What is that “feeling?”
Why do you “feel” a dark presence when you walk into a situation that is celebrating something that God has defined as heinous?
When you’ve got God’s Spirit living in you, it impacts, not only the way you think, but it resonates in that place that constitutes the sum total of who you are (1 Cor 2:12; Eph 1:13-14).
The Bible calls it your heart (see sidebar). It’s more than just your brain or a mere emotion. It’s an awareness that is as unmistakeable as it is substantial.
The Heart
Heart – the inner self that thinks, feels and decides1
The heart is the core of our being, and the Bible sets high importance on keeping our hearts pure…(gotquestions.org)
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. (Prov. 4:23)
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? 10 “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”
(Jer 17:9-10)
From within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man unclean.
(Mk 7:21-23)
Jesus references it specifically in John 16:
When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. (Jn 16:8-11)
In verse 13 of the same chapter, He says:
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. (Jn 16:13 [see also Matthew Henry Commentary])
What Does it Look Like?
You can see examples of the way the Spirit guides a person in the way Simeon was “moved by the Spirit” so that he could meet the promised Messiah…
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: 29 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss[d] your servant in peace. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” (Lk 2:25-32)
You also see the way the Spirit prevented Paul from making his way into Bythnia…
Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. (Acts 16:6-7)
No doubt, this gets into subjective territory, but it is real nevertheless.
Observe, It is the great privilege of Christians that they have the mind of Christ revealed to them by his Spirit. (
Mathew Henry)
Paul talks about us having the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16). In Romans, it talks about how the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace (Rom 8:6). So, when you combine the Biblical Realities of God being able to speak through the thoughts you have in your head, as well as the deep seated conviction that the Holy Spirit triggers when God wants to get your attention, you have an empirical basis for the “feeling” you sometimes get when you walk into an environment that doesn’t have God’s approval. Generally speaking, those are not healthy scenarios and you want to remove yourself from that situation, not just because it might make sense to do so, but because you want to be obedient to what God is telling you.
Conviction of sin is one of the rarest things that ever strikes a man. It is the threshold of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict of sin, and when the Holy Spirit rouses the conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not his relationship with men that bothers him, but his relationship with God. (Oswald Chambers)
1. Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 1986, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, TN, p466
