When Jesus was on earth, He testified, “I am consumed with zeal for my Father’s house” (see John 2:17). Now His message to the Christians in Sardis, and to us, is this: “You enjoyed My favor, with a good reputation all around. You were blessed with powerful worship and preaching. But instead of moving forward, you began to think, ‘We have arrived.’ So you relaxed. You were no longer watchful, and indifference began to set in. Now you’ve settled into a spiritual comfort zone. You didn’t go on to fulfill the mission I gave you.”

The church in Sardis started out in great apostolic power, with God’s blessing and favor. In Revelation 3, Christ tells the pastor at Sardis: “I know you started out with a powerful reputation, but you have allowed the life I gave you to ebb away. Tell this to your congregation: ‘You are dead. Will you have the capacity to hear this word, accept it and be aroused by it?’”

Like the enemy of our souls, our flesh clamors to be heard. It always insists that it’s okay to appease its desires from time to time, that all we need is a friend to agree with us, and God will bless our decisions.

You may wonder, as I have, “How can I be certain that I’m hearing the Holy Spirit’s voice, and not another?”

Consider these promises God has made to us and see if your response to them is “Yea and Amen”:

1.  The Lord has established you, sealed you, filled you and anointed you with His Holy Spirit. “He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Corinthians 1:21–22).

I asked the Lord to open up to me the meaning of Paul’s phrase, “Let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). As I approached this subject, I prayed, “Lord, make it all clear and understandable to me.” Here is how I believe the Spirit answered me: the golden key to understanding our walk in the Spirit is not complicated. It requires no theological training. In fact, it’s so simple that most of us can’t see it. Yet, if we’re able to grasp this one truth, we can enter into a life that’s free of distress, full of assured direction, and marked by perfect rest.

“Whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, remaining thereon, the children of Israel abode in their tents, and journeyed not: but when it was taken up, they journeyed. At the commandment of the Lord they rested in the tents, and at the commandment of the Lord they journeyed: they kept the charge of the Lord” (Numbers 9:22–23).

We are to walk in total submission to the Holy Spirit, just as Christ walked in absolute submission to the Father. Jesus testified, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19). 

“I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me” (5:30). 

If we love the world and the things of the world, we can’t be God's: “"If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). If we covet, wanting more and more things, we are not one of His sheep: “Nor thieves, nor covetous . . . shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:10).

For months I have been praying for widows, the fatherless and the poor. We receive letters from destitute people who can no longer pay for insurance or afford housing. I’ve pleaded with God, “You are the Lord of hosts. Feed them. Meet their needs.” Finally, the Lord answered me, “You must do more than pray for them, David. You can do something about it. You feed them. It’s within your power to do.”