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Hearing from God: Knowing the Difference Between Your Spirit’s Voice and Your Soul’s Voice

Gloria Copeland addresses the issue of hearing from God and dividing between soul and spirit in an article in the Believer’s Voice of Victory magazine issue for Oct. 2010.

I wanted to put together some of the highlights from this article that might help you if you’re really trying to learn how to hear from God clearly, like I am!

Gloria says:

Most of the time I would hear my own spirit speaking to my soul, which is my mind, will and emotions. The audible voice of the Lord is rare in most of our lives. Almost every leading we will receive in everyday life will be a prompting, an impression, a thought, an inward witness, a leading or an unction from our spirit.

The reason it sounds like us is because it is ourselves that we hear. The Holy Spirit communicates with our spirit, and our spirit prompts, or enlightens, our mind.

When we start our day by praying the will of God by the Holy Spirit, many times we will have already prayed concerning the problems we will face during the day. We will perceive an interpretation, a prompting, an impression, a word or a sentence that will enlighten us and give us the answer to the situation. It will be so natural to us that we might not even realize it is the Holy Spirit leading and revealing Himself to us. Things that would have been stumbling blocks to us before will now be handled with ease by hearing and obeying the will of God as the Holy Spirit leads us.

I don’t think there is any way to cultivate this communion between the Holy Spirit and our spirit, and between our spirit and our mind, except by spending time in prayer and in the Word of God. Only the Word of God will separate or differentiate between the soul and the spirit. Our soul relies on natural knowledge to form its opinions until natural knowledge is replaced by the supernatural knowledge of God. In Romans 12:2 this process of replacing the thoughts of natural, carnal man with the thoughts of God is called “the renewing of your mind.”

You might be asking, “How can I tell the difference and be sure when it is God or just me?” You will have to begin a quest for the things of God. The Scripture lets us know that if we seek God, we will find Him. Spiritual things do not come without serious effort.

We are told in Hebrews 11:6 that “without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” We know that we have to approach God in faith – that is, without being able to see proof in the natural realm. We must learn to believe Him without seeing Him. From that verse we also find another key to knowing God: He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

There is no selfish, easy way to walk with God while we live in the earth and in a natural body. We will do it God’s way or not at all.

Remember, God’s Words comes to us in two ways: (1) by the written Word, and (2) by the Holy Spirit speaking to our spirit. We begin with the assurance that God’s written Word is our sure word. The Holy Spirit will never lead you contrary to the written Word of God. If you receive a prompting that is in opposition to the written Word, you will know it is not from the Holy Spirit.

Simply ask the Holy Spirit to teach you how to follow Him. Give Him control of your life and He will reveal to you the will of God, step by step. He knows how to bring you to maturity. All He requires of you is your attention and your obedience.

~Excerpts from article entitled “Was that Me, Lord, or was that You?” by Gloria Copeland in BVOV mag. Oct. 2010, pp. 12-13.

5 Essential Ingredients to Homeschooling Success

5 Essential Ingredients to Homeschooling Success

By Terri Johnson – co-author of Homeschooling ABCs 5 Essential Ingredients to Homeschooling Success

Homeschooling ABCs – an online class starting this month for brand new homeschoolers

We’ve all seen it… or, at least, heard about it… the homeschooled child who wins the geography bee, or the one who graduates at the age of 15, or the one who excels in musical accomplishments…

Now, obviously, a student does not have to be homeschooled in order to accomplish one of the feats above, nor does every homeschooled child excel in such notable ways. However, every homeschooling parent desires for success in teaching their children at home and launching them into the world to become all that God has intended for them to be.

The flipside to this statement is that no one wants to fail when it comes to teaching their children at home. So, what are the five necessary ingredients to homeschooling success?

The first one is the desire to foster a closer relationship with each of your children and your kids with one another. If you don’t want to spend more time together and deepen these relationships (or, at least, want to want to spend more time together), then homeschooling may not be the best choice for you. However, I am sure that you have heard it said before that at the end of the day, no one is going to say, “I wish that I had spent more time at work… or by myself… or with my canary…” No, the universal regret that aging and dying people declare is their sadness over not spending enough time with their loved ones. Teaching your children at home is an amazing opportunity to spend more time with your dearest loved ones and have no regrets.

The second ingredient to homeschooling success is a teachable spirit on the part of the parent. This is essential because, like it or not, you will learn so much more teaching your own children than you ever did in school the first time around. So, you might as well like to learn.

On that same note, the third essential ingredient to successful homeschooling is creating a home environment that is conducive to learning. This may show itself differently in each of our homes, but the result is the same – a place where kids can learn and enjoy it.

A home that is conducive to learning may have quiet and cozy reading nooks, bookshelves crammed with great books, a listening corner complete with headphones and a beanbag chair, uncluttered smooth surfaces for writing, stacks of coloring/activity books and colored pencils, a place to gather together and talk about the day’s events. You get the idea… Create centers in your home that make learning fun and accessible.

The fourth ingredient for a successful homeschool is 2 hours of your time to devote to your children’s studies. Truly, when the one-on-one teaching method is employed in your home, you do not need all day in order to get things done. In fact, a child in K-2 grades might be finished with her schoolwork in as few as 45 minutes (of course, that probably does not include the time that you spend reading together because who can get enough of that!).

At the other end of the spectrum, you might not need that much time with your middle schooler or high schooler either, because they become such independent learners by this age. The kids that will need the majority of that time that you have designated for school – those full 2 hours – would be your students in 3-6 grades as math and grammar assignments might get a little more involved.

The final ingredient for homeschooling success is a library card. That’s right! With access to a huge roomful of books, a world of learning opportunities is at your doorstep. Let’s say that your child is interested in insects or flowers, electricity or magnetism, transportation or inventions… check out as many books as he can devour on the subject and then some more. Watch your child light up with the delight of learning.

With these 5 essential ingredients incorporated into your homeschool, you will experience successful learning in the lives of your children, because this is the measure of success – children that love to learn!

Enjoy those learning moments…

Terri Johnson

Co-author of Homeschooling ABCs – an online class starting this month for brand new homeschoolers. Don’t let self-doubt, or lack of experience, rob you of the best first year possible! Sign up for class at Homeschooling ABCs.

Best of Success to you,

Todd and Terri Johnson

Knowledge Quest, Inc.

P.S. – Need to contact us? Just send an email to terri@knowledgequestmaps.com

Knowledge Quest, Inc.

P.O. Box 789

Boring, OR 97009

877.697.8611

Meet With the Beloved of Your Soul

This comes from an explanation of the Feasts that God instituted for His people which Keren Hannah Pryor wrote in her email series, Appointments With God. The Feasts are appointed times for us to come to God and “meet with the Beloved of our soul”. They are His call to holiness. I loved the way she described the cycles of times and seasons and the unchanging nature of celebrating the Feasts every year.

As we walk in His cycles we do not find ourselves spinning giddily round in circles getting nowhere. Rather, we discover that we gradually spiral upward, ever higher and stronger. Our spirits grow according to our Father’s design and draw closer and closer to His Presence.

At the conclusion of each annual cycle we should not be where we were, or even who we were, at the start. On a spiritual journey it is the person who changes, not necessarily the scenery. When we have accepted His invitation, kept the appointment, and met with the Beloved of our soul, we should be moving steadily nearer to our destination and accomplishing more fully our purpose of being the unique and precious person He created us to be. We will then shine forth more of His image, for His Name’s sake.

You can join her email list and get her weekly teachings at jcstudies.com.

I believe we can live this kind of growing, changing life without celebrating the Feasts the way God called the Jews to celebrate them, but I believe it helps us to pull our focus onto the things of God and off of the ordinary things of life when we acknowledge the time and the season that God ordained for His chosen people to observe. And it is good for our children to hear us rehearse the mighty acts of God in our own lives.

Update from 40 Days for Life – Changed By Love

Before I share the update, I want to comment that in the same way that I have been Changed By Love, we should pray for the abortion workers to be changed by love. I admire the leadership of 40 Days and believe that God gave them this strategy of praying and sharing the love of Jesus instead of being confrontational or aggressive. There have been several abortion workers whose hearts have been touched and they are leaving their jobs. Let’s pray that God would bless them and help them find new jobs and bring them into a close relationship with Himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today is October 5. It may be just another day to
you, but not for me — and most certainly not for
Abby Johnson.

It was one year ago today that I walked into my old
office at the Coalition for Life in Bryan/College
Station, Texas and discovered that Abby Johnson was
there.

We had been on opposite sides of the fence for years
and at that moment we found ourselves together —
her crying and me trying to grasp what the Holy
Spirit was unraveling before my eyes.

To see Abby Johnson, the regional Planned Parenthood
affiliate’s employee of the year, in my office —
in tears — was … a miracle!

Abby had seen an abortion on an ultrasound — for the
first time — and was overcome by the reality of what
actually happens during an abortion. She knew she was
watching a helpless human being die. And she also
knew immediately she could NEVER do it again.

A few days later, Abby and I posed for a picture at
the birthplace of 40 Days for Life — her former
abortion center!

We had been on opposite sides of this fence for
8 years as volunteers and then employees. She
admitted it felt better to be on our side of the
fence!

To see that picture, go to:

http://40daysforlife.com/blog/?p=1202

Fast forward just a few months to Abby standing in
front of the abortion facility she had run for years
kicking off the spring 40 Days for Life in Bryan/
College Station, Texas.

To see a video of her comments, please go to:

http://40daysforlife.com/blog/?p=1202

This is truly a testimony of what God can — and
WILL — do in answer to prayer.

We know of 37 abortion center employees — including
Abby — who have left their jobs during 40 Days for
Life campaigns.

I didn’t know this would happen to me last year
and you don’t know what can happen to YOU during
your campaign!

This fall remember to pray for the staff along
with the moms and the babies. Many of them are
looking for a way out — pray they will have the
courage to take that step.

Right now there is one employee in particular who
really needs prayer because this person saw another
employee quit the center and want to do likewise.

I continue to be amazed this fall of the employees
who are coming to 40 Days for Life and wanting out
of the abortion industry but after all…

…as I learned last fall firsthand, the God who
convinced Abby Johnson to quit Planned Parenthood
can do ANYTHING!

Here’s today’s devotional from Fr. Frank Pavone, the
national director of Priests for Life…

—————————————————–
DAY 14 INTENTION
—————————————————–

Abortion is the great “no.” May all of God’s people
have the freedom and grace to say “yes” to His
marvelous plans.

—————————————————–
SCRIPTURE
—————————————————–

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my
mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully
and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and
that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden
from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes
saw my substance, being yet unformed and in Your book
they all were written, The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.

— Psalm 139:13-16

—————————————————–
REFLECTION by Fr. Frank Pavone, Priests for Life
—————————————————–

Unlike the rest of creation, we are capable of a
personal relationship with God. Not only did God
create us, but created us according to a plan devised
from all eternity. No matter how far back we go in
our imagination, there was never a time when God did
not know each of us, in every detail of our being.

There was not a particular time when God decided to
make us. The decision to make us has been in the mind
of God from all eternity. All our days were written
in His book.

To dare to say that a human being, developing in the
womb, should not be born is as wrong as to say that a
born person should not continue to grow and live. In
each case, an attack on human life is an attack on
the God who formed and made us. Jesus Christ is the
great “yes” to the promises of God; abortion is the
great “no.”

—————————————————–
PRAYER
—————————————————–

Lord, I pray today for every unborn child. The beauty
of the bodies and souls of these children flows from
your hands and your eternal plan.

Awaken in every human conscience a profound reverence
for human life, and grant us grace to defend our
smallest and most defenseless brothers and sisters,
those still being formed in the secret places of
their mothers’ womb. We ask this through Christ our
Lord, Amen.

Jesus Was Raised IN a Village, Not BY a Village

Have you heard the proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child”?

What happens when children are sent out of the home into the village when they are too young to defend themselves and don’t yet know how to properly relate to others? They learn a lot of bad things.

Barbie Poling says in her post, Taking and Using Addressed:

“Through interactions with peers, they often develop a false personality. They learn to use each other in a vain attempt to secure their own worth in their own eyes, each having a twisted notion of themselves and the other person.”

Marilyn Howshall says in her comment on Barbie’s post about False Personalities:

“We are already wired through our sinful nature toward the unique attitudes (thought processes), intentions (desired outcomes of behavior) and motivations (reasons for behavior) of our hearts. Our internal heart activity forms our relating habits and patterns and dictates our relational health. All of our pre-disposed responses to other people were formed in childhood when we weren’t with our parents and were left to find ways to build defenses against being hurt, rejected, misunderstood, and so on. Without a parent’s constant attention and instruction, no child will possess the inner strength and all the needed proper responses to outward stimuli. Thus, false personalities form and cover up the true self, turning character away from becoming Christlike.

The amazing truth is that children can grow up to become teenagers who are mature in their relating habits and practices, mature in their character, and able to make wise and healthy relational decisions—true to their real personality and true to Christlike qualities. My children did so and continue to do so, but many Christians still think that certain “stages” are common for all ages of children and to be expected. The only reason they are common is due to undiscipled hearts, which is an activity the church doesn’t concern itself with and parents apparently do not either.

Don’t believe the lie that lack of unity and harmony is acceptable in any relationship. Lack of understanding or willingness to come into understanding is the primary cause of broken relationships. Healing relationships in love always means talking about “sacred cows” and exposing ingrained thought-processes that formed existing wrong attitudes, intentions, and motivations.

Do the hard work of making your relationships healthy and holy! It can be an upsetting season, but Jesus makes it worth living a TRUE life!”

I want to spend some time talking about what happens when children spend large amounts of time in groups in institutional settings, being raised BY a village.

Children learn self-protection

When they get rejected and criticized and made fun of, they learn to protect themselves from further painful rejection. They put up walls around their hearts. They learn how to hide how they are really feeling. They learn to avoid ridicule by adapting their behavior to the way the rest of the group behaves. They protect themselves instead of being vulnerable, open and honest. They learn that it’s dangerous to be transparent.

They learn the art of taking and using

They learn to use others to get approval for themselves – Barbie Poling found that her children were using their peers to build habits of being approved by others in a vain attempt to view themselves as acceptable.
Children learn to use others to get acceptance for themselves when placed in a group of peers unsupervised.

Self-centeredness

When we spend our growing-up years in groups, we try to stand out and make a place for ourselves in that group. This requires a lot of self-focus. We try to prove that we deserve attention, admiration, approval and acceptance. Our focus is definitely not on how others are feeling or how we can show the love of God to others. We are too busy jockeying for position. Flesh is in charge of relational character formation.

In this post, Barbie Poling talks about the way her daughter relates to peers now that she is old enough to go out among others and has been discipled in the way that is right. She doesn’t get angry at them because they do things that hinder her agenda. She understands that they have other things going on in their lives that make it impossible for them to do what they originally told her they would do.  She understands that their worlds don’t revolve around her.

“The way Rachel treats these college kids beginning in her heart (her attitudes, intentions and motivations) reveals her moral character. So many parents think that passing on good morals to their kids means their kids will dress modestly, work hard, and refrain from drugs and sexual immorality. This is an extremely short-sighted and inaccurate understanding of moral character because all these things can be done while still being full of self-seeking relational habits. Christians all over the place live up to a superficial set of generally moral practices thinking themselves to be righteous just like the Pharisees did in Jesus’ time, but Christlike moral character is relating rightly in love at the heart level. It is the “sum of our relational habits.” *

*“Moral character is the sum of our relational habits.” This statement comes from Challenging Idea number five, part of Marilyn Howshalls upcoming book, “Empowering the Transfer of Moral Values and Faith.” More on this challenging idea can be found in the Articles section on the AIP website.”

I like the way Barbie puts it in her post on Becoming Mature:  “Only babies and spoiled children believe that life is all about them…..oh, and cats believe that too.”

Adopt bad behaviors based on what others are doing around them

When children spend a majority of their time in a group of same-aged peers, they are basically raised by other immature children who are not seeking the best for their peers but for themselves.  We have already talked about selfishness and self-focus and children believing the world revolves around them.  Besides the concern about children being cruel to each other in order to lift up themselves, there is the problem of children trying things that are childish and immature and sometimes harmful when they’re pushed by the group.  The mob mentality that can cause even adults to do things they would never otherwise dream of doing can affect groups of children.  It is very difficult for an individual to stand against a group at any time.  For young children, it is even more difficult.  If they see these behaviors day in and day out, they might even come to see them as correct or normal.  I’m talking about fighting, making fun, bullying, peer pressure to conform, and other such behaviors.

Seek approval from other people instead of from God

By placing our children in groups of children, we are taking the chance that they will learn to seek approval from other people instead of from God.  Teaching our children that God’s opinion of them is the only one that matters is an important responsibility of Christian parents.  Many of us have yet to learn this truth ourselves, so it’s very difficult for us to instill it in our children.  But it’s true.  God’s opinion of us is the only one that matters.  And we need to get this straight in our thinking.  We need to believe this in the very core of our being.  And we need to know that God is in love with us.  If it weren’t true, He wouldn’t have sent His son to die for us.  When we come to know this, it changes the way we think about everything.

False belief that they have to perform to win God’s approval

Our children need to know how much God loves them and cares about every little detail of their lives.  When we allow them to be influenced by  many outside factors that may convey a totally different view of their value as people, they are drawn away from God.  They are given the impression that they need to perform to win approval and acceptance from others.  And they may transfer that to their relationship with God, if they even care about that after so much exposure to the humanistic, material teaching of most institutions.  Even church programs are often geared to the performance mentality where people are measured by what they do, both in the amount of tasks they do and by the talents they use in the church.  Many Christians fall into the trap of performing in order to gain approval for themselves, and they believe that God is the same way.  They believe that they have to perform in order to gain God’s approval.

So there are two dangers here:  They could learn to seek approval of other people instead of God’s approval and they could learn the false belief that they have to perform in order to gain God’s approval.

So what is the alternative?  How can we avoid these outcomes for our children?

We need to raise our own children

If you regularly send your children to institutions to be trained or guided, they will inevitably end up being peer-led and peer dependent.  Because institutions do not have a parent to each child, and there is not an adult capable of overseeing every interaction among the children and knowing how to handle each of their individual needs.

Family should be first priority and community secondary when it comes to human relationships.  We can see this by the fruit.  Children that are raised in a godly manner with emphasis on the family are kinder, more generous members of society.  Whereas those that are raised with a community emphasis are more self-centered and self-focused and more concerned about being perceived the way they want to be rather than the good of others.  This fruit tells you something.  Like Jesus said, “you’ll know them by their fruit”:  Good fruit, good tree; bad fruit, bad tree.  The foundational values are what produce these two kinds of individuals, so it’s the foundation that needs to be rethought and built based on biblical principles.

In our daily interaction with our children, we need to observe them and take the time and effort to correct sinful attitudes and behaviors.

We should address their:

attitudes (thought processes)
intentions (desired outcomes of behavior)
motivation (reasons for behavior)

Our children need guidance in developing good relational habits.   Many times we need to help them develop different relational habits.
We need to lead them into confession of sin and help them to see their selfish behaviors as sin.  We can help them to listen to their consciences and admit what their true attitudes, intentions and motivations are.
We need to teach them the practice of Truth-telling.  The Bible tells us to speak the truth in love.  We need to help our children learn how to tell someone when they have hurt them.  We can show them that it is:

“loving to bring exposure to people’s sin against us in love, with no self-centered emotion, at the Lord’s right timing.”  This is what Barbie Poling has learned and is passing on to her children.

Where did the “it takes a village” philosophy come from?

Some sources say it comes from an African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child”. It sounds catchy, doesn’t it? There’s one problem. We don’t live in Africa. We don’t have the kind of villages they have in Africa. In African villages, people stay there for generations and the other members of the village are their families. Their values and attitudes and worldview are the same. Most of us Americans don’t live in villages, and our communities are so heterogeneous that the values of our family are completely divergent from the values of our neighbors, so we don’t want them telling our kids what to do.

Why would someone tell homeschoolers that it takes a village to raise a child?

Some do it out of selfish and greedy motives. They want to make money off of beginning or struggling homeschoolers who are unsure of their qualifications and abilities to teach their own children. The “village” philosophy taught according to a western view is that only the experts can teach children. They make these mothers feel like they can’t do it alone. They need help. So they offer to help them, for a fee. They offer advice, classes, testing, oversight of curriculum, or even tell them that they need to enroll their children in their school. All of this costs a lot of money. It would be all right to offer such things, but what I object to is when they say, “You can’t do it alone. You need help” insinuating that nobody is capable of raising and educating their children without help.

Some of us parents can do it without help – as long as we are depending on the Holy Spirit. Many of us have done it. We went into it knowing that it was our lifetime commitment until the children were raised to adulthood, and we never considered handing our responsibility over to someone else. If subjects were difficult for us to teach, we found other ways for our children to get the teaching they needed. There is so much online now that we really don’t need to leave home to get a great education.

Putting our children into an institutional or class setting was never an option for some of us. But we are doing an excellent job of educating them and doing the character-building that I mentioned above. The way the public schools and even private schools are set up as classes where the teacher lectures and students take notes then take tests is not the optimal way for people to learn. The factory model of education has not worked in public schools. Why should we start using it in our home education?

For us homeschoolers, learning is a natural process, just part of life.  It’s a lifestyle for us. We do “school” a different way. And we are producing good results. When people come along and try to tell us that we need help and try to improve what we’re doing, we can point to statistics that show how well homeschool graduates have been doing in every area of life, always excelling and out-performing their public school counterparts.

Other people say “it takes a village”, and I guess they mean by that that we need to let our kids get lots of socialization and not be afraid that they will be influenced for evil by the world. Well, I talked at the beginning about the effects that too much socialization in groups has on young children, and I would rather let my kids have too little socialization than too much. There is something out there to protect our children from. We are not imagining something dark and evil out there waiting to devour our children. The devil really is out there with all of his human and demonic agents looking for a chance to hurt our children. It is our job as parents to shelter our children. We can’t trust anyone else to do that job for us.

The church, in many cases, is set up the same way and has the same mindset as the world. We need to be cautious about turning over our children to any other teacher. We need to be aware of what is being taught and what behavior and attitudes are being tolerated among the students.

We can’t be too careful with the character training or protection of our children. It is an awesome responsibility. No village can do the heart-training that is necessary.

God gave your children to you. He expects you to raise them for Him. He has not given that mandate to the church or to the village. He gave it to you, parents. He gives you specific wisdom for how to handle each child. He gave you a love for your child that no church worker or village instructor can match. It takes a loving, Spirit-led family to raise a child. In a home that is warm and safe and secure.

~My thanks to Barbie Poling and Marilyn Howshall for the insights they are sharing at Influential Parenting that helped me write this article. Also, thank you, Marilyn, for letting me use your phrase for the title of this post.~


This post was included in Women Living Well Wednesdays.