Testing the spirits determines your ability to walk in the Spirit....

As I was meditating this morning, asking God to cleanse and speak to my heart, the Holy Spirit led me down this path and I felt led to write this for anyone it may help. I am a flawed man and unworthy of Him; this is not from me but for me, although applicable to all… eat the meat and spit out the bones.

Over the years, my spiritual life has ebbed and flowed; always directly proportional with the sincerity of my time spent pursuing God and the self-discipline applied guarding my heart. The external forces of this world constantly pulled my heart from God, whether it be my profession, T.V., music, etc., much of which culminates in sin due to its content (visually, lyrically, innuendos, etc.) and the depth of the soul behind the distraction. What I mean by ‘the depth of the soul behind the distraction’ is the innermost being of the creator(s) of my distraction(s). The unsettled feeling you get after you watch a horror movie that can drive your dreams or spawn oppressed/depressed feelings; the anger, amped-up or frustrated feelings after listening to metal/rap; the sexual images that run through your mind and subsequent lustful thoughts after watching explicit sex scenes; engaging in course conversation, even if fairly innocent, will drive a conflicted thought process afterward; the crisis of the day being hyper-sensitized all around us, etc. There is a transfer of the creator’s innermost soul in every created thing. Just as you should study and understand the author’s source(s) and intent before reading a book to ensure the narrative is genuine, the same should apply to everything we allow to penetrate our minds, the gateway to our soul.

The question: Are the creation(s) I choose to ingest through the eyes and ears of my soul causing the troubled waters of my innermost being to calm or become more turbulent?

I was deeply moved as pleaded with God for direction on many things this morning. He began to show me that we cannot know the depth and breadth of another man’s heart unless you are intimately close to him/her. Even if intimately close, there are still hidden things driving our innermost being that even we do not understand, however God can reveal it to us if we have ears to listen. Much of this is a culmination of experiences, influences and man-made creations that we have either intentionally or unintentionally allowed into our soul. We can know a person well and still not understand what drives them or why they are driven to behave a certain way. In the same way, we can know God’s word but not know Him because we spend very little or no time with Him, thus, have no understanding of Him at all. Knowledge is being able to quote or regurgitate something but understanding is realizing the innermost meaning; not just the ‘what’ but the ‘why’.

Most of what we see of others, even those we consider ‘close’, is only the surface of their innermost waters; we can see the calmness or turbulence on the surface but have little understanding of what’s beneath (the why?). The surface is only an indication of what lies deeper, true understanding can only be obtained by closeness and transparency. The affect of the creator(s) we’ve allowed into our lives is what determines the calmness or turbulence in the waters of our heart and soul. The more we keep a close watch on the creator(s) we allow to influence our lives and understand the consequences of ingestion into our heart and soul, the calmer the waters will be. If we turn our focus on God and turn our backs toward unclean creator(s), the living water of God will begin to merge with the depths of our soul and bring peace to our innermost being. In this crazy turbulent world we live in today, we must allow God to penetrate our surface deeply and maintain the calmness of our spirit. My flesh wants to rise-up and fight daily but when I allow God to calm my soul, I am reassured of His complete control over all things.

God is truly in control and I sincerely pray that those of you who are hurting, fearful, discouraged, confused and/or empty this morning will turn your eyes and ears to Him and ask for His supernatural peace. I pray that Jesus Christ and the great Comforter will reveal Himself to you in a powerful way!