The Heart to Hear the Voice of the Holy Spirit
“Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure
water.” (Hebrews 10:22)
- Heart of Truth and Untruth
Now, in order to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, let us learn the ways to fill our heart with truth and block the fleshly thoughts by casting off untruth.
The Holy Spirit’s voice is not physical sound but is heard in our heart. The Holy Spirit in our heart moves our heart to let us realize the will of God. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says, “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”
If we repent and accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, God gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of God in our heart. After we receive the Holy Spirit, He can work as much as the truth we have in our heart.
Namely, those who have accomplished 50% truth in their heart can hear the voice of the Holy Spirit 50%. If you become a perfect man of truth resembling the Lord completely, you can hear the voice of the Holy Spirit 100%.
Therefore, to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in our heart, we first have to get rid of untruth from our heart and fill it with truth. Those who have a lot of untruth in their heart will have fleshly thoughts before they hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. This way, they hear the voice of Satan and follow its works, so they cannot be guided by the Holy Spirit.
For example, let us suppose somebody misunderstood you and talked very badly about you. If you have already cast off hatred in you and filled your heart with the words of God
such as “Understand, forgive, and love,” the Holy Spirit will speak to you through that truth.
The Holy Spirit will speak to you saying, “He must have a reason,” and “I better resolve his misunderstanding with mild talk,” and help you act according to His voice. When you act with goodness following the works of the Holy Spirit, the other person will also be moved in his heart, so the misunderstanding will be resolved and there will be reconciliation.
But those who still have a lot of untruth in their heart and have much more hatred, ill- feelings, and anger than love in their heart can hardly hear the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Rather than hearing the voice, they will first have evil thoughts like, “He is so rude that I cannot forgive him,” or “If I leave it like this now, he will look down on me, so I should teach him a lesson.” Or even if they hear the voice of the Holy Spirit teaching them with the truth, the evil thoughts overpower the Holy Spirit’s voice, so they cannot obey it.
If truth and untruth fill your heart with the same portion of 50:50, you will hear both voices with the same intensity. You will receive both the voices of the Holy Spirit that says, “Love, understand, and forgive,” and the work of Satan that leads you to fight and argue. In this case, you may obey the Holy Spirit after struggling between two voices or you may first receive the work of Satan.
In many cases, you may not be able to distinguish whether what you hear is the voice of the Holy Spirit or your own thoughts. Again, to block the voice of Satan and hear the Holy Spirit’s voice, we first have to fill our heart with truth and cast off untruth.
2. Process of Circumcising One’s Heart
What do we have to do to “circumcise the heart”? It is very simple. You just have to keep in your mind the word of God that you hear, learn from it, and obey it.
There are commands in the Bible such as “Do this,” and “Keep that,” and to obey these commands is the process of filling your heart with truth. Also, there are other commands such as “Don’t do this,” and “Throw away,” and to obey these is the process of casting off untruth.
You used to hate, have ill-feelings, and be jealous, but by God’s word telling you to “love” you can change your heart and fill it with love. You used to be proud and want to be lifted up, but by God’s word telling you to “humble yourself” you can change your heart to humble and sacrifice yourself.
Even if you have anger, an adulterous mind, or evil desires, because God tells you to “cast off all kinds of evil,” you can just obey and get rid of them. As you hear and learn God’s word that tells you, “Pray, give thanks, and be joyful,” you can keep them in your mind and obey. Then, the untruth in your heart will be removed and your heart will be filled with truth instead.
But what is important here is that your heart will not be filled with truth by just knowing and memorizing the words of truth. You have to put them into practice. No matter how long you have been a Christian, how much you worked for God, or how much you know His word, if you do not practice the word your heart will not be filled with truth. If you do not fill your heart with truth, then you will not be able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. On the contrary, even a new-believer can hear the voice and experience spiritual things when he tries to act by the truth with love for God.
For example it is similar to a person who does not know much about theory but has actually practiced playing the piano for 1 year can play better than the one who has studied the theories of music for 10 years without actually playing the piano.
To the extent that you keep the word of God in your heart and practice it, the untruth in you will be removed and instead of the untruth, your heart will be filled with truth, and your spiritual faith will grow. But when you try to fill your heart with truth according to the word that you learn, you have a struggle in your heart.
It is good if you can just obey as you hear and learn the truth. But from a certain point in time, you cannot obey, and your heart becomes troubled. You have hardship because your heart of untruth does not go away so easily but begins to fight against your desire to follow the desires of the Holy Spirit.
When you first receive the Holy Spirit and experience God’s love, you are always
filled with God’s grace since He takes care of you in all things just as parents take care of a new-born baby. You receive answers easily and you do not have any difficulty. You don’t even know yet that you have to cast off sins, and you are just full of the grace.
But as children grow up, they should be educated and do what they are supposed to do. In the same way, from a certain point of time, God’s grace does not fall on you automatically, and you have to bring down God’s grace through your effort and actions. Only then can you become warriors of faith by receiving the power and authority of God.
Just as the parents would spoil their child if they over-protect him, even in faith, there are levels that you have to pass by yourself to reach the complete measure of faith. So, when you begin to struggle to distinguish between the truth and untruth, you feel it is hard to lead a Christian life.
For example, if you have not cast off anger yet, and if you try to suppress it when you do get angry, trying to follow the desire of the Holy Spirit, it is really hard for you! After trying to hold down your burning anger, if you finally release it, you may feel relieved for the moment. But soon, you hear the lamenting of the Holy Spirit from within your heart.
You feel sorry before God thinking, “I could have endured it just a little more. Why did I do it?” then, you lose the fullness of the Holy Spirit and have hard time. You can recover the fullness only after you repent thoroughly with tears. After repenting, you should not repeat the same sin again, but you are apt to get angry again in a similar situation. Then, you have greater hardship in your heart than before because of it.
3. The Peak of Spiritual Warfare in One’s Heart
The time when you have the greatest hardship in yourself due to this kind of struggle is when the power of the truth and that of the untruth in your heart are almost the same. Even when people fight, if the two fighters are very different in the strength, the stronger one will win the fight very easily.
But if the two fighters have almost the same strength, the fighting gets very fierce. In the same way, when either the heart of truth or the heart of untruth is much stronger than
the other, there isn’t very much of a struggle within the heart. However, if the two forces are similar in power, there is a great struggle whether to follow the truth according to the voice of the Holy Spirit, or to follow the desires of flesh following the works of Satan.
Romans 7:24 says, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” This describes the situation where the struggle in one’s heart is very fierce. If you are at this stage, when you hear the Holy Spirit’s voice, it is not easy to distinguish whether it is truly the voice of the Holy Spirit or your own thoughts.
Of course, in a situation where somebody gives you a hard time, if you hear a voice saying, “Love, Forgive,” then it is the word of truth, so you don’t have to be confused. But in a situation more complex than this, you think what you heard was the voice of the Holy Spirit, but later you come to realize it was your own thought. Or, you think it was your own thought, but later you come to realize it was the voice of the Holy Spirit.
For example, when a cell leader is urged in her heart to visit a particular member for spiritual matters, she just ignores that urge since that member is attending church regularly, even doing some service for the church. But suddenly, that member does not show up.
Although that member did not express it outwardly, her grace and fullness of the Holy Spirit was decreasing, and the problem was expressed that way. The cell leader thought the urging was her own thought and missed the time to visit that member.
On the contrary, some say they have heard the voice of the Holy Spirit, but if you hear what they say, it is not truth at all. They consider their own thought as the Holy Spirit’s voice.
If you gain the ability to discern through various experiences and keep on filling the truth in your heart, you will gradually be able to discern the voice of the Holy Spirit more clearly, and you won’t have to be confused.
Some people, when they have the greatest struggle between the truth and untruth, cannot seem to overcome the hardship and just give up. Some members leave the church because they do not like being reminded of their sins so often during sermons that teach to throw away sins and live in the light. They go to another church where they can lead a comfortable Christian life or fall into the world completely and leave God.
But no matter how hard you may feel it is, you must never give up trying to cast off untruths in you. If you give up casting away untruths, you will never be able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit or receive His guidance. You will not be able to go into spirit or show works of the Holy Spirit even though you have been a Christian for a long time. Even if you become a leader and teach other members, you cannot but lead them with the flesh, so you will not be able to bear any spiritual fruit.
Only those who first live in truth; communicate with God; hear the Holy Spirit’s voice, and receive His guidance will have spiritual authority when they teach so that the members can gain true life.
4. The Heart of Spirit
Our faith grows to the extent that we continue the struggle against untruth and fill our heart with truth. Those who stand on the rock of faith do not feel that it is difficult to practice the truth. Even though they may have a little bit of untruth left in them, they can overcome easily since they soon follow the desires of the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, to those who are in the 4th level of faith or above, in which they love God to the utmost degree, violating God’s law is much more difficult. Until we reach this level, we have to struggle and overcome, though we may feel it is hard sometimes.
To the extent that we fill ourselves with truth, our fleshly thoughts will disappear so that we will be able to hear Holy Spirit’s voice in more detail and more clearly. If we obey the voice of the Holy Spirit, it is when we receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and we will be prosperous in all our ways.
Do we have to be completely sanctified and fill our heart with 100% truth like the Lord to hear the Holy Spirit’s voice and receive His guidance 100%? It is not necessarily true. Although we may have a little bit of untruth left in us, if we have much more truth in our heart than untruth, it is not difficult to hear the Holy Spirit’s voice more readily and clearly. But, to the extent that we have untruth, Satan will try to work through it. If we obey the Holy Spirit’s voice as soon as we hear it, the voice of Satan is ignored.
For example, suppose two kinds of broadcasts are being shown at the same time, and
one is shown with a loud volume while the other is shown with a weak volume. If you concentrate on the broadcast with the loud volume, then you will not be able to hear the broadcast with the weak volume, although it is still showing.
Likewise, if you have a great measure of truth in your heart, you will hear the voice of the Holy Spirit more loudly than that of Satan. If you try to hear the Holy Spirit’s voice in this kind of situation, you will not try to hear the voice of Satan, so you will easily be guided by the Holy Spirit.
To the extent that you keep on filling your heart with truth, you will more clearly hear the Holy Spirit’s voice, and so the work of Satan will be weaker and weaker and finally disappear completely.
5. Importance of Circumcising One’s Heart
If we teach the people that it is the will of God to cast away untruth and become filled with truth, some people question it as if it is wrong. They ask “Romans 3:28 says, ‘For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law,’ and why do we have to cast off sins?”
When people hear this kind of remark, some of them who have such a hard time struggling against sins accept it quickly and give up their effort to cast off sins.
But we should understand properly. There is nobody who will be saved just by acts without faith, but in the same way, one with faith without acts and deeds of faith cannot be saved either. Such a person has nothing to do with God or hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit.
James 2:26 says, “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” Galatians 5:21 talks about those who commit the works of the flesh, saying, “That those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Romans 8:13 also says, “For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live,” and Hebrews 12:4 says, “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.” Other than these, there are many verses in the Bible that tell us that we have to keep God’s commands and live according to the truth.
Many believers do have the desire to learn God’s word and live according to it, but they say, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Or, feeling sorry they say, “I try so hard, but I cannot cast off untruth.” In fact, we can never become sanctified by human effort, no matter how much we try. But it is possible with the power of God.
We used to be sinners. But, with God’s grace falling on us through the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ that was shed on the cross, we can now receive the help of the Holy Spirit to cast off untruth. Those who truly want to be sanctified and who will act with faith are able to cast off untruth, become sanctified and become men of truth.
In John 14:16-17, Jesus promised His disciples before He left this earth saying, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”
God sent the Holy Spirit to us when Jesus went back to the Father. The Holy Spirit dwells with us forever, but He is the Spirit of truth who works only through the truth. Therefore, only when we live according to the truth can we receive His works and live a powerful Christian life.
We cannot get rid of the sins, evil, unrighteousness and lawlessness of untruth with human effort. Even a person with such firm determination and a good inner heart cannot sanctify himself with his own effort. We must not only put in our own effort, but also receive the grace and strength of God and the help of the Holy Spirit to become sanctified.
6. Shortcut to Sanctification
Now, I will explain to you the process how four forces, which are our own effort, the grace and strength of God, and the help of the Holy Spirit, can be combined as one and we can become sanctified.
First, God’s grace is the free gift from God. To repent, receive forgiveness, and gain salvation is done only by God’s grace. You can have the desire to pray and to realize sin in you and cast it off and you can have the hope of New Jerusalem only when God’s grace
falls on you. By His grace and only by grace can you realize about yourself, have the desire to cast off untruths, and receive the strength to cast off untruths. Usually, God gives His full grace to be full of the Holy Spirit to those who are at the first level of faith. It is so that they will not sin and they have the strength to pray.
Thus, new-believers, being full of the Holy Spirit, do not have such a hard time leading a Christian life. So, they also have many testimonies. But after a while, the time comes for them to bring down God’s power by themselves. It is the power of God that enables what is not possible by human ability to become reality. So, if God just keeps on giving that power to us as His grace, Satan will object to it.
What do we mean by “Satan will object to it”?
Satan will point a finger saying, “God, if you unconditionally give your grace to them, what is the meaning of human cultivation, and is it really fair?” Therefore, according to the rule of the spiritual realm that dictates “we reap what we sow,” we have to bring down the power to cast away sins by denying ourselves, through prayers, and by fasting. Now, it is the Holy Spirit who helps us to bring down power from above by our own effort.
Romans 8:26 says, “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
Sometimes, even when we do not fulfill our portion of the effort, the Holy Spirit gives us the inspiration and strength so that we will be able to keep on going as needed. Sometimes, He gives us unexpected grace. We become sanctified when our own effort, the grace and strength of God, and the help of the Holy Spirit combine as one. For this to happen, first of all, our own effort is very important. We cannot put off all the responsibility on God, but we too must try to become sanctified ourselves.
Even if you pray with your lips saying, “Let me cast off hatred and anger,” if you keep on hating and getting angry without any effort to cast them off, your prayer is not truthful. You should make up your mind firmly with the desire for sanctification. You must beat your body to make it your slave through fervent prayers.
The process of casting off by the combined force of our own effort, the grace and strength of God, and the help of the Holy Spirit can be compared with a process of
attacking a city wall to destroy the enemy forces. If you make up your mind to attack the city wall of untruth, you should block the back up forces of the enemy coming from other places.
If the supporting forces keep on supplying necessary resources to the enemy inside the city, our effort to surround and attack the city will be useless. Therefore, we should first block the supporting forces and then attack and destroy the enemy forces inside the city.
The blocking of the supporting forces is to cut off the lust of the eyes. 1 John 2:15-16 says, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.”
The lust of the eyes is the nature that is agitated by what we see and hear. This nature tries to seek the agitation to fulfill the lust. Through the processes of seeing, hearing, and feeling things since birth, the lust of the eyes is formed in us.
For example, if you enjoy watching a TV drama where a lot of hatred and fighting is presented, what you see and hear is input in your heart as evil things such as hatred and quarrel through feelings. So, without realizing it yourself, you become a person who hates and quarrels with others.
Watching this kind of drama itself is accepting the lust of the eyes, so that hatred or quarrel will be placed in our heart, and this helps our sinful nature in us to be agitated so that we are more likely to show our evil.
Also, if you have the natures of hatred or quarrelling in you, then you want to watch the kind of program that contains hatred and quarrelling that stimulate your desires. If you keep on watching this kind of drama while trying to cast off hatred and quarrels, it is something foolish since it is strengthening the heart of untruth that wants to hate and quarrel.
You feel like you can cast off sins immediately when you receive God’s grace, but if you keep on accepting your lust of the eyes, the grace will disappear, and you will feel it is hard to cast off sins. For example, suppose a new-believer who has not quit drinking yet receives God’s grace one day and makes up his mind to quit drinking.
If he really wants to quit drinking, he first has to block all the supporting forces that stimulate his desire to drink alcohol. If he puts a liquor bottle in front of him, smells it, and remembers how tasty it was, then, how hard would it be for him to maintain his determination?
This kind of thing is to accept the lust of the eyes. Since he is supporting his lust of flesh to drink alcohol, his heart of truth to follow the desire of the Holy Spirit begins to lose. Then, if he finally compromises in his heart to drink just one glass and quit, it becomes two glasses and three glasses. He again becomes a drinker.
Also, let us say there is person who sometimes breaks her appointments to do a spiritual-visit to a member or to preach the gospel to a certain person because she likes to watch interesting programs on TV so much. If she determines not to change her mind and to keep her promises, what should she do? It is the best not to watch the TV at all until she gains enough strength to control her mind.
Also, if you decide not to participate in slanderous conversations about others, you should not hear others when they are talking about something that is untruth. When a person comes to you and talks badly of other people, if you are not firm enough about it, you will just listen to the other person. Then, you will lose your grace, and you will also say things of untruth.
Therefore, to cut off the lust of the eyes, you must not hear these words of untruth. But it does not mean that you have to be rude to them. You can try to change the subject of the conversation and talk about things of truth. In this way the other person will realize the situation and change the subject into a truthful one. If he still wants to talk about things of untruth, he will leave to look for other people who will listen to him, so you do not have to listen to him any more.
If you keep on pouring clean water into a cup that is filled with dirty water, the cup will finally be left with only clean water. But while you pour clean water, if you pour dirty water together, what will happen? Unless you stop pouring the dirty water, the water in the cup will never be completely clean. In the same way, when you try to fill your heart with
truth, if you keep on accepting the untruth through your lust of the eyes, your struggle against sins will not end even though you may pray and fast for a long time. You cannot help but be led into a difficult Christian life. Therefore, to be filled with truth, we have to cut off this lust of eyes by our own effort.
When we cut off the lust of the eyes and fill our heart with truth, God’s grace and strength comes on us, and we can receive the help of the Holy Spirit so that all untruths will leave us and only truth will remain in us.
Romans 8:12-13 says, “So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
The lust of the flesh wants to sin and those who follow its lead and keep on committing sins cannot be saved, even though they profess their faith in God. They are disgracing the precious blood of the Lord that has provided forgiveness of our sins. They are mocking God’s grace and they will certainly be put to death according to the Word.
We can gain salvation only when we follow the truth as the Holy Spirit wants, change our old selves that was doing evil, and put to death the misdeeds of the body. Cutting off the lust of the eyes and expending our own effort is important but more importantly, untruth can never be cast away only by our own effort.
There are some things that we can quit doing with our own effort such as fighting, cursing, and getting angry. But we still have the original nature in us, and the sinful natures that are combined with our nature such as envy, jealousy, pride, greed, and adulterous minds can be cast off only when God gives us His grace and strength and the Holy Spirit helps us.
7. Power of Prayer
To receive God’s grace and strength and the help of the Holy Spirit, we need fervent prayers.
God’s grace does not come upon those who do not pray. Without prayer we cannot
receive either God’s grace or the help of the Holy Spirit. Only when we continually offer fervent prayers of our heart, can God’s grace and strength come upon us so that we can get rid of untruth that is combined with our nature. What you have to remember is that you should offer the prayer that is acceptable to God so that He can answer to you.
What kind of example did Jesus show us with His prayer on the Gethsemane? Jesus prayed so fervently that His sweat became like drops of blood. When Elijah prayed to receive the answer to end the drought, He prayed so hard that while kneeling, his face went between his knees. Only when we pray with all our strength and heart as above, can the sinful nature be burnt by the fire of the Holy Spirit and be removed.
Also, only through fervent prayers can we receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit, so that we will not just end up learning God’s word as knowledge but realize it in our deep heart and make it ours. The more we realize about our mental frameworks that hinder us from entering into the spirit and remove them, the more clearly we will be able to hear and receive the voice and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That in turn will enable us to go all the more quickly into spirit.
The most fundamental thing that we have to do to go into spirit is to cast off untruth and be filled with truth, as explained so far. If you firmly make up your mind to become sanctified and if you block the lust of the eyes to block the supporting force of untruths and store up fervent prayers in the heart, then you can receive God’s grace and strength and the help of the Holy Spirit so that your heart will be changed into a heart of truth.
8. Obey the Voice You Heard
Through the truth that is filled in our heart, we can hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. Next, to receive the Holy Spirit’s guidance, we have to obey His voice. Only when we obey His voice can we receive His guidance. Only then can we experience God’s works.
Some people hear the voice but do not obey it. They do what seems to be better for them rather than what the voice is telling them, or some others feel it is difficult to obey the voice, so they cannot obey it. You will not hear or receive the voice and guidance of the
Holy Spirit to the extent that you have untruth in you.
More specifically, fleshly thoughts that are based on the knowledge of untruth hinder you from hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit, and even if you hear the Holy Spirit’s voice, those thoughts will prevent you from obeying the voice.
Therefore, we should get rid of untruth, and at the same time, we should realize what our fleshly thoughts are and demolish them. Then, we can more easily receive the works of the Holy Spirit.
Is there anybody who thinks, “I have been a Christian for a long time, and I have only progressed this much. So, what shall I do? When can I remove these many evils and become sanctified?”
Don’t be discouraged! Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” As said, God never forsakes your prayers to become sanctified according to God’s will.
If you fix your eyes on Jesus, the perfecter of faith, and act with faith, you will reap the fruit as abundantly as you have sown. Also, even if it seems that you have a lot of evil in you, you can concentrate on the biggest things and pray about them.
When you uproot a tree, if you pull out the main root, the other small roots will come out automatically. Likewise, if you cast off the biggest untruth in you, the other small ones will easily be cast off as well. If you just become a man of truth who casts off sins and evil and obeys the voice of the Holy Spirit completely, then, you will not have any hindrance before you.
King Solomon was not really a perfect person in God’s sight, but he pleased God with his one thousand sacrifices, and God appeared in his dream and told him, “Ask whatever you want me to give you.” God blessed him with the greatest wisdom as he asked, and said in 1 Kings 3:13, “I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there will not be any among the kings like you all your days.”
But what God delights over more than the sacrifices is His true children who hear His word and obey it. Only if you become His children who are pleasing in His eyes, God will
not only answer to all your desires but also bless you with things that you did not even ask.
Not only on the earth, but also in the kingdom of heaven, you will be able to dwell near the throne of God, share love with Him, and enjoy the splendor forever.