On the topic of God-consciousness we seek yet we often don’t find—not to our satisfaction a great many times. Yet, we’ve tasted it, haven’t we? When we’ve been Spirit-sensitive once or more, and we’ve experienced that sense of unbridled exhilaration—the love of God sweeping all over us and within our being—we want more and more of it. It becomes somewhat a healthy addiction.
I’m going to attempt to describe what I feel is a simple three-phase process in becoming more sensitive to God’s Spirit.
The Role of the Conscience & Our Character
At the most basic level of being Spirit-sensitive we have to at least be alive to God’s Presence at the level of our conscience. At its rank opposite position, the inherently evil person has had their conscience seared almost to the point of no return (yet no one is beyond God reaching them). At the level of the conscience we’re piqued to the Spirit’s call for the moment—we obey or disobey this call.
I want to focus on spiritual sense; that of sensing the momentary call of God.
The three phases:
- Not Sensing at All
As I profiled above there are various levels of not sensing, and therefore not heeding, the call of the conscience. This is either because we’re not aware or don’t care, or a combination of these in many permeations.
The goal here has to be to learn how to sense the movement of our conscience in relation to the contexts we’re part of; to learn to see spiritually—to that which is ordinarily visible but not obvious to the physical eye.
- Sensing Well, But Sporadically
At this level we’re sensing the Spirit most of the time, but our character’s get in the way. We read too much into some situations and not enough into others. It’s devoid of the humility to see others as equal to ourselves. We see but our spiritual sight is tainted. It’s a flawed diamond requiring dressing; the cutting process to knock off the rough edges.
Our character’s either enhance our lives or detract from it. The final frontier of life success is at the level of the character. We might have everything else in train, but our character—if it’s inherently flawed—will hold us back almost every time.
- Sensing Well – Consistently
This final level of being Spirit-sensitive is all about discerning and rapidly attending to the momentary aspects of God’s will. It is awareness plus the ruthlessness of character to install what God would have us do, beyond emotion—no correspondence entered into.
Sensing consistently well is dependent on a vast number of things—attaining and maintaining—regarding the components of character, insight, awareness, knowledge, and discipline etc.
Summing Up
Spiritual sensitivity must be about two things at least: 1) awareness at the level of the conscience, and 2) the moral character to discern everything perceived, screening it for truth beyond our own vagrancies of understanding. Both of these require God.
I have described here: 1) a three-phase process for understanding the levels of becoming Spirit-sensitive, and 2) two critical ingredients (awareness and moral discernment based in character) in facilitating same.
The greatest benefit for us in achieving the ability to sense consistently well is we derive from God the very personal portions of his abiding grace as far our relationship with him is concerned. The central tenet of all things regarding God is relationship.
The more and better we sense, and importantly—obey that sense, the more abundant the sense of eternal life we experience is.
“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
—John 17:3 (NIV).
This is what life is all about: knowing God—a thoroughly incomprehensible, yet captivating, dimension.
© S. J. Wickham, 2009.
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