Every one of us has an old self and a new self.
The old self died when you came to know Christ. The new self is renewed in the knowledge of Jesus and who He is for you.
Which self are you listening to?
The voice of your old self will tell you that you are weak, powerless, incapable, and inadequate. It will try to make you incapable of seeing goodness. It will overwhelm you with negativity.
When those thoughts pop into your head, your job is to ignore them. That voice comes out of your past, but it is a dead voice. Ignore it. Don’t engage with it. It belongs to a corpse!
Don’t waste your time dealing with an old voice. Instead, practice listening to the new voice.
The voice of your new self will remind you of your true identity in Christ: You are strong. You are powerful. You are favored. You are accepted. You are loved. You are anointed. It will prompt you to rejoice and give thanks.
This new voice sounds like the Holy Spirit. Scripture provides us with His voice indicators in Galatians 5:22-23 when it talks about the fruit of the Spirit. The voice of God is loving, joyous, peaceful. It is so patient, full of kindness, edifying in its goodness, extremely faithful to our identity in Jesus, and it is full of gentleness.
That is the only voice worth listening to.
That voice empowers us to live in self-control where we partner with the new self against the old self. Our new nature with its new voice takes control and drowns out the lies of the old self.
There is only one voice to hear, and it is the voice that makes you feel good about yourself and makes you feel good to be alive in Jesus.
Which voice will you choose to listen to today?
PS) If these reflections helped in anyway, be sure to check out the newly re-released Beholding and Becoming. In it, we talk about how to live in the consistent nature of God—hearing His voice. Knowing His heart towards us will enable us to walk with Him in an outrageous adventure of faith!
