![[Photo of a confused woman on the phone]](https://www.deankwilson.com/Blog_images/confused_woman_on_phone.jpg)
| “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.” |
| —John 16:12-15 |
Have you ever answered the telephone at home and the person calling started talking to you like he or she knew you, but you could not tell who that person was because you did not recognize the person’s voice? This happens to all of us from time to time. We will get a telephone call and the person calling will start talking to us without telling us who he or she is. The whole time that person is talking to us, instead of listening to what he or she is saying, we are trying to figure out who it is.
Sometimes, after we have listened very carefully to the sound of the person’s voice for a while, something the person says to us, or the way he or she forms words, will let us know who it is that is speaking to us.
The Bible verses at the beginning of this blog post come from a Scripture passage in the Gospel of John where Jesus tells His disciples that the Holy Spirit will come to them and speak to them of things that will guide them along the pathway of their lives. Jesus makes it very clear to His disciples that they will recognize it is the Holy Spirit speaking to them because the Holy Spirit will be speaking the same kinds of things that Jesus has been telling them. What the Holy Spirit says to them—not in an audible voice, but in the deep recesses of their hearts and minds—will be immediately recognizable. They will know that it is the Holy Spirit speaking to them because His words will have the familiar ring. Those words will be the very same words that convey the very same teachings that Jesus has spoken to them.
When we put our faith and trust in Jesus, the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us. How this happens is a great spiritual mystery. But, we know for certain that it does happen. The Holy Spirit is present within us to remind us of the things Jesus wants us to know and to do.
When we hear that “spiritual voice” inside us telling us what to do, we will always be able to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit by what the Spirit says to us. If what we hear is the same kind of things Jesus would say to us—the kinds of things Jesus said that we read about in the Bible—then we will know for certain it is the Holy Spirit speaking. And, that is a really important lesson we all must learn.
