The third thing is, when you focus or fix your thoughts on Jesus, there needs to be faith. You need to expect Him to say something to you. You need to expect Him to speak to you. Faith means: I believe what God says. He says: My sheep hear My voice, so it shouldn't be hard for me to hear His voice. Probably, I doubt it, because it seems so easy; and it seems to be such an easy thing, I doubt that it's really God. When people are listening to the voice of God, here's the thing. It will be like an impression, or gentle flow of thoughts. It's so light, it can seem as though it's your thoughts, and that's because they are your thoughts in your head, but they've come from the Holy Spirit. There are lots of thoughts can get in your head. Other thoughts that are centred, or come from yourself, they generally are focussed on yourself. Thoughts that come from demons, generally are very demanding and pressuring, and they're often evil in intent; but the thoughts that come from God are usually gentle, and life-giving, and quite easily stopped. So I need to fix my mind on the Lord, expecting Him to give me something, for something to begin to come.
Then the fourth thing, here's a simple key. Feel what you're thinking, feel or identify what you're getting, what you are receiving. Identify the impressions you get. For example, how many of you have read through a chapter of the Bible, and one verse is kind of lit up? It seemed like it just seemed to stand out to you, you just noticed it? You looked at the whole page, and then one, you just seemed to be drawn to it, didn't know anything about it, but seemed to be drawn. How many have had that experience? Okay, alright. I'll tell you what that is. That is the Holy Spirit drawing your attention, He wants to speak to you out of that verse. So even though you've looked at, and read the whole chapter, the one that you felt the draw to, that is where the spirit of God wants you to go to, and take time to ponder and think and dwell in it, because He wants to speak to you from that. It's in fixing your mind on it, and allowing yourself to think about it, you begin to open up to the thoughts of God, and the insights from the Holy Spirit. That's how it comes to you. It's how I get messages together.
I can do all the study, but study is using your natural mind, your logical processes; you look up a concordance, you look up a dictionary, you look at the verses, you find this, find that, blah blah blah, but all of that's just logical. What is needed, is the flow of the spirit, to illuminate what's important; put together what you haven't recognised before, to connect ideas with it, you haven't seen before. That requires a flow of the spirit to do that; so to do that, I've got to stop being in the study mode, and actually get into a pondering, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to me through His words. I often find that works in the shower. Why does it work in the shower? I can hear God better in the shower, than in the study. Well it's really quite simple, because in the shower, you're relaxed. In the shower, you don't have books and things around you, you've just got what you've got in you, and you have a chance to just ponder while you relax.
So I'm just relaxing in the shower, and thoughts start to come, oh my! I just see exactly what it is. Sometimes I've found just going to bed at night, thinking about something from the word of God, that God was drawing my attention to; I wake up the next morning, and as I'm waking up, ideas are coming to my mind. They're coming from the spirit of God. Now remember this, it's so gentle and light, it feels like your own thoughts. It feels like it's just from you. You've got to learn to recognise the thoughts that come from God, so it helps if you write them down, and as you write them down or journal them, you can often get in a flow of writing. It helps if you act on what God says, because He says: if you'll act on what He gives you, He'll give you more. So if you're reading a chapter, and one verse comes to mind, and you take time and attention to look at it, God promises He'll give you more. He'll start to open up what He's wanting to speak to you, out of that situation.