Train Your Spirit Like a Muscle: Four Keys to Inner Guidance

Sermon outline

Your recreated spirit can be educated and strengthened like the mind and body, by meditating on the Word, practising it, giving it first place and instantly obeying the voice of your spirit, so that you live and decide from your spirit.

1. The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord

   He reads Proverbs 20:27 in the King James, NIV and Amplified, and 1 Corinthians 2:11, to show that a man's spirit knows his inner thoughts as God's Spirit knows God's. A child of God is not merely a natural man: as the temple of the Holy Spirit, you carry wisdom, resources and solutions within you, and must learn to draw them out.

   “There are solutions to problems on the inside of you. It's not going to come from the outside, it's within you.”

   • Proverbs 20:27
   • 1 Corinthians 2:11
   • 1 Corinthians 6:19

2. Your spirit can be educated like your mind and trained like your body

   Study educates the mind and the gym trains the body; in the same way your spirit can be fed and exercised until it operates far above the natural. God communicates through your spirit, not your head, so learn to respond from your spirit: while others are confused or anxious, you will simply know the right thing to do.

   Illustration: Vernon in the Nando's television advert, with forearms as big as legs from pumping iron.

   “Learn as a child of God to respond from your spirit rather than your mind.”

3. Key 1: Meditating in the Word

   Joshua 1:8 says meditating day and night is how you make your own way prosperous and have good success, which another translation renders as dealing wisely in the affairs of life. You do not carry your Bible all day: take one scripture in the morning and turn it over in your mind as you go about your work. A series of small wise choices adds up to success, and your reservoir grows deeper.

   Illustration: He meditated on one scripture for fifteen minutes one morning, kept turning it over in the shower and through the day, and by the afternoon it was jumping out of his spirit.

   “A series of right little choices that are right culminates into success.”

   • Joshua 1:8
   • Proverbs 10:22
   • Hebrews 4:12

4. Key 2: Practising the Word

   Hearers only deceive themselves, so put what you read to work. Under the new covenant that means walking in love, which rules out harming, stealing or holding resentment; it is hard for the flesh but easy with the Spirit, because the love of God was put in your spirit at the new birth. Many prayers go unanswered because of unforgiveness that nobody else can see.

   Illustration: About three years after he was saved, during a water shortage, their landlord upstairs cut off their water. While he washed his own car with a neighbour's water, the Lord told him to wash the landlord's dirty red car too, and he did.

   “When you learn to forgive and let go and forget it helps you rather than the other person.”

   • James 1:22
   • John 13:34
   • 2 Corinthians 4:7
   • Song of Solomon 2:15

5. Practising the Word: be anxious for nothing

   Philippians 4:6 is a direct order, so when a bill, a summons or a bad blood test arrives, the doer of the Word refuses anxiety, takes authority over the report and declares 'by His stripes'. Hand your request to God and don't pick it up again after the amen; verse 7's peace follows automatically once you practise verse 6. Calm is not laziness: you can be busy and under pressure and still be calm.

   Illustration: People who say 'amen, pastor' after prayer, then walk out of the door saying 'I wonder'.

   “In order for you to experience verse number seven you've got to go through verse number six.”

   • Philippians 4:6-7
   • Isaiah 53:1
   • 1 Peter 2:24
   • Mark 4:38-39
   • 2 Corinthians 10:5
   • John 8:44

6. Key 3: Giving the Word of God first place

   Proverbs 4:20-22 says to incline, or bend, your ear to God's sayings and keep them in the midst of your heart, because they are life and health to all your flesh; the onus is on you to keep them there. Refuse to worry: God is bigger than whatever threatens your work, finances, marriage, children or church, and He is the author and finisher of your faith.

   Illustration: Many in the church can no longer remember when they last went to the doctor, where once they went for every sniffle.

   “Refuse to worry. God's bigger than your worries.”

   • Proverbs 4:20-22
   • Hebrews 12:2

7. Key 4: Instantly obeying the voice of your spirit

   The human spirit has a voice, the conscience, which the world calls a hunch. When your head says one thing and something inside says yes or no, about a person or a job offer, follow that inner voice. As you feed your spirit the Word it becomes its source of information, your spirit grows strong, your inward voice becomes a true guide, and the Spirit of truth leads you as a son of God.

   Illustration: Two job offers: option A sounds good, but something inside is screaming option B.

   “The human spirit has a voice. And that voice we call the conscience.”

   • John 16:13
   • Romans 8:14

8. Pray, speak and deal with demons from your spirit

   A spirit charged with the Word will lead you at a far higher level than your mind. Don't fight demons by shouting with your natural voice or mimicking others; speak the Word and release the anointing from your recreated spirit. Pray, prophesy and make declarations from your spirit, and everything must bow.

   “Your spirit being is very powerful if it's charged and built up with the word of God.”