of voices. Your body's telling you, I'm tired. I'm tired. I feel hurt. I feel disgusted. I feel like cussing somebody out. I don't feel like going to church. I don't feel like listening. I don't feel like working out. I don't feel like being nice today. That's the voice of your body. And it'll tell you, go on and get you some,

go to the cheesecake factory and get you a whole cheesecake and eat it that same day. All of it. That's what your body will say. There are times that I have parked at the gym and I didn't want to go in. Can I be honest with y'all? And I made up a reason why I couldn't go in. I just made up something. I'm sitting in the parking lot. My body said, we don't want to do it. I said, yeah, we don't want to do it. No, we don't. Oh, man, you know what? I forgot one of my ear pods. You know what?

That's it. I can't go to the gym today. I've done that before. My body talked to me, and I listened to my body. There are times that your soul will talk to you and you begin to reason and you begin to be analytical and you begin to write things out. And I'm not saying this is wrong. I'm just saying recognize what's talking to you. Well, here's my pros. How many write this out? Pros, cons. And I write down, here are all my pros. Not saying that's wrong.

I'm just saying that's your soul talking to you. Here's all my cons. Oh, I got more pros than cons. I think that's the right decision. And we'll begin to analyze and reason and we'll begin to think and we'll begin to overthink and we'll begin to stay up at night and feel fear or feel dread or get excited because we have analyzed of what our soul is telling us to do.

But our spirit, which is created like Jesus, if you're born again, you gave your life to the Lord, your spirit became new, a species of being that never existed before, reborn, and the Holy Spirit came to live on the inside of your spirit. And when your spirit is talking to you, it's about conscience. It's about a still, small voice, a witness like this is right. Even Even if your mind says it's not in my gut, I think this is the right thing to do.

Your spirit will begin to talk to you about morals and principles and doing the right thing. Now we're hearing from God when we can get quiet and we can listen to our conscience. And if you are a believer who endeavors to do what's right, you can trust your conscience. Did you hear me? You can trust your conscience. If you are a believer and I endeavor to do what's right, I'm going to trust what my conscience is saying. So there are a lot of voices.

And your conscience is normally the quietest voice. Your body has the loudest voice. The feelings are going to be very, very loud.

Your soul has a analytical sort of nervousness anxiety voice because we got to figure this out before we do anything but your spirit is going to hear from the spirit and it's going to be about principles right wrong. Green light. I'll talk about that later on sometime about how I go by a red light, a yellow light, or a green light just right in my gut. Man, that's a green light. I'm going to go that direction. That's a yellow light. Let me caution you.

That's definitely a red light. Let's not go that way. And I don't even have to go through my pros and cons list. If I get a red light, I don't even go through the list. I just stop and just follow my spirit.

Spirit and you have all of you is hearing voices and if you will begin to trust the voice of your spirit i keep pointing right here because this is where the spirit abides is he's in you in your gut area you begin to trust that voice that voice to tell you don't talk back to your mom and dad that that voice to tell you go ahead and and and say nice things about your spouse that that voice is to tell you, don't retaliate.

That voice on the inside of you will begin to talk to you if you'll heed and listen to the voice. Just recently, the Lord told me to give someone $100, and I was going to meet them, and the Lord said, give them $100. Well, this is how I factored in, was it the Lord? Do I want to give them $100? No. No, I mean, I'm, you know, I got things I want to do, right? And so I said, well, my body didn't want to give $100. My mind said, well, aren't you saving up and believing God for certain things?

But my spirit said, give him $100. So you know what I did? I quickly ran to the bank, because if I think too long, I'll talk myself out of it, and you will too. I quickly ran to the bank, pulled out $100, because I knew I was meeting with this guy. We met, and at the end, I slid him $100. I said, the Lord told me to get this to you. He's like, oh, my gosh, thank you, you know, God, whatever the case may be. This is hearing from God.

Now, I haven't even introduced yet because let me just say it this way. Believers have five voices that they're hearing, okay? Because another voice is the devil, and he's talking through thoughts. And then you have the Holy Spirit. So let me tell you the five believers have.

You have the voice of your spirit. You have the voice of the Holy Spirit. You have the voice of your soul the voice of your body and the devil all talking. Your spirit, and I may talk about this next week, your spirit and the Holy Spirit are generally saying the same thing. So that's why you can trust your spirit, because the Holy Spirit lives in your spirit. But there are times that your spirit wants to do something that the Holy Spirit doesn't want you to do.

Well I want to marry that guy the Holy Spirit said no don't don't don't marry I do I feel good you know it feel good about it I feel really good about it Holy Spirit's like mmm don't do it I feel good I can't tell you how many people I've talked to in just the same situation do you have any checks there's a Holy Spirit checking you well there are a couple different things but I can change him. I can change her. And I feel really good about it.

But the Holy Spirit's saying, no, don't do it. Don't do it. And people end up doing it anyway. And then two years later, they're knocking on my door. I shouldn't have done it. I know. The Holy Spirit told you not to do it.

There are times, and I'll get into it next week, but there are times that the Holy Spirit will tell you to do something and you your spirit don't want to do it and that happens I just gave an example I did you know that was a loose example but at the time I didn't want to give him a hundred dollars because I had to run by they have cash on me had to run by the bank I didn't want to do all that right the Holy Spirit is telling me to do that I didn't want to do it who's

who's me my body didn't want to do it my soul didn't want to do it man my spirit didn't want to do it right but I listened to the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit tell you there there There are things the Holy Spirit will tell you to do. And if you would just heed his voice, his voice can sound like my voice to you. If I'm your pastor and you trust my voice, his voice can sound like my voice to you. There are times that I hear the voice of men of God that I trust when I'm making decisions.

I hear their voice on the inside of me. There are times that you can heed the voice of the Spirit of God on the inside of you through someone you trust. Like, for example, I trust my wife's voice. And there was one particular time I was telling the guys before service that right after I would preach, I would go home and my head would be hurting and my back would be hurting and my neck.

And I thought we was fighting devils. I'm like, every time I preach, my head and back hurts and I'm all shaking a little bit and we praying and what's going on? And the Spirit of God spoke to Stacey. And said, it's that coffee you're drinking after you preach. And I thought, oh, okay. So I stopped. When I used to, when I write, when I got done preaching, I would go out. A lady by the name of Miss Jeanette. Hey, Miss Jeanette, I know she's watching today.

She would hand me a coffee. And I would drink that coffee. And I would go in my office and come back out and I would drink the coffee. And the Spirit of God told her, told Stacy, said, it's the coffee. Stop drinking the coffee. I stopped drinking the coffee. Now, Ms. Jeanette, I love you, but I got to tell on you. I told Ms. Jeanette, don't make me the coffee no more because I'm not going to drink it. Pastor, I just love making you the coffee.

I said, Ms. Jeanette, I'm not going to drink it. She still made it. I would go and I would pour that coffee right on out. I did, Ms. Jeanette. I did not drink the coffee. Immediately, I stopped having headaches, neck pain, back pain. Immediately, the coffee was dehydrating me. But the Spirit of God is who told her that, which I heard as the voice of God, bared witness with my spirit, and there's the solution right there.

If we will practice listening to his voice on the inside of us, he's going to lead us and guide us and direct us and show us who to hire, who to fire, who to stop talking to, who to talk to more, who to invest in, who not to invest in, right?

He's going to lead us when to say something, when not to say something. But we have to be. Mature enough. Are you listening to me today? To heed the voice of the Spirit of God and say, yes, I hear his voice. Yes, I will follow that voice. And a lot of times the voice of Jesus is going to ask you to do something that you don't want to do. And this is where we have to to get used to. He's going to ask me to do something that I'm uncomfortable with.

He's going to ask me to do something that gets me out of my comfort zone. He's going to ask me to do something that's going to cause me to trust him. He's going to ask me to do something that's going to feel like great fear, but I've got to trust him. I've got to do it. You guys know that when the Lord asked me to step away from my six-figure paying job, now I'm making good money. All right, corporate America, we're doing good.

The Lord says, I want you to step away and I want you to go into ministry. That doesn't make any sense. Matter of fact, when I told the people at work, they told me, that don't make any sense. I said, it don't. And then they said, a couple of people are like, why don't you do both? Why don't you work for the bank and go into ministry? Nothing wrong with duly employed ministers. Absolutely nothing wrong. That's not what the Lord told me.

He told me to abandon it. Leave it. Put your notice in. When I did, they walked me out that moment. I got walked right on out the building. They asked, I put my notice in, and I said, I'm hearing from God. There was confirmation with my wife. We're in agreement. God's saying do this.

And although it didn't make sense in my body, it didn't make sense in my soul, it didn't make sense with my coworkers, didn't make sense with a lot of my extended family members, we knew that this is what the Holy Spirit is leading us to do. We stepped out as soon as I made the decision to step out. Now you understand now I'm not receiving any more paychecks. I'm not asking you to do this, by the way, all right? Hear from God what you're supposed to do. I'm telling you my story. I stepped out.

We're not receiving any paychecks. A man comes, he drives up by the house.

A couple days later, he heard we were going into the ministry. He comes by, he leaves his truck running, leaves the door open, knocks on the door. I was like, hey, man, come on in. He goes, I can't stay long, but the Lord told me to come give you this. And he hands me this envelope, and he comes and he drives off. I look at it, it was $1,400. I said, glory to God. He goes, I want to be one of the first ones to support.

Then I get a call from a man. He says, I want to send you $1,000 a month so you can make your house payment. He said, the Lord said, till I don't say it anymore. Are you all right? And then so, glory to God. God has opened up the door saying, I can take care of you if you just heed my voice. And if you look at me now, I've never missed a meal. You see me? I haven't missed a meal. God's taking care of us. Hallelujah.

I'm not making that kind of money anymore but god is providing and he's doing it his way, supernaturally taking care of me and i'm someone asked me this recently do you miss corporate america no nothing about the corporate right i pray for y'all all the time i do because i don't miss it at all. Nothing about it do I miss, except I do miss the 401k, okay? I do miss contributing 401k. Make sure you contribute to your 401k, by the way. That's free. Somebody say amen again.

Give to your 401k because that is, that is, that's money that you're saving, and if they're matching, give as much as they're matching. That's free money. Just take full advantage of that. I do miss that, but other than that, I don't miss nothing else about it, okay? And so when you heed the voice of God, And you listen, he's going to lead you in every area of your life. You're going to have to depend on his voice and say, I hear the voice of God.

I hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. He's like, I'm having a hard time hearing. If you are having a hard time hearing, go back to the last thing he told you to do. And did you do it?

And if you didn't do it he's waiting on you to do that before he speaks again, my children do this and I like to I like the illustration of my children I'll tell my son you know let's say Zabin for example Zabin I need you to take out the trash and then he come back can I go outside I don't even say nothing I just look at him, that trash ain't taken out you know I ain't saying nothing I ain't saying no more until what I said gets taken care care of first.

And so I believe very graciously the Spirit of God is the same way. I've spoken to you already. I've told you what to do. So if you're having a hard time hearing, I haven't heard the voice of God in a long time, you need to ask yourself, what's the last thing he told me? And did I do it? And if you didn't do it, do it. And then you'll begin to hear his voice a lot more or clearly the next time.

If you are doing the last thing he told you to do and you're still not hearing, then check for unforgiveness. Am I walking with offense towards someone? Am I holding a grudge? Am I bitter? Am I upset? Because it's hard to hear from heaven when you got all that junk going on. Come on, somebody say amen. And so you are a spirit. You have a soul and you live in a body.

And all of the functions of you, you're the spirit though, and you possess these other areas, all of them have voices, and they're all talking. And then we got to add the voice of the devil, and he's talking. And we got to decipher on the inside of us which one is God. And if you know the voice of God, which you do, then you can trust and depend upon that voice.

You start leaning to that voice and cutting off all other voices I know the voice of my children we could be at a playground so one of them scream out I know exactly which one it was right I know the voice of my children I know you know the voice of yours too that's the same way we have to be with the voice of God I know his voice this is his voice and once you hear his voice you heed his voice. And this is what we're going to be talking about over the next couple of weeks.

We're going to be talking about the voice of the Holy Spirit, hearing his voice. I want to get into how to decipher between your voice and the Holy Spirit's voice, because I'm going to get into that probably next week, because there is a difference sometimes. A lot of times they're in unison, but there are times that's different.

We're going to get into that. We're going to get into being led by the Spirit of God more deeply and more clearly with more understanding, so that he can lead us and take us in the way that he wants us to go. Come on, somebody say amen. Amen. This is how you experience true life.