To the degree you are sensitive to the Holy Spirit, you will be led by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can lead you in a hundred different ways, but with each of them, it is up to you to be in a posture of humble sensitivity so that you will then hear His leading.
You can’t be led by the Spirit of God unless you listen to the Spirit of God. “For all who are allowing themselves to be led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:14 AMP).
The more sensitive you are to the Holy Spirit, the more you will be able to hear Him. You will have greater clarity and understanding of all that He is telling you. You will hear His small, still voice whispering to you with everything He wants you to know.
You must quiet your soul to hear the whispers of God. “…the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice” (1 Kings 19:11-13 NKJV).
If you want to hear the Lord, you must be in His presence. There is no greater hindrance to hearing the Holy Spirit than being separated from Him by your selfish desires and sinful pursuits that draw you far from His presence.
Self-control spiritually is allowing the Holy Spirit to control you. “But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the [Holy] Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you…” (Romans 8:9 NLT).
To gain a supernatural sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, you cannot use natural methods. In fact, it is the natural that hinders the supernatural. If you are able, fast from natural food so that your spiritual hunger will develop and be satisfied.
When you starve the flesh, you feed the spirit. “‘Even now,’ says the Lord, ‘Turn and come to Me with all your heart [in genuine repentance], with fasting and weeping and mourning [until every barrier is removed and the broken fellowship is restored]’” (Joel 2:12 AMP).
You don’t have to be a prophet to prophesy, and you don’t have to be a religious scholar to gain revelations from God. What you need is humility, a deep desire for God, and a willingness to surrender everything to Him alone.
It’s one thing to have the Holy Spirit inside of you, but something quite different to be surrendered to Him so that He would reign in you. “The true children of God are those who let God’s Spirit lead them” (Romans 8:14 ERV).
Your sensitivity to the Holy Spirit will increase when your natural senses are not overwhelmed by the things of this world. So long as your mind is focused on the things of this world, it will not be sensitive to the things of heaven.
When you quiet the soul, the Holy Spirit will quicken you. Jesus taught, “It is the [Holy] spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63 KJV).
I never know when the Holy Spirit will speak to me, but the degree to which He does speak to me is always tied to the level of sensitivity I have in my spirit to hear Him. Circumstances don’t determine the sensitivity, but only in our attitude towards God.
The more you see how small you are, the bigger the things God can do through you. “Humble yourselves [with an attitude of repentance and insignificance] in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you [He will lift you up, He will give you purpose]” (James 4:10 AMP).
We all think ourselves more devout and more holy than we really are. We think we have great faith until we realize just how little we trust God in so many circumstances. At the first sign of trouble, we turn to worldly solutions first and only keep God as our backup.
We fear men too much because we trust God too little. “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” (Psalm 118:6 NKJV).
We hold grudges against others, which stands as a barrier between God and us. You cannot draw near to God while holding onto the unforgiveness you have toward others. Everything hateful stifles everything loving, including the voice of God.
It takes greater strength to let something go than to pick something up. “Throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the [Holy] Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy” (Ephesians 4:22-24 NLT).
The lower your posture before God, the more you can hear all that He would tell you. The greater your humility, the greater your revelations from God. The greater your pride, the further you’ll be from God and the less you can hear Him.
The posture you have is the person you are. “If you put yourself above others, you will be put down. But if you humble yourself, you will be honored” (Matthew 23:12 CEV).
Spiritual growth only comes after natural submission. With the spiritual and the natural, whichever one is bigger, the other one is smaller. The tragedy of man is that he holds onto the temporal and loses out on the eternal.
When you surrender all, you gain so much more. Jesus taught, “For whoever wants to save his [higher, spiritual, eternal] life, will lose it [the lower, natural, temporal life which is lived only on earth]; and whoever gives up his life [which is lived only on earth] for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it [his higher, spiritual life in the eternal kingdom of God]” (Mark 8:35 AMPC).
If you want to become more sensitive to the Holy Spirit, you must become less sensitive about the things of this world. It is the worries and frustrations of this world that distract you and make you insensitive to the Holy Spirit.
Distractions are the devil’s ploy to keep you from all that God wants you to accomplish. “And set your minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things), not on the things that are on the earth” (Colossians 3:2 AMPC).
If you want things to change, then you must change. Your circumstances are not the problem; you are. To get a different result, you must live a different life. God will do all the work, your only task is to let Him. So do that today, and every day.
If you want to change your life, change your attitude. “Have this same attitude in yourselves which was in Christ Jesus [look to Him as your example in selfless humility]” (Philippians 2:5 AMP).
Blessings to you always,
Paul Balius