God also gives guidance through the voice of the Spirit. God has a voice, and He still speaks to people today. God gave people direction through His voice in the following scriptures:

“Then THE SPIRIT SAID unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot.” Acts 8:29

“While Peter thought on the vision, THE SPIRIT SAID unto him, Behold, three men seek thee.” Acts 10:19

When Peter was reporting his encounter to the other apostles in Acts 10, he said:

“And THE SPIRIT BADE ME go with them, nothing doubting…” Acts 11:12

The voice of the Spirit, which is the voice of the Lord, is a majestic voice! It breaks the cedars, even the cedars of Lebanon and divides the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord is full of power and majesty (Ps. 29), and is very essential in every major step you take in life. The voice of the Lord is mightier than the voice of many waters; so when you hear from heaven, every other thing becomes subject to you. You can no longer see impossibilities when you have heard from the God of all possibilities.

Thank God for the Word, but thank God also for the voice of the Spirit. The voice of the Spirit gives definite instructions that guides. Names of cities like Lagos or London are not in the Bible, so how would you know for instance, when you are to go there? It is by the voice of the Spirit. If somebody comes to you in search of a job in your establishment or ministry, how would you know if he is the right person to employ? It is by the voice of the Spirit, which many of us know as the witness of the Spirit. The Spirit witnesses to you by impressing something on your spirit.

The voice of the Spirit is the cheapest way up. I pray that your spiritual ears will pop open, so you can hear Him. The Bible says in John 16:13:

“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come.” 

The Spirit speaks, and it is in your interest to heed His voice. If you have ever heard God speak to you before, then you have heard the voice of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit speaks to us either by an inner witness or an outer audible voice.

Paying attention to the voice of the Spirit is a great step to achieving success in life. Being sincere in whatever you are doing is not enough to guarantee your success, because you can be sincerely wrong. That is why you must know what God’s will is. I was reading Kenneth Hagin’s book, Following God’s Plan For Your Life, and I saw something that beautifully illustrates what I am saying here. He said:

“One morning, at 5:45, I sat straight up in bed. The Lord said to me, ‘An economic crunch is coming to the nation. Get ready for it. If you’ll do what I tell you to do, you’ll feel the effects of the crunch, but it won’t affect you as it does other people.’

“I wrote down exactly what the Lord instructed me to do. The Lord said, ‘Number one, stop operating in outreaches I never told you to get involved with in the first place. Number two, trim your payroll by laying off this many people from your staff (and He told me exactly how many people to lay off). Number three, cut back on expenses. Operate the ministry on ninety per cent of your incoming cash flow and save the other ten per cent.’

“I immediately set about obeying the Lord’s instructions…We laid off the number of employees the Lord told us to. We also got out of the various outreaches the Lord never told me to begin. Because I obeyed the Lord, everything worked out well.”

This was after twenty-six years in ministry; showing that you will always need direction all the days of your life. In June 1984, I wasn’t sure whether God wanted us to be in Kaduna or to be operating from Ilorin. So, my wife and I set a day aside, to ask the Lord what He would have us do. The Lord spoke to me very clearly and straight: “Arise and go!” Even though it didn’t sound like the most reasonable thing to do, we obeyed Him and left; and God honoured His Word. Also, in the early hours of one day in July 1989, the voice of the Spirit said to me, “Arise, get down to Lagos and raise Me a people.” The voice of the Spirit is a great asset for triumph in life and ministry. It is the clearest form of direction, and the Word further authenticates and confirms it.

To many, ministry is a big burden, because they have gone off track by chasing the immaterial. For instance, when God wanted the first tabernacle to be built, He commanded it. Moses came to the people and told them, “..These are the words which the Lord hath commanded…” (Ex. 35:1). You don’t need to kill yourself under a building project. If God has nor commanded it, leave it, as God won’t finance what He has not commanded. When it is commanded by God, He will perform it (1 Thess. 5:24).

Nobody is going to write about the projects you accomplished or built in your biography, it is irrelevant. The only thing that will be recorded against your name when you are gone is the impact you made on the lives of men, so why must you die with the immaterial?

When our foreign mission work was to begin, God said to me, “The harvest of Africa is overripe; rush in and preserve it from decadence.” I had only visited two African nations before then. But after I heard the voice of the Spirit, without any feasibility studies telling us what the cost of living was like in those countries or how much money we needed to go there, we stepped out!

God spoke, and the men moved; and in ten months, we had spent over twenty-two million naira! Why? The voice of the Spirit offered direction and God backed it up with divine provisions. The voice of the Spirit is one of the greatest secrets for kingdom advancement.

I heard the voice of the Spirit for the first time in July 1976, after the Lord popped my spiritual ears open. Since then, I have never ceased to hear that voice. I command your spiritual ears to also pop open in the name of Jesus, so you too can begin to hear His voice! I also curse every blockage that has hindered you from hearing the voice of the Spirit and has blocked your ability to locate precise and definite direction for your life.

I command your ears to be open now! From now on, you will never take any wrong step. The God of heaven will guide your feet, so that you will always locate the profitable and productive steps to take at every point in your life…

This text is an extract from the book “IN PURSUIT OF VISION” written by David O. Oyedepo. 
We invite you to read the following article “THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT“.