S.H.A.P.E. (1)

Understanding God's will can be hard! For the next few days, let's use the word S.H.A.P.E. as an acrostic to help us.

'S' represents our spirit. Our regenerated spirit is the part of us that's capable of connecting with God and responding to him. The Bible says: 'The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit' (1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV).

We can know something in our spirit without understanding it in our brain. It sounds strange, but it isn't really, because we 'have an anointing from the Holy One, and...know all things' (1 John 2:20 NKJV).

Sometimes when we're reading the Bible, a Scripture leaps off the page and we 'know' it's God speaking to us, giving us direction. It may not make sense then, but it resonates in our spirit as being right. We use different words to describe this experience, such as 'a leading' or 'a prompting'. We won't always get it right - even the most mature Christians get it wrong sometimes. God spoke to Samuel the prophet four times before Samuel finally recognised his voice.



So what now? Just as you exercise to make your muscles stronger, exercising your spirit makes it sharper and more sensitive to God: 'Solid food is for mature people who have been trained to know right from wrong' (Hebrews 5:14 CEV). Ask God to help you train to sharpen your spirit.





— SCRIPTURE —

'Teach me to do your will, for you are my God.' Psalm 143:10 NKJV
— SOULFOOD —

Exo 20:13, Gen 4:1-15, Matt 5:21-22