You begin to search your heart and what you're looking for is the truth and fortunately Jesus said I will send you the Holy Spirit and He's the spirit of truth, meaning nothing's covered over in front of Him. So the Holy Spirit will help you in your journey of growth. How does He help you? One way He helps you is He helps you face things you don't want to face. If you won't face it by listening to Him and developing a devotional life where you hear the voice of God, then what'll happen is you'll find He'll get your attention through someone else. You got the idea? So like Jesus did this with the disciples. In Luke 24 He joins the disciples on the road to Emmaus, He says hey you guys, what's up? What are you talking about? Hey, you're looking sad, what's going on inside there? He began to explore their inner world and they just opened their heart, talked about their inner world, then He nailed them over their beliefs because why they were moving from the call of God, why they were feeling disappointed, why they were doing all these things was because of what they believed, see?
Why did Adam hide? Because he believed a lie. What if he'd believed instead of believing that God was going to punish him, what if he believed God was a good God and God was compassionate and God would show mercy and he acted on that belief and ran to straight to Him, saying God come to me, I've really blown it. Help me now, I really have messed up here. What if he'd done that? You see what he believed was reflected in how he outworked his life. You've got to realise we're all the same. All of us are the same, so we want to journey through growth we've got to be willing to develop and deepen our inner life, firstly becoming aware of ourselves, secondly becoming aware and conscious of God. We'll share about that another time, how to do that - so ask questions: what on earth's happening inside me? What am I feeling? How long have I been feeling that? Where's that come from? What does that mean I probably believe, see?
The third thing is welcome feedback. You've got to welcome into your world some feedback because the reality is most of us don't want to face the things we're in pain over and so you're not listening to the Holy Ghost. You don't want to even go there. Don't go there God! I don't want - and He'll talk about your attitude to a father or attitude to some person, your attitude to your finances - hey, don't go there! Just want you to bless over here, want the exterior and God wants you to look at the interior and so if He can't get your attention that way He's got a heap of ways of getting it. One way is your whole financial world collapses and inevitably if it collapses God has been talking to you for months before that happened - no listen. He probably sent people to you to talk to you - no listen. So welcome feedback into your world. If you want to grow in your inner life, one, practice becoming aware of what's happening and what you're feeling, what your body's saying, what you're experiencing inside; two, ask questions so you explore what's going on. Begin to look at what's happening in your inner life. What do I believe? What does this mean? Why am I like that? And then welcome others to come into your world.
In Proverbs 15 and Verse 32 it says the person who refuses instruction or feedback despises his own soul. He who hears reproof gains understanding. So the person who won't allow anyone to come into his life, won't allow anyone to speak into his life, that person's not only very alone, they actually despise their own soul. They've got real issues of rejection. Proverbs 19:20, he that hears counsel and receives correction that you may be wise in your latter end, so hear counsel. Listen to advice, allow people to speak into your world, so here's three questions: Number one, how much do you tune in to what you feel and what's happening in your inner world? How aware are you what's going on in your inner life? Two, do you probe to find out why you're doing what you're doing? Three, is there anyone you've got that can talk into your life and give you some feedback? The feedback they'll talk to you about is your behaviour and attitude.