I received a question from a youtube user by the name of Daniel C. It seems to be a genuine question so I want to give a genuine response. He says, “How does one differentiate between their conscience, a gut feeling, a strong thought, an intuitive hunch, the holy spirit, and a demon or some other intelligence. How do you really know and distinguish that it's the Holy Spirit?”
That’s a good question because the Holy Spirit is not the ONLY spirit. We have a spirit inside of us, and we have feelings, and our feelings and our spirit is NOT always right. Sometimes we are flat out wrong. Also there are many demons who want to deceive us. Many of these demons pretend to be the Holy Spirit, they pretend to be a spirit guide. So, how do we know we are hearing from the Holy Spirit and not our own understanding and also not from a demon? The way you know is when you receive the Holy Spirit. I know that makes no sense, but I want to give you an example from my own personal experience that hopefully will encourage you.
When I was first coming out my own sins and the lies that I was in, I was struggling to understand if it was my own conscience or the Holy Spirit, but I was also struggling with sin. One night when I was going to bed I fell into lust. In the morning I tried to brush it all off, but my wife had a dream. She didn’t want to tell me the dream, but she said; “In my dream you committed adultery.” And then she told me the woman I had committed adultery with. It shocked me because it was how I had lusted the night before and it was the person who I committed adultery with in my heart the night before. I also didn’t want to tell her. But I ended up telling her because I was convicted KNOWING this was of the Holy Spirit, not just a hunch of mine.
See, I was praying for the conviction of the Holy Spirit and praying also to come out of my sin and out of the lies. And I had to make a decision at that point if I was really going to commit to come out of my sin, and believe in the Holy Spirit, or if I was going back into my blackness, into my deception and believing the lies that I would always be a sinner, without the ability to repent, WHEN Jesus WAS giving me the ability to repent. I KNEW it was the Holy Spirit and not just my gut feeling, I knew it wasn’t a demon because a demon does not cause us to repent. This is my own experience and this is how I knew it was the Holy Spirit. Jesus says that the Holy Spirit is given to convict the world regarding sin, righteousness and judgment, and that is exactly what happen to me.
So, if you are serious you will pray all the way into the truth. You won’t stop halfway there. The Christians who stop halfway there can’t differentiate between their own conscience and the Holy Spirit. They don’t know the difference between their feelings and the Holy Spirit, a demon, another counselor who is lying to them… BUT if you really want to know the truth you can know by calling on Jesus and receiving His Holy Spirit.
I encourage you to pray until you KNOW the difference, and the only way you are ever going to know is through diligent prayer and probably through a lot of fasting also. So, don’t give up and don’t let people tell you that it’s just through the Bible that you will know, because obviously many Christians have believed they have received the Holy Spirit, and they know the Bible, and they use the Bible as their rubric for their authority, but they have never received the Holy Spirit. The same happened with the Pharisees and the same happens with people today. SO, I encourage you to genuinely receive the Holy Spirit through prayer, and through fasting, pray until you absolutely KNOW through tangible evidence TO YOURSELF that it is the HOLY SPIRIT.
Now, about this “tangible evidence”. It will only be tangible to you. It will not be tangible to anyone else. Everyone else will say that you are crazy. But you will know because Jesus gave you tangible evidence in your conscience and in your spirit. I hope this helps. I hope that sharing my personal experience helps you. I obviously cannot be the Holy Spirit for you. I can’t prove this to you as fact. But I know it as fact in my heart. I know from my experience it is real, and I hope that you also have a tangible experience from the Holy Spirit, I hope that you seek out the evidence and the proof FOR YOURSELF. May the grace of Jesus be with you.