When we give our lives to Christ and become born-again, the Holy Spirit, God’s seed, comes to live inside us. Jesus Christ said in John 16:13(NLT), “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.” The Holy Spirit helps us to pray and to grow closer to God. He is the One who establishes the intimacy between us and our Heavenly Father that we desire so much. The Holy Spirit also communes with us spiritually, and when the enemy has plotted against us and we’re about to step into a trap, the Spirit is the One who warns us. This is why, more than any other time in history, it is crucial that we pay attention when something doesn’t feel quite right.
Watch what you say
Your confessions are a powerful instrument towards your wholeness and happiness in life. Some people hear this and think it is too radical to believe. They think that way because for a while now, believers have been taught certain things about faith, and it causes people to try to treat the goodness of God like a kid in a candy store. That’s not faith, that’s fantasy, and it leads to disappointment.
The reality is that we can’t please God without faith. Hebrews 11:6 tells us this. Faith is a fully persuaded, sold out belief in what God has promised in His Word. All blessings come from God and abide in the realm where He lives. Faith requires the full faculty of our minds and the words of our confession. Both must work together to transfer blessings in the spiritual realm into our natural realm. This is the way God set things up.
Without our confession and believing, we could not be saved. Romans 10:9(NLT) affirms, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 1John 4:15(NLT) declares, “All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God.” Our salvation is received by the confession of our believing, and God’s forgiveness is received by the confession of our sins. Proverbs 18:21 declares that death and life are in the power of the tongue. We must open our mouths and speak words of life.
God created us in His image. He designed us in such a way that our minds and hearts must be aligned with His thoughts in order to bring His bounty from the spiritual realm into our physical realm. We do this through prayer, by the confession of truth, and by continuing to renew our minds to what God has said in His Word. Many of us don’t do this. We have made a habit pattern of speaking words that are against what God says. Just in the span of a casual conversation with a friend, we can nullify the blessings that were slated to come our way because we failed to confess the truth. Instead, we gave into negative and unfruitful talk because this is what our friends are used to hearing and it’s how they are used to speaking. We have got to change this if we want to step into greater levels of blessing.
Out of bounds
The standard of faith set by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is extraordinary, and God expects us to utilize the faith we’ve been given. Jesus Christ said in Mark 11:23(NLT), “I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart.” We’re so used to listening to what society says and doing what society does that for many of us, this phenomenal truth that Jesus spoke seems radical. Some of us simply don’t believe what he’s telling us about having faith and speaking to our circumstances through the confession of our faith.
Jesus said in Mark 11:24(NLT), “I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.” Believing and trusting God when we pray is the appropriate mindset for the believer. Nothing less will do, but most people simply do not believe they can have what God says they can have by the power of their confession. We need to get it into our minds and hearts that faith is the norm. Doubt and fear are abnormal, because 2Timothy 1:7 tells us that God didn’t give us doubt and fear; He gave us a spirit of love, power, and sound mind.
It’s our responsibility to exercise faith, and if we don’t, our lives will not be as blessed as they could be. Our lack of faith positions us further away from God. It moves us out of bounds, and this is where we experience feelings that tell us something is wrong. Often, we don’t realize it, but these are warnings that we are too far outside the boundaries of where God says we should be. We’re confessing and thinking the wrong things, and they are taking up too much space in our hearts. Our lives are heading in the wrong direction. We feel it, but because of all the noise in the background, we can’t hear the message that was spoken to our spirits.
That feeling is telling us that something is going to happen as a result of what we’ve been saying and believing, and it isn’t going to be well with us. Know that the Holy Spirit is speaking to your spirit and warning you to begin to renew your mind and change the way you think and speak. Do not allow this warning to fall on deaf ears. Often when something feels wrong, it is wrong, and we need to pay attention. Through our faith, prayers, and confession, the Holy Spirit will help us turn things around. Then, the only thing we will feel is incredible gratitude to God because He warns us when we’re out of bounds, and He is always willing to help us find our way back to Him.
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Pay Attention When Something Feels Wrong”, written by Reverend Fran Mack. Edits by Kim Times and K. Stephens for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2023. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.