Listening to Holy Spirit

When I first gave my heart to God, I felt free and light. I was on a Jesus “high,” and it was amazing! Then, not knowing what came next, I went back to my everyday life.

At first, not many major changes took place. Or better put, I wasn’t yet willing to allow things to be uprooted in my life that would change it. The problem manifested from my unwillingness to carve out time for Him. Outside of Sunday service, I didn’t do much to edify the Holy Spirit living in me.

During the week, I would still do, watch, and listen to whatever I wanted. My home was always filled with secular music. Also, my husband and I were die hard horror movie fanatics! Our horror film collection was pretty extensive.

We were blind. We didn’t yet see that what we were allowing into our spirit was being deeply embedded into us. Before we knew it, those things started to manifest in our lives. Anger, strife, depression—it all flowed out of me because of what was flooding my spirit.

After some time, my husband’s ideals concerning these things changed drastically. One of his co-workers introduced him to a film, They Sold Their Souls For Rock n Roll. Exposure of Satan’s hand in the music industry is my very brief synopsis of this film. After viewing the DVD, my husband came to me with his convictions. He felt the Holy Spirit tugging at his heart to stop his relationship with secular music. Not long after, he also felt the same convictions regarding horror films.

My husband then encouraged me to watch the exposé as well. I watched a few minutes of it, but quickly dismissed it as comical. The video’s visuals and background music were “cheesy” to me, but its context was powerful, as I would later learn. Again, at the time, I wasn’t ready to receive that change in my life. My attitude was, “I’m an adult, I’ll listen to whatever I want to listen to!” I would also argue, “Christian music is wack.”

 

Conviction ensues

Around this time, our first born was a baby, and I had convinced myself it was perfectly acceptable to expose her to whatever types of music and films I enjoyed. After all, she really couldn’t understand, I thought.

One day, I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit; one that I would never forget. I was driving my car, my daughter in the backseat. By this time, she was starting to speak. I was listening to a secular artist in the car, looked back at my daughter, and noticed she was singing along right along to every word. The song, to say the least, was far from uplifting and positive. In that very moment, the Holy Spirit might as well have smacked me right across my face! I heard His voice:

“Do you really want her mouthing these words?”

I felt convicted! It made me pause and ask that question back to myself. Did I really want to expose my innocent daughter to such vulgar content? However, I once again convinced myself that she really didn’t understand.

As I went forward, God never let me forget that moment. He continued to speak to me about this, especially through my husband. At this point he was only consuming himself with Christ-centered music. As a musician, that’s all he’d play, and all that he would listen to. Through him, I saw how something as “simple” as giving up secular music had changed my husband for the better. He has always had a gentle caring spirit, but as he continued to spend more and more time with God through Christian music, these traits were amplified.

My husband grew so much in that time. He seemed to love more, care more, and he definitely prayed more. God’s light shined so brightly through him, I couldn’t help but be drawn to it.

So, I reluctantly put my tail between my legs, and drummed up a conversation with my hubby. He reintroduce me to the same film God used to make this change in his life. This time, though, I was open to hearing what the Spirit of God had to say.

Whoa!

God revealed so much to me that day! He changed my entire perspective on secular music. I learned how dangerous it can be. I learned the power of words can bring about life or death (Proverbs 18:21).

It’s been said that Lucifer was the director of music in heaven before he was cast into hell. He uses what he knows best, to lure the unsuspecting into his trap. He comes to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10) and anything not pleasing to God, in contrast, is pleasing to him.

With those truths in hand, I concluded that music does indeed have power to change the way we think, feel, or even act. So, like my husband, I made the decision to stop listening to all secular music. I also decided to seek Holy Spirit regarding other things I was allowing into my spirit, that were displeasing to Him.

Since that time, the Spirit of God has led me to change many other things in my life. This was just one area where God made a “small,” yet powerful change in both me and my better half, causing a domino effect in the rest of our lives. These changes have positively affected our entire family. We now have three children, and it warms my heart watching as they freely choose to listen to Christ-centered music and worship the Great I Am.

(Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6)

I’ve found that it’s not about religious rules, but about having a relationship with the Father. My encouragement would be to seek the Spirit of God for yourself. He will be your guide in all areas of your life, if you let Him. The best part is that you happen to be in a perfect place to listen to some amazing Christ-centered music, right here at JPRadio.org!

Click to listen On-Demand now.

Author: J. Baez

J. Baez is so thankful for her compassionate and loving Father. She says, in all her mess, He still loves and longs for her. She strives to live to do her Father’s will; that’s one reason she’s writing for The Corner.

She says, she’s a child of God, wife and mother, “in that order.” She is incredibly blessed and overjoyed with all that God has blessed her with. Her desire is to bless others, all for His glory.

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