The key to spiritual discernment and hearing God's voice

The Wesley prayer team had a gift exchange at our Xmas party two days ago ... being the prayer team, we rightly had to ask God what we should buy! (Urm, this is without the knowledge of who would pick up our gift ... and thus, needs to be Holy Spirit led). This allows us to practice listening to God ... and to know His voice. Anyway, I asked God and had the impression that I was to buy a dartboard. Now, this is totally outside my realm of safe or generic gifts to buy. And I had this nightmare that perhaps a young girl or even one of the ladies in the group might pick this gift, and that I would be gloriously wrong! But thank God ... in the end, a young boy picked it up, and loved it! It made me very happy to know that I made someone's day :) Thank you Father!

Back to listening to God ... my desire is to be able to hear Him acutely and sharply ... so that my prayers can be like a "single stroke of the sword of the Spirit". Or in the case of buying the dartboard, I wouldn't dither and wonder, or have nightmares about whether it's a foolish idea of my own mind or a genuine prompting of the Holy Spirit. How do we come to a place where we know our Father's voice so intimately that we will be fully confident when He speaks?

I came across a very well-articulated answer recently in Sandra Teplinsky's "Israel's Anointing".

How do I know my Father's voice so intimately, and His ways so clearly, that I will have a revelation of Him?

The answer, according to Sandra Teplinsky, is to have a passion for holiness!

"Without holiness, no one will see the Lord." (Hebrews 12:14)

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." (Matthew 5:8)

And this passion for holiness, starts with us knowing God's love, abiding in it, and manifesting it in obedience.

"This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome." (1 John 5:3)

"We have come to know him, if we obey his commands." (1 John 2:3)

Teplinksy writes: "A consummate carrier of the fire of God's love, (the apostle) John is passionate about obedience. Is it coincidental that John receives the most profound single-recorded prophecy in the Bible - the entire book of Revelation? God's love leads to obedience, and obedience leads us to holiness. Love-propelled holiness, in turn, relates dynamically to spiritual discernment and a release of high-level revelation."

Wow! As believers, I think all of us yearn to have spiritual discerment and revelation. The key to unlocking all this - love-propelled holiness. Would it be that we would grow in love-propelled holiness day by day.