“… you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” John 14:17
One way that we follow God is through the leading he gives us in our hearts, a knowing in our spirit whether something is right or wrong. Another way that we can know something from God is when He drops information into our hearts, information that we didn’t have on our own, but was suddenly given to us through a “knowing” in our spirit.
For example, there was a time when God gave me a knowing in my heart that my daughter, who was away at college, needed and extra $200, so I sent it to her. When she received the money, she told me that the amount was exactly what she needed. She had gone to God about her need first, asking Him specifically for $200, and He answered her prayer. How did I know exactly the amount that my daughter needed? Similar to the way that our spirit, or our conscience, knows that something is right or wrong, I had a knowing dropped in my heart that Amanda needed $200. I just knew because God put that knowledge inside my heart by the Holy Spirit.
When I first started to learn about hearing from God, I didn’t understand it. I studied the scriptures. I listened to my pastor. I listened to respected teachers. However, I didn’t understand about this knowing from God until I experienced it. Spiritual truth is only understood by getting familiar with the Holy Spirit, trusting Him because we’ve learned to recognize Him.
Spiritual matters are understood best through our reborn spirit, the place inside us where the Holy Spirit resides. I Corinthians 2:14 says, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” The natural man is a man or woman that has not received the renewing of the spirit through salvation in Jesus Christ. They do not have the life of God in their hearts. They do not have the Holy Spirit in their hearts, so of course they are not going to understand spiritual matters about God. There are even Christians, who remain naturally minded and do not understand spiritual matters, because they continue to rely on their natural intellect rather than their heart. However, as we open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, we can experience the things of the spirit, including the ability to hear from God.
Application: When you pray, take time to listen to your heart. Get to a place where you recognize the Holy Spirit and allow Him to move. He will give you what you need to know.