Please define peace.I completely agree, but wanted to add to this.
27"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;
I used to get really annoyed when older christians quoted this. I tried for all my worth but still never heard God speak.
Then one day, I realised something that broke the log jam. Sheep most certainly can recognise their master's voice, but they also most certainly don't have a clue what he is saying.
Many years after this revelation, I had the privilege of keeping a flock of sheep and learned the reality of this. All of my sheep were amazingly stupid and never comprehended a thing I said to them.
So what does the scripture mean? Is it really possible to hear God's voice?
Surprisingly, every single man woman and child who comes to God has already answered that and proven himself able to hear that voice!
Does anyone seriously think that their intellect worked it all out when they surrendered to Christ, when they came from death into life?
Trying to understand God via intellectual ability is contradictory to scripture, which states clearly that to an unregenerate man (ie. with a dead spirit), the story of the cross is foolishness. In other words your human intellect alone cannot possibly comprehend it.
The one and only reason that anyone comes to the Lord is because the Holy Spirit convicted him. The Holy Spirit called to his spirit, not his mind. He heard the master's voice, and like a sheep he followed.
Jesus's sheep allusion refers to the sound of the master's voice, not the content. That sound is a sound of peace.
Many here have focused on the content, saying that the voice of the spirit only points to Jesus, or agrees with scripture, etc. Yet we know that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. Light is another word for truth. In other words, Satan can come bearing what we believe to be truth, even biblical truth. Satan is a past master at quoting scriptures so simply matching the words to the bible can be disastrous, and many believers have been deceived by it.
We must therefore come back to recognising the master's voice. That can only come by practice, and one of the best indicators of that voice is the peace that it gives deep within. That peace is not just an intellectual peace, but a spiritual peace that even those unschooled in scripture can receive.
Back to the sheep. Today sheep are left penned in a field isolated from people so they tend to flee at the sight of any humans. If we want to move them we drive them using sheepdogs or even an off road vehicle. Rather than knowing the master's voice, they are very fearful of it, just like many christians! This makes understanding the scripture very difficult.
In contrast, historically the shepherd would be out in the hills living with the sheep. He smelt like one of them and they knew and trusted him. He would have his own calls or whistles so that when he wanted to move to new pastures all he had to do was call and they would follow.
I experienced this in a very small measure when we had to bottle feed about five orphan lambs several times a day for months until they were sufficiently strong and weaned to release into the flock and into the hands of my other workers. Whilst they were with us, these lambs would happily run into the house if the door was left open.
One day many months after they had been returned to the flock, I had occasion to walk through the field. As usual, the whole flock ran to the far corner of the field. Suddenly, there was a loud bleating as five of them detached from the fleeing flock and charged back to me, all jumping at once just like when they were lambs. I was completely flattened under the weight of five fully grown sheep wanting to lick me.
Yes, sheep can recognise their master's voice, shape, sound smell etc.
Strangely, when I asked them to get off, they didn't take a blind bit of notice!
How to discern the Holy Spirit from other thoughts?
- Thread starter Juk
- Start date
Please define peace.
Hi Juk, great question.
Most people define peace as when a horrible or violent situation comes to a halt, such as war ceasing, or getting good exam results or getting an all clear from the cancer specialist. That is the limit their understanding.
In complete contrast the peace of God passes all our understanding, this is because God's peace has nothing to do with experiential events that we can observe using the five senses or our intellect!
The early disciples are recorded as having peace of heart as they were led out to their deaths. Any normal person facing painful death is most unlikely to have any peace in their understanding unless he was suddenly granted a reprieve!
In contrast, God's peace is something entirely of the heart, not the intellect. God's peace can reign in the most appalling situation because it doesn't merely come from being in a happy place in life.
Col3v15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.
In this context, when it talks about peace ruling your heart, the Greek original text is talking about God's peace being an umpire or referee inside us. It is our choice whether we use that heaven sent referee, or stupidly return to our own failed human understanding.
That's the basis of what I was trying to say in my previous post about discerning the voice of the Holy Spirit. ie. that you should know a word is coming from the Holy Spirit because the referee within you reveals a Godly peace. I say again, God's peace has absolutely zero to do with you being in a good place, or that the word seems to match some bible quote you remember.
I have experienced amazing peace when I have been enduring horrendous situations. Nothing was changing outside, but inside I was reveling in God's love which exuded peace completely beyond anything I could possibly understand with my mind.
You can see in the following scripture that God's peace is completely different to our peace.
Philippians4v6
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.7And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
How do you get to that place of peace?
There is only one way to experience God's peace and that is to live constantly in a place of surrender with Jesus as your Lord and Saviour. I am not talking about the day you might have said the "sinner's prayer" because we should be proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus over our lives not just at the beginning, but every single day.
When all seems to be lost, and you desperately want to be somewhere else, and doing something else, most people start frantically trying to run and hide or extricate themselves from the situation they have probably created. This frequently involves deception or abdication or other unrighteous thoughts or actions. Instead of that, make the decision there and then to hand over yourself completely to Jesus that he might become your Lord. That means getting off the throne of your life and bowing your heart down before Jesus. Unless He reigns, he cannot bring peace!
Jesus cannot truly be Lord whilst you are the one enthroned and living constantly via your own intellect. Take a moment to consider this, as it describes exactly what Adam did. Adam decided that his intellect (ie. Tree of Knowledge) was better than God's Spirit. Unfortunately, we do that every day.
Thank you. That explains why I never really have peace. I was relying on the feeling of peace, which none of my thoughts brought. This brings me to another conflict. How is God's peace like? I know that it most likely has nothing to do with our emotions or human feelings. Does God's peace bring comfort? If so, then I have felt God's peace when I read Matthew 28:20 after a long time of faith issues, just a few weeks ago. But I do not know for sure.
Also, what do you mean by making Jesus my Lord? I know that Lord means Master. But what do you mean? How is it done?
lol, that's why i couldn't get that one to come up, hahaha
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I love this story sooo much, thank you greatly for sharing, omg, i'm going to read it again, i get chills, one of my brothers has sheeps
Very great questions.
Glad to see that your back. Good to know you are still pursuing Christ. Hang in there my little brother
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth and will lead teach you of Jesus and righteousness. He will also convict you when you sin.
But you need to be baptised in the Holy Spirit just as you can read in Acts.