Answers: Hearing God, Living in His Power, and Encounters with the Holy Spirit

Rajinder Buxton (Ryde Elim) responds to your questions

How can I recognise the voice of God?

To recognise God’s voice, we must first belong to Jesus, saved by his grace, as it is his sheep who hear his voice (John 10:27). God speaks to us through his Word, the Bible, as we read, study, and meditate on it. If we need divine guidance for any situation in life, God’s Word will guide us as he never contradicts his Word (Titus 1:2).

God speaks to us in prayer. As we spend time with him, we can learn how to recognise when God’s Spirit is speaking to us in his still small voice to our minds or spirit. Through experience, we can learn to recognise how he speaks to us through the circumstances we face, or through the wise counsel of mature believers. It’s not enough to just hear what God says, we must also be willing to obey him when he speaks (Luke 11:28), as our obedience brings delight to God’s heart (1 Samuel 15:22).

How do we activate the resurrection power in our life?

Paul prayed, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…” (Philippians 3:10).

From Paul’s example, he activated God’s power through surrendering to God’s will, including going through great hardships and crisis situations. He depended and relied on God’s power and strength to sustain and keep him alive even when beaten with rods, stoned, and shipwrecked, to name just a few of Paul’s trials (2 Corinthians 12:10).

In his ministry, Paul saw God’s empowered living, through a life of obedience, love and service to others. He encouraged the use of spiritual gifts in building up the church, in miracles, signs and wonders accompanying the gospel message, leading to changed lives and deeper relationship with God. He spent time in prayer, and fasting, and was strengthened in his inner man (Ephesians 3:16) to experience that resurrection power. And so should we, to see his power begin to flow through our mortal body (Romans 8:11).

As with Paul, the power of God will never be activated in our lives through our own might (Zechariah 4:6) but through our total submission to God, even as Jesus was totally humble and submitted to God (Philippians 2:6-8), and the Holy Spirit was able to work powerfully through him.

By spending time with God, we will exchange our strength for God’s, and our ability for his, to see his resurrection power begin to flow through us.

Is being ‘slain in the Spirit’ biblical?

Although phrases like ‘slain in the Spirit’ are not found in the Bible, there have been biblical experiences where people have fallen down when encountering God’s Spirit (John 18:5-6, Acts 26:13-14, Revelation 1:10-17).

This experience has occurred many times in church services, where God’s manifest presence caused the physical human body to react. John Wesley reported such occurrences, which he attributed to God’s powerful presence. Believers experiencing this when prayed for, have said that God used it to impact them in various ways – i.e. spiritually, emotionally, sometimes bringing physical healing and even deliverance.

Falling under the power of the Holy Spirit should not be made an expectation for all believers, nor should it be considered a sign of spiritual maturity. It is never God’s will that we seek spiritual experience for its own sake, but that we seek Jesus himself by faith and in accordance with the Word of God. He is our only source of genuine spiritual experience, satisfaction and fulfilment (Psalm 16:11, Philippians 3:10-14).

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.