How Do I Know If It’s God’s Spirit or My Own Soul? | Season 05, Episode 3 | Simple Truth Podcast

Have you ever had a thought or a feeling and wondered, "Is this God or is this just me?" Maybe it felt urgent. Maybe it felt like a really good idea. Maybe it felt spiritual. But then another question comes to you. What if this is just coming from inside of me? What if it's not really God at all talking to me, but just a passing feeling? In other words, could I be confusing my own soul with the voice of God's spirit? In this episode, we're going to answer three important questions. What is my soul? Why does it have such a strong inner voice? And how can I tell the difference between the leading of God's spirit and the thoughts and feelings of my own soul? [music] Welcome to the Simple Truth Podcast. I'm Ted Ross and this is season 5, episode 3. How do I know if it's God's spirit or my own soul? And today we're going to answer three important questions. Starting with question number one. What is your soul? It's a term that gets used all the time, even in the world we describe it. Heck, there's a whole genre of music called soul music. But what exactly is a soul? Well, it's answered in simple truth number 84. Your soul, it's your inner life where you think, feel, and choose. Let's take a look at Psalm 13:2. As a reminder, all Bible verses are from the New King James Version of the Bible. So, feel free to follow along. The soul we're going to see here in Psalm 13:2, it's the part of us where thoughts are examined, where emotions can become heavy, where options get considered by us, where decisions are made. That's the essence of the soul. in contrast to the spirit which we went into great detail last episode and the body which we're going to discuss next episode. And so let's take a look at Psalm 13:2. Quote, "How long shall I take counsel in my soul?" David writes, "Having sorrow in my heart daily. To take counsel is to give oneself advice. To weigh what one feels, to consider what to do, to deliberate within oneself." We've all done this. In fact, we've done this a lot. And so David's writing, "How long shall I take counsel in my soul?" Because the soul, what is it literally? It's the inner life of a person. It's where you and I think, where we feel, where we choose. In other words, it's our mind, our emotions, it's our will. These are the aspects, the facets of us. Often described as our personality. That is what the soul of a person is. He says having sorrow that's grief it's anguish deep emotional pain in his heart daily. The heart in contrast to the body which is visible and we all see the heart is the inner person. It is the hidden part of a person. It's your soul and your spirit together. When the Bible describes the heart, it's describing not the body, certainly not the physical part of your body, the heart, right? The blood pumper that's deep inside your chest. It's describing your soul and your spirit. It's something that's not visible to us, yet we know everyone has it, right? We can sense who they are. We can see their personality. We see the way they think. We see how they reason. We see how emotional they can get. We see the decisions and the will, maybe their stubbornness or not, how hard and how strong of a will that they have. This is the soul that's being described. Do you ever feel like thoughts, feelings, and choices that they pull at you? I know that happens with me. That is your soul. That's your soul. that your inner life, it's where you feel, it's where you think, it's where you decide. That is, that is the part of you that does those functions. That is your soul. Let's take a look at Psalm 42:5. Here we're going to see the soul can become deeply restless, right? Strong feelings surface in our soul. Thoughts can circulate in our soul. Memories, they they return in our soul. And decisions, they could take shape in your soul. It's not being done in your spirit. It's not being done in your body. These are aspects and features and facets of the soul. Psalm 42:5, let's see this in scripture. Quote, "Why are you cast down, oh my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance." So the psalmist writes, "Why are you cast down? Why are you sunk down? Why are you bowing down? Why are you brought low, oh my soul?" Right? The inner life of a person, right? Where we think, we feel, we choose. Why are you sunk down? The psalmist is writing. And why are you disquieted within me? Why are you restless? Why are you troubled? Why are you inwardly stirred? Right? So, the psalmist is not talking to his body. He's not talking to his arms or his feet. He's not even talking to his spirit. He's talking to his own soul. Right? We're seeing this in scripture after scripture. This is where he sees a restlessness where he's troubled where he's stirred. And the relevance of this episode is because quite often you and I find oursselves restless, stirred in anguish. Maybe we're running through different thoughts. Maybe different memories are coming back at us. Maybe our emotions are running wild. These are facets of our soul. And by understanding what it is first, it allows us to diagnose, for lack of a better term, what to do about it, and to understand, wait a second, these facets are not God working in me. These are just aspects of who I am, but they're not exactly acceptable, are they? If your soul is resisting the things of God, if your soul is getting in your way, then you need to learn to renew your soul, which we're going to discuss in more detail. He says, "Hope in God, wait, hope, expect, trust with anticipation in God, for I shall yet praise him. I will give God thanks. I will confess. I will acknowledge God, right? For the help of his countenance, for the help of his presence. He's saying, have you ever needed to remind your own soul that God is present and that God is for you? David's doing it right here in Psalm 42. In fact, that's the right thing to do. Too often you and I don't recognize that it's our soul. Too often you and I don't look at our soul and say, "Soul, why are you bowed down? Why are you brought low?" Put your hope, put your expectation, put your trust in God. David's doing the right thing here. He's encouraging himself in the Lord. Have you ever needed to remind your soul that God is with you? God is present and God is for you. I guarantee you, you absolutely have had to do that. And you and I definitely need to continue doing that. Look beyond your soul's unrest and put your hope in God. Put your hope in his presence. Put your hope in his favor. Put your hope in his glory. God has given so many promises that is a excellent thing to encourage yourself and to encourage your soul during any time of anguish during any time of grief during any time of restlessness and any time of stirring. So what is our soul? Well the soul as we saw before it's the inner life of a person. It's where we think it's where we feel. It's where we choose. It's where we make decisions and choices aka the will. The will is a component within our soul. What's an example of this? In 1 Chronicles 22:1 19, quote, "Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God." To set is to direct. So this scripture is showing where he writes and says, "Now set, now direct your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God." That is a choice of your will. He's telling you to make a decision. He's telling you to make the choice. He's telling you to set your heart, your soul, and your spirit to seek the Lord your God. To put that as your purpose to make that your mission and your goal. The soul is also where you think, you consider, you understand, and you remember, also known as the mind, right? The soul has a will inside of it. And it also has the components of the mind. Here we'll see in Psalm 139:14, quote, "Marvelous are your works and that my soul knows very well." Right? Right? He says, "Marvelous are your works. Marvelous are God's works and that my soul, my will, my intellect, my emotions understands very well." That's what we're seeing here. We're seeing a facet of the mind. You'll see as you look throughout scripture, you can see all the different components working together. And it gives us insight and understanding and a deeper understanding of scripture so that as we see these words, we understand what these words mean. So here we're seeing the second component, the second facet of a soul. That's the mind. And as an example, we see here in Psalm 139. Now, let's take a look at the third facet of the soul, the emotions. Both positive and negative feelings are your emotions, and they're in your soul. Here we see Psalm 42:1. Quote, "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for you, oh God. As the deer pants, to pant is to deeply desire. as a deer would pant after water. You know, I did not grow up in forest. I didn't grow up in that level of nature, but I could certainly imagine that an animal that's absolutely dying of thirst, so to speak, once it sees water, once it tastes water, that is probably the best feeling. So, as a deer would pants for a water brook, when that deer is absolutely thirsty, so pants, so deeply desires my soul for you, oh God. So powerful. And this is an emotion. Emotions are not a bad thing. But when emotions take control and emotions start driving your behavior, especially behavior that is against the will of God, the emotions need to be put in check. The mind is not a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with thinking on the things of God, considering God, understanding and remembering the things of God. But too often we educate ourselves and we poison our own mind and we find ourselves meditating and thinking about all the wrong things. The will, the will is not a bad thing. But when the will makes decisions and choices to do wrong and to resist right, then the will needs to be checked and it needs to be renewed. You're seeing the theme here, folks. You're seeing what is your spirit. It was made alive when you were born again. It's where you have fellowship and a conscience and intuition and you connect and you engage and you relate to and fellowship with God. And now we're moving over to your soul where you have a will and you make decisions. where you have a mind that remembers, thinks and understands, and where you have emotions that has both positive and negative feelings. And it starts to let you understand the distinction. The soul is often described as our personality. If you were to combine your will, your mind, and your emotions together, it kind of makes a lot of ways how people know you. Yeah, I could look at you and see you physically and say, "This is what you look like." But if I were to know you, so to speak, I would have time to talk with you, to fellowship with you, and gain an understanding of really who you are. How you look is not who you are. Right? And so the soul is our personality. It's what makes us us in many ways. And it's also a bridge between the spirit and the body. Very powerful. With that soul, you make decisions. God will speak by his spirit into your spirit. And your soul will have a decision to make. Will I do the things of God or will I do the things of my own desires? This, of course, is in contrast the soul with the other two parts of a Christian that we've discussed before and we'll list below. The spirit of a person, right? That's the God-facing part that's got fellowship, intuition, and a conscience as we saw in scripture in last episode, as well as the body, which we're going to get into greater detail next episode, which is the physical part of a person. and it interacts with the world around us using the five senses of touch and sight and hearing and taste etc. So question number two, why does my soul have such a strong inner voice? Right? That's the one that really gets us. We would just love for our soul to be like clay that could just be shaped and formed and easily just gets right in the will of God and does exactly what God wants. Well, simple truth number 85 answers that your soul is an inner battleground that must be guarded. Okay, let's take a look at First Peter 2:1. Here we're going to see the soul, it's a battleground, folks. It's a battleground. Not only, well, let's be clear. Not only is it a battleground, it's not a battleground over there. It's a battleground inside of us. To make it even more complicated, it's where our desires, our impulses, our inward pressures, they can compete with God's voice. They can compete with us obeying and doing God's will. Let's be clear, a carnal Christian, a fleshly Christian is one in which their desires, their impulses, those inward pressures, they're very strong, and they keep leading us and guiding us not into God's will, but into our desire, into all the wrong things. 1 Peter 2 11 quote beloved I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lust which war against the soul. Okay, now we're getting into it. He says Peter writes, "Beloved, I beg you to beg, by the way, is a strong term. He is urging us. He's pleading with us in this scripture. I beg you as sojourners." What's a sojourner? That's not a term I normally use. It's a temporary resident. It's someone's who's away from home. I normally live over here and now I am temporarily residing over there. Keep in mind what he's saying. Think of yourself as someone who permanently resides with God. Resides in heaven, but you're temporarily residing here on earth. So you're away from home. So he says, I beg you as a sojourner, as somebody who's not really of this world, but is temporarily residing in this world. And pilgrims, that's a traveler, someone who's passing through. Do you do you believe this? Do you believe that you're a temporary resident on earth? I pray you do. Do you believe that you're just a traveler, someone passing through on your way to glory? I pray you do. That's what the Bible says. That's what Peter wrote. And Peter had tremendous revelation. Then he says, "Abstain from fleshly lust. Keep away. Distance yourself. Refrain. Stay back. Watch out. Get away from fleshly lusts." Fleshly lusts are desires. They're cravings, their impulses, they're connected to the flesh and they're contrary to God's will. He says, "Keep away from them. Keep your distance. Don't stay close to them. Refrain from them. Avoid them." And why? Because they war. They war against you. They wage war. Those fleshly lusts, they wage war. They wage fight. They campaign against you. A campaign is interesting for those who study military history of battle. There are battles in the world, right? There's battles and then there's campaigns. Series of battles connected together. These fleshly lust, they don't just fight you once. They campaign against you. They try to catch you in the morning. They try to catch you while you're at work. They catch you at lunchtime. See if they can catch you on your way out of work. They're campaigning against you. They're campaigning to try to resist and fight and war against your soul, right? Against that inner life, against where your will, your mind, and your emotions reside. Right? So, have you ever felt a desire so strongly that it seemed like God's direction? You see where we're going here, right? Have you ever felt desires that were within your soul? Could be thoughts in the mind, could be emotions that are driving at you, could be a really strong uh decision in your will. Have you ever felt it so strongly that it seemed like it was God? Because you're like, "This is really strong. This must be God." Just because it's strong doesn't make it God, right? Not every strong desire is God's leading. In fact, some are waring against you. And they're not just fighting against you. They're running a campaign against you. So, there's a series of battles that they're committing to try to resist, to war against your soul. Praise God. James 1 19- 21, we're going to see here that a loud, reactive soul makes it harder to hear God, right? No surprises there. If inside of you there's all sorts of turmoil and distress and anxiety, sometimes it becomes harder for you to listen to your spirit, to think about the things of God, to hear what God has to say. Okay. James 1 verse 19 says, "Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath." Verse 20, "For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God." Verse 21. Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. Powerful. It says, "Let every man be swift to hear. Be quick to listen, to understand, to pay attention." Do that quickly. Be slow to speak. Right? Be restrained. Be deliberate. Don't be hasty when it comes time to speak. So quick to pay attention, quick to listen, quick to understand, but restrained, deliberate, not hasty when it comes time to speak, and certainly slow to wrath. Right? Wrath is anger. It's indignation. It's a heated inner reaction. Be not hasty. Be restrained. Be deliberate. Hold back anger. Hold back indignation. Watch out for heated inner reactions. Stop them. Restrain them. Squelch them because nothing good's going to come out of it. It's reacting fast, right? That's not God. That's your soul. Get a hold on it. Constrain it. You know, put a muzzle, put a put a put a leash on it, right? That's what is being described here by James. And it says, "For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word." The implanted word is God's word rooted in your life. In other words, rooted in your soul. Right? Receive with meekness God's word planted inside of your soul so that God's word is in your thoughts. God's word is directing your will. God's word is ruling your emotions. Do you ever confuse a strong soulless reaction with God's spirit? I think we all have. You'll know. And we'll discuss this later quite often because if we do, we don't feel right when we do it. Or if we do it, it blows up in front of us because it wasn't right and because it wasn't God. Don't confuse a strong soulish reaction. Just because it's strong doesn't make it God. Don't confuse that with God's spirit. Right? Watch out. The soul can produce messages, impressions, directions, all these things, and they sound spiritual, but they're not even from God. They're from inside of you. They're from your own personality. They're from what makes you you. Only this time, they're going the wrong direction. Remember, fleshly lust inside of you. carnal desires. They're waging war against your soul. Peter said, and here we see with James that we should be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Because when it's all said and done, we need the implanted word inside of us which is able to save our souls, our will, our mind, our emotions. Let's take a look at Jeremiah 23:16. The Bible is such a wonderful book. Right here we have books written across thousands of years from all sorts of different writers. But it's describing a commonality among us. It's describing us having a spirit, a soul, and a body. It's giving us revelation and understanding free of charge, mind you. Free of charge. God is giving us an understanding of who we are, of how we operate, of what to watch out for, where to put our attention. These verses can provide such power and transformation inside all of our lives. It's an absolute pleasure here on the simple truth podcast to be able to spend the time with you to discuss these scriptures. They have transformed my life. I know many of you it's transformed your life and it will continue to transform throughout the world till the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Praise God. Jeremiah 23:16. Here we're going to see that not every inner thought, feeling, or impulse should be trusted simply because it feels meaningful. It feels urgent or it feels spiritual. And we're going to see a very serious verse right here. Jeremiah 23:16. Thus says the Lord of Hosts, right? The Lord of the warfare, do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless. They speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord. Praise God. What a powerful verse. Jeremiah 23:16, he says, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, do not listen. Do not obey. Do not give attention to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you." The prophets in Israel, these were false prophets. They were appointed. They were ordained. They were known as prophets. And yet the Lord himself, right, a prophet's supposed to be a mouthpiece of God. And yet God said, "Do not listen to them. They make you worthless. They make you empty. They delude you." Wow. It says they speak a vision of their own heart. To speak a vision, they speak a revelation. They speak a message of their own heart, their inner self, their unseen parts of them. and they don't speak from the mouth of the Lord. A prophet is to be speaking, right? Remember God's mouthpiece to speak the word of God as relevant in that time and in that place. And yet they weren't speaking according to God's spirit. They weren't speaking through their spirit. They were speaking in their soul. They were speaking a vision of their own heart. They were speaking out of their own will, their own emotions, and out of their own mind. And God said in doing so that they made the people worthless who would listen to them. False prophets, they speak from their own soul and they call it the word of the Lord. Have you ever followed something that was spiritual but it left you empty and confused? Right? Have you ever seen something or tried to follow it, but the result of it really wasn't right? Some strong thoughts, some strong feelings, they come from your soul. And in doing so, they must be tested. And they may be coming from inside your own soul or they may be getting ministered to you by someone else through their own soul. Whether they're giving it to you through their soul or whether it's coming out of your own soul, watch out. We watch out for soulish things. We don't want the soul of things. We want the spirit of God. And our spirit will bear witness to God's spirit that it indeed came from God. And we'll see scripture that will help us confirm God's spirit. And we'll have prayer and fasting which will help us confirm God's spirit. But it is our role in life for our spirit to connect with God and for us to be led by God's spirit through the course and through our paths. And we will prosper and do so well when we do. But if it is our soul, if it is a vision of our heart, or if it's a vision of someone else's soul coming to us, it will give us nothing. It will be worthless. It will make us empty and it will delude us. And too often in the body of Christ, we run into Christians who are struggling in the wilderness too often because they are following visions of their heart or visions of someone else's heart. God bless them and God bless us all. We all need Jesus. We all need him. I haven't arrived. We all need Jesus Christ. We all need to humble ourselves and pray and seek his face and turn from our wicked ways so that he will heal us and he will heal our land. I thank you, Father, for everybody listening to this message and that you get in there by your spirit and that you divide soul and spirit. And you grant them understanding. You grant them wisdom. You prosper them. You heal them. You strengthen them. And you just deliver them from every wicked thing that would resist them because you're good and you're merciful. And you're gracious. You're long-suffering. You're abundant in goodness and truth. You keep mercy for thousands and you forgive iniquities, transgressions, and sins all around the world. Whoever is listening to this, God bless you. Sorry, spirit had to make a bit of a distinction there. I apologize. I don't apologize, but we'll keep going. So, let's take a moment. If my soul can confuse my own logic, my fears, my desires, my own emotions with God's voice, how can I ever trust what's happening inside of me? That's an important question. That's a good question. If that's the question you're asking, that's a great question. We got a good answer. You don't have to trust every thought or every feeling. That's final. You must learn how to bring your soul, that is your inner life, under control and under God's will. Every Christian could do that. God promises every Christian can do that. Being a discerning, mature Christian does not mean that you never have a confusing thought. It means you learn not to follow every thought without testing it, without examining it, and without submitting it to Christ. Which brings us to question number three. How do I discern God's spirit from my own soul? Simple truth number 86. Every inner voice must be tested, examined, and submitted to Christ. Let's take a look at 1 John chapter 4 verse one. As we often do here in the Simple Truth podcast, if we're going to run through something, in this case, it's a series of three, give you a little road map for those who are watching on YouTube. So, test the inner voice, examine the fruit, submit it to Christ. Let's talk about testing the inner voice first. 1 John 4:1 here. are going to see. Not every spiritual sounding thought, feeling or impression is from God. Could be your own soul. Could be someone else's soul. So the first step is to test it. 1 John 4:1, quote, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God because many false prophets have gone out into the world." Praise God. Right? Do not believe. That means don't trust in, don't rely on, don't accept is true. Every spirit, a spirit, it's a spirit, it's a wind. This is not the Holy Spirit, folks. It implies a spiritual source or an influence. It could be someone else's soul trying to minister something to a vision of their own heart or your own soul. But anything that has a spiritual source or an influence doesn't make it right and doesn't make it God. So don't believe everything that's spiritual or everything that seems to have some kind of influence, but instead test them, right? Carefully evaluate, carefully discern, prove that it's genuine. God himself even says through scripture, prove it's genuine because if it's the Holy Spirit, it'll always pass the test. Prove that that spirit is genuine, that is indefinitely God. Carefully evaluate it. That's scripture and see whether it's of God. To say something's of God means it originates from God. It means it's not your soul or some other spirit. It's something that's originating from God himself. It'll come from God's spirit and your spirit will bear witness to it. So test spirits whether they originate from God, not originating from your soul or someone else's soul or some other spirit that's out there. Right? It says, "Because many false prophets, a false prophet, we actually saw this in Jeremiah, remember, falsely claims to speak for God. And yet quite often they're not speaking for God. They're speaking out of a vision of their own heart, as we saw in the book of Jeremiah." Have you ever felt a strong inner voice and you wanted to follow it immediately? It's something that was very compelling and you wanted to just go right after it. Don't automatically accept every spiritual influence. Remember, just because it feels or seems spiritual doesn't make it right. In fact, quite clearly, we're seeing here in Jeremiah, 1, John, and many other scriptures that we know everything spiritual is not right. So, don't automatically accept it. Test it with scripture and seek God for confirmation through things like prayer, fasting, etc. Okay, let's take a moment. If the first step to discern between my soul's strong inner voice and the leading of God's spirit through my spirit, as we know from last episode, if the first step is to test it, then how exactly do I do that? How do I test it? Well, how to test for God's spirit versus your own soul? First, test inner voices using God's written word, the Bible. It's really important to read the Bible. There's a lot of benefit. First of all, it's really encouraging. You'll find that it's almost like food for your spirit. It's not a scripture, by the way, to be clear. What I'm saying is not found in scripture, but you'll often find that your spirit rejoices in God's truth and your spirit feel stronger, right? It's a human analogy, but it's like exercise or it's like food. It's something that makes your spirit feel stronger inside of you and it takes some of the desires of your flesh. Remember, it's your body and your unregenerated part of your soul, starts to tamp them down and start to decrease them. So, it's really important to read scripture and have some understanding of scripture. It's important to remind yourself of scripture. And this is a good way to test an inner voice, right? Using God's word in scripture, you'll see what God says about himself, what God says about you. There's a lot of truth that you could use to examine to gain understanding. Uh there are people who misinterpret the Bible, right, too often. But the more scripture you read and you're coming to understand, the more you can start to apply it in your life. And it really will help mature you as you gain a better and a good understanding of what the Bible has to say both about you and the world around you. But hey, who am I talking to? You're listening to the Simple Truth podcast. So, you're just that kind of person. God bless you. Uh ask yourself, does this direction agree with scripture, right? I have a strong inner voice. Let's say something. It's a thought in my mind or it's a strong feeling inside of me or or a direction or decision I feel very driven to go in, right? These are the three components of my soul. Ask yourself, does this direction agree with scripture? Right? Does this agree with the example of Jesus Christ, for example, which we find in scripture? Does this agree with the fruit of the spirit, which we find in scripture? There's a lot of standards in the law of places in scripture, which shows us what the right way looks like. Does this jive with any of that? Uh here's 2 Timothy 3:16, well-known scripture and an important one. And it says, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction, and righteousness." All scripture is given by God's inspiration. It came forth from God. And it's profitable. It's beneficial for doctrine, for our teaching, for reproof to show us what's wrong and for correction to show us what's right and for instruction and righteousness. So reading the Bible, meditating on scripture, it's very powerful and very useful for showing us good things about ourselves and giving us a good understanding of what's right as well as what's wrong. Here's one from Hebrews 4:12. quote, "For the word of God is living and powerful and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Right? Such a powerful scripture. The word of God is not just words written on a page somewhere or written on a Bible app. The word of God, they are words and they are confirmed by God's spirit. And those words become living and they become powerful. And it says the word of God is a discerner, also known as a judge of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Right there, we're describing your mind and we're describing your will inside of your soul. Right? So powerful. Powerful. Praise God. Number two on how to test for God's spirit versus your own soul. Test inner voices through prayer and fasting for God's confirmation. Scripture may not always be clear to you. You know, I'll read the Bible. I'll read scripture. all gain a good understanding of a variety of things, but you may have a very specific situation and it's not like it's all that clear what the Bible has to say about your very specific situation. So, you pray, you worship, you fast if needed until your spirit is settled. Right? It says, "My sheep shall hear my voice." It says, "All shall know me from the least to the greatest." Right? There's so many scriptures that talk about how God wants a close and a personal relationship with you. Right? We saw this throughout season 3 where we talked about the five disciplines just how important that God wants to know you. He wants to be your God. He wants to be closely connected. He wants to be in you and around you and leading you and guiding you and caring for you. God wants a very strong and a very close relationship. So pray, worship, fast, right? Do these things. Help these things settle you in a decision. And so it'll give you confirmation. So yes, read, right? Yes, read and meditate on God's scripture, but also seek God for confirmation to help strengthen your decision. Let's see an example of this in Luke 6:12. Here we see, quote, "He, that's Jesus, went out to the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God." I want to remind you of something. Jesus had a human soul, right? Jesus had the spirit which was the son of God. But Jesus had a human soul, a human will, a human mind, a human set of emotions. In that way, he was tempted by all things. He was tempted by wrath. He was tempted by lust. All these things were temptations. But he did not sin. He did not choose those things. But he had a human soul. So he had a body. He had a soul. He had things that would try to tempt him with desires and impulses. But he had the spirit of the son of God and he knew to be led by God's spirit and he and the father were one. But notice what he had to do. Says here in Luke 6:12 that Jesus went out to the mountain to pray and he continued all night in prayer to God. This is before he chose the 12 disciples. He wanted to have the mind of God. He wanted to do the will of the father and choose the right 12 disciples. And so he went out and prayed and continued all night in prayer. Because while Jesus had the spirit of the son of God, Jesus had a human body and a human soul that he had to bring under submission to the will of God. Much like we have to do, which makes perfect sense because Jesus is our example. That was a season two of the simple truth podcast. Here in Proverbs 3 verses 5 and 6, we see right quote, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart." Remember what a heart is? The heart is the unseen parts of a person. It's your spirit and your soul. Right? You see the person's body, but the unseen part is the heart of a person. And as their spirit and their soul. So it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, with all the unseen parts of you. And lean not on your own understanding or reason. It's a facet of the mind. It's a part of your soul." It says here, "In all your ways, acknowledge or recognize him, God, and he shall direct or make right your paths." Powerful, right? If you trust in God with your heart, if you don't lean on your own reasoning or your own understanding, if you don't think you got it going on, you know, I've got a strong brain, I can think this through. No. And in all your ways, acknowledge or recognize God, and he'll direct your paths. He'll make them straight. make them right. So read your scriptures, test inner voices using God's written word, the Bible, and also test inner voices through prayer, through fasting for God's confirmation. Because if you acknowledge God, if you recognize him, he'll direct your paths and he'll lead you in the right direction. Praise God. Simple truth number 87. Inner voices, they must be examined by the fruit that they produce. So we talked about testing the inner voices. Now, we're going to talk about examining the fruit of those inner voices. Galatians 5 19-23. For those watching this on YouTube, I apologize in advance. There's a lot of words on this slide. I do not like to do that, but there's a reason for this one. Okay. What we're going to see in Galatians 5:19-23, if an inner voice leads you towards fleshly actions, it is not God's spirit. even if it feels urgent, even if it feels spiritual, even if it feels justified. So, let's see some examples of that. So, that's why we put Galatians 5:19 through 21 all on one slide so you can see them all together. Quote, "Now, the works of the flesh are evident." Okay, Paul's writing, he says, "The works of the flesh, the works of your carnal human old nature, they're evident. They're obvious. They're easy to see." which are quote adultery. Adultery is unfaithfulness in marriage. Where you see italics, if you're watching this on YouTube, italics are what I added to help define those terms. I added the underlines. I added the italics. Okay. The works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery. That's unfaithfulness in marriage. Fornication, that's sex outside of marriage. uncleanness, that's moral impurity. Lewdness, that's provocative sensual behavior. Verse 20, idolatry, that's worshiping things that aren't God. Sorcery, that's spiritual manipulation. Good example would be the occult, right? Satanic practices. Hatred, that's hostility. Contentions, that's conflict. See what we're seeing here in the list. The works of the flesh are evidence. And he starts listing off various results, various fruits of the flesh. We see everything ranging from having sex with someone who's not your spouse all the way down to hatred, contentions, conflict. The next one is jealousies. That's resentments. It's resenting things people have, resenting others and what they have. Outbursts of wrath. That's explosive anger, selfish ambitions. It's self-seeking. It's seeking after what you want, what you desire instead of seeking after what God desires and then God giving you what you desire. Dissensions. It's division. It's a work of the flesh creating division among people. The next one's heresies. It's related. It's factions that divide. Later on, that term got to be known as teaching what's untrue, like departing for non-truths. But early on in the early Greek, that was about factions that divide. So creating division among people and creating factions is a work of the flesh. Verse 21, envy. Envy is resentment over other people's blessings. It's resenting that someone else has something and you want it too. But even more important, they often want them to not have it. Murders, it's taking life, right? taking life, unjustified taking of life, drunkenness, it's intoxication, includes alcohol and other things. Revelries, that's wild partying. I think we all can guess what that means. And the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, Paul writes, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. He went ahead and said the works of the flesh are evident and listed a whole series of them. These are examples of fleshly actions. If an inner voice is telling you to do these things, if an inner voice is compelling you, even if it feels urgent, even feels spiritual, even if it feels justified, it's not God's spirit. So now, let's take a look at the opposite. We're now going to Galatians chapter 5, and we're looking at verses 22 and 23. Here we're going to see that if an inner voice is from God's spirit, it won't just sound spiritual. It won't just feel spiritual, but when you examine it, it will be producing fruit of the spirit. In other words, it'll be producing byproducts of God's spirit. Galatians 5:22. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. We'll define these in a second. Verse 23, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Praise God. It says, "But the fruit of the spirit." Fruit is a result. It's an outcome. It's visible evidence of something produced. When a tree is brought forth and it's a fruit tree, the fruit is the result. It's the outcome of that tree. The fruit often is an indicator of the health or the success. Or to use the fig tree as an example, Jesus cursed a fig tree because it served no purpose. It was serving no figs. You and I have a purpose in life. You and I have a purpose to bear fruit, to have results, to have outcomes, to have visible evidence produced of our service to God, of obeying God. It's as the fruit of the spirit, right? The spirit is the Holy Spirit whose voice leads us to godly fruit, right? God's inner voice. That voice that comes from God's spirit to our spirit, it's leads us to produce godly fruit. And the fruit of that spirit, the outcome, the byproduct of following that inner voice of pursuing and doing the will of that voice of obeying it and adhering to it, it produces these things. It produces love. Love is selflessness. It's sacrificial care, right? Loving somebody is to do what's best for them, even at times if it's even to your own detriment. That's love. That's agape love. Secondly, the fruit of the spirit produces joy. Gladness, delight. There's no sorrow in God's joy, in godly joy. There's great gladness. There's great delight. Produces peace. It's inner calm, right? There's a tranquility, a calm, a wholeness, right? That's powerful. It produces longsuffering. You can bear long with others. The fruit of the spirit means I can bear with others. People who maybe aren't as mature in Christ, people who are having issues, I can help bear. Let the strong bear the infirmities of the weak. The scripture says, let us come in there. God has made us strong. Praise God. Now, it is my job to serve. The least shall be the greatest. Right? I will get in there and I will help serve. Jesus was not beneath Jesus to wash the feet of others. I can help bear along with others. I can have the fruit of the spirit in me. I could be long-suffering. Praise God. Kindness, that's being helpful. Helpful to others to deliver real value to them. Goodness, it's to do right for others. I'm going to do the right thing for you. Faithfulness, it's reliability. It's trustworthiness. I'm reliable. I'm faithful. I'm consistent. Consistently doing what's right. Consistently being helpful. These are fruits of the spirit. They're byproducts. their evidence produced by obeying God's spirit. Gentleness, that's strength, but it's under control, right? It doesn't mean there's weakness in here. No, no, no. Gentleness has strength, but that strength is brought under submission to God. It's brought under control. And self-control, that's mastery over one's desires, mastery over one's impulses. That right there is the the exclamation point on that list. Too often for us, we have such strong emotions, such strong desires, and they cause struggle inside of us to not do what God wants us to do. But we find ourselves chasing after what we want to do, and then feeling convicted and feeling even dirty or unclean afterwards. Maybe we feel very strongly to do the list that was on the previous slide. Maybe a variety of things on that list. But the fruit of the spirit is self-control. That means God gives you mastery over your desires and your impulses. You can have strength and it could be under control. Praise God. Ever wonder if something is God's leading or just your own soul? If you're wondering, examine it. The soul's leading will lead to destructive behaviors. It'll lead to the works of the flesh that we saw on the previous slide. The long list of terrible things. No good comes from them. Those things destroy relationships. Those things create addictions. Those things harm bodies. Those things lead to people passing away. That's a list of terrible and disgusting things. And I guarantee you people do not feel good after they have done that. They will feel a strong compulsion and then afterwards they'll feel a tremendous conviction. Happens all the time. Soul will lead you to destructive behaviors too often. But God will lead you for fruitful behaviors. God will lead you to the fruit of the spirit with the list that you see on this slide. Praise God. So if you're wondering if something is God or your soul, you can examine it. Which brings us to simple truth number 88. Inner thoughts and voices, they must submit to Christ's lordship. So we talked about testing inner voices. Talked about examining the fruit of inner voices. Now we should talk about submitting the inner voice to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10 verses 3-5. Here we're going to see in verses 3 and 4 that you have power through God to fully bring your soul under submission. Right? 2 Corinthians 10:3 quote, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they're mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. For though we walk in the flesh, we walk in a physical substance. We have human nature, right? We have bodies. We walk around. We live in bodies, but we don't war according to those bodies. We do not wage war. We do not battle. We do not engage in spiritual conflicts in the physical substance in our bodies. For the weapons of our warfare, they're not carnal. In other words, they're not worldly. They don't rely on human power, but instead, they're mighty. [clears throat] They're powerful. They're able. They are effective. and they're mighty in God or pulling down strongholds to pull down to demolish to overthrow strongholds. Those are fortresses. That's entrenched resistance. The weapons we have, we may walk around in a body, but we do not battle in this body. We do not battle through our body. We battle with our spirit. And the weapons we use are powerful. They're able. They're highly effective. and they demolish and overthrow entrenched resistance. They pulled down fortresses. Praise God. Have you ever felt like a soloulish thought or a feeling was too strong for you to resist? You don't have to obey it. You never have to obey it. God's power is mighty to pull it down, to pull down that thought, to pull down that feeling, to take control. Because remember, fruit of the spirit includes self-control. Praise God. 2 Corinthians chapter 10:5. Here we're going to see test and examine innervoices. and then bring them under Christ's lordship. Bring them under the power the same power that worked in Christ when God raised him from the dead. The same power that forgave the sins of the world. The same power that brought down the veil in the temple. The same power that has worked through billions of Christians since the beginning of time. The same power that Jesus used when he walked around and he cast out devils and he healed the sick and he raised the dead. when he turned water into wine, that same power is in you. 2 Corinthians 10 verse 5, quote, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Says casting down, that's tearing down, bringing down arguments. Those are reasonings. Those are arguments of the mind. the clever things that people can devise to try to raise themselves up against the knowledge of God. It says, "And every high thing that's a proud thought, it's a mindset against God." So tearing down, bringing down people's fancy arguments, proud thoughts, mindsets, and beliefs that are against God. everything that exalts itself against God and bringing every thought that's every fleeting thought that comes and goes, every inner conclusion, every belief, all those things, bringing every thought, every conclusion, every belief inside of you. Bring all those into captivity. All those are brought under control. All of them are made obedient to the obedience, the submission, the surrender to God's will of Jesus Christ. Are you paying attention to the thoughts that are shaping your inner life? Do you even know what you're thinking about throughout the day? Do you even know what you're meditating on? Because these things affect you. The things that your mind meditates and sits on, it has an influence on you, right? It's affecting your inner life. It's affecting your soul. Be conscious of your thoughts. Be conscious and intentionally submit your thoughts, your desires, your decisions to God's will. Don't be unconscious. Don't just wake up one day and go, "Oh my gosh, why is everything so scary? Why do I feel fear? Why am I so afraid? Why do I feel so sinful?" Those thoughts started and they start working themselves in you. And then hours, days, weeks later, you look up and you're in a very bad place. It could get stopped immediately and early. And it does so by renewing your mind. So, what should I do now? Okay. I want to better know if it's God's voice versus my own soul that's talking. And I now know that I need to first of all test the inner voice. I need to examine the fruit that's the result of following that inner voice. And number three, I've got to submit my thoughts, my feelings, my desires, and my impressions to Christ. But what can I do this week to actually try it all out? Well, try this out for the next seven days. The 7-day challenge. Day one, pay attention to your inner voice. We were just discussing this. Take frequent pauses during your day. What thoughts, desires, or feelings am I thinking about right now because these things are shaping me. So think about it. Take a pause. You might even want to write it down. What am I thinking about a little bit later? What am I thinking about? What am I desiring after? What feelings am I having? Because all of these items are shaping your soul. Days two through seven, start to test and examine those things, right? Do these thoughts, do these desires, do these feelings, do they agree with scripture? Did God call me to think about and meditate on these things? Would God be proud if I showed them to him? He knows your thoughts and your intents of your heart. But if I were to write these down and share them with my spouse or show them to others, what would they think about them? What would scripture say about them? Because if it would be embarrassing to show to others and if it would not align with scripture, you can see that you have an issue. And by the way, it's not just you. We all have issues. We all have had issues. But we have been renewing our mind. We have been reading our scripture. We've been meditating on God. We've been being led by God's spirit. And we have been getting transformed and changed. The problems I had 20 years ago, many of them I don't have today. The problems I had 10 years ago, many of them I don't have today. There's things I had issues with last year that I don't have today. And there's things that I have today that I will not have next year. That is what it means to be a Christian. Christians grow. Christians mature. Christians are led by God's spirit and Christians are transformed and we're made more and more into the image of Jesus Christ. Praise God. Not because we deserve it. It's God's grace and it's God's mercy and it's God's plan for your life. Is your spirit settled with it as you pray, as you worship, and you fast? So, as you pray, worship, and fast, are you okay with these thoughts, these desires, and these feelings? Because I'll tell you this, if you're thinking about the things of God, if you're thinking about things that are right, that are pure, that are of good report, as the scripture says, then you'll be very settled with those items. But if you find your mind wandering onto despicable things, things were on that slide several slides ago, or other things. If your spirit is not settled with it, then it's convicting you on those things. And it is important for you to start to take control, to start to apply self-control, to start to be able to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ for those items. Does following the things that you're meditating on, that you're thinking about, these thoughts you desire, these feelings, does it produce works of the flesh, or do those things you're thinking about produce the fruit of the spirit? That's an important test. If you find yourself meditating and thinking on things that create the works of the flesh, then you see that it's starting as a thought. And if you don't watch it, it's going to create an action. Your actions quite often start off as ideas or thoughts and they start kind of boiling and bubbling inside of you and then they produce the result. There are ways to stop them before you ever do the action. Days 3 through 7, submit it to Christ. Right? Take frequent pauses during the day. Cast down carnal thoughts. Read scripture. Cast down carnal desires. Cast down feelings. Put them under the submission to God. Those things are resisting you. They're waging war against your soul. As we saw in First Peter, you don't want those things. Those things are undermining you. Right? They're it's a weight that you don't want to carry, a burden you don't want to have. Do you remember what it felt like when you became born again? The joy, the peace, the strength that you felt. You can feel that all the time. But we find ourselves getting weighed down by the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, desires after other things. They weigh us down and they wage war against our soul. But we can take control. Take frequent pauses during the day in days 3 through 7. Here's what I suggest, right? Take frequent pauses during the day and cast down carnal, fleshly desires, thoughts, feelings, and bring them under submission to God. Absolutely doable. God bless you and God keep you. God bless you as you pay attention to your inner voice coming up as God bless you as you test and you examine your inner voice and submit your thoughts, your desires, and your feelings under the submission of Jesus Christ. And don't miss our next episode because if God cares about your spirit as we saw in last episode and your soul as we saw in this episode, then does your body matter to him too? Absolutely it does. What does God want you to do with your body? So, click into next episode to see more from this season and like and subscribe for more simple, biblical, and essential truth.