Latest / Rethink Revive with David Leake / Are You Following God… or Just Chasing a Feeling?

Transcript

Are You Following God… or Just Chasing a Feeling? · Rethink Revive with David Leake

• 0:00
  Dave Leake: And what role do feelings play in my spiritual walk to follow Jesus? You hear about a lot of churches and movements that are just seeking an emotional experience, and that's a dangerous thing, because you're gonna miss God.
• 0:11
  Dave Leake: But are emotions a bad thing? I mean, obviously God made us. He made the heart made emotions, but maybe they're not always trustworthy. At the very end, if you wanna stay tuned, we're going to talk about, actually what it looks like to hear God, because sometimes it's hard to distinguish what God sounds like, as opposed to our feelings. So if you want to hear more, stay tuned. Hey everybody.
• 0:29
  Dave Leake: Welcome to the Allison Park leadership podcast, where we have our culture creating conversations. My name is Dave and my
• 0:37
  Jeff Leake: name is Jeff, and we're glad you've joined us today. Do we have any shout outs to offer people today as we get started?
• 0:43
  Dave Leake: Yeah, as always, we just want to give a big old thank you to everybody who's been a part of the show listening, if you've been on for a while, you know, as part of our podcast family, we want to say welcome and thank you. And today, we want to give a special shout out to Maggie Mimi 25 for your five star review and Apple podcast. Podcasts, thank you so much. And if you would like a specific shout out, I hear this all the time. I don't know how to leave a podcast review. It's okay, but if you can do it at Apple podcast, we'll see your name, and we would love to shout you
• 1:13
  Jeff Leake: out and on YouTube, Like and Subscribe. So Dave and I are father and son. That's part of what makes this podcast work. We're also both on staff at Allison Park church for at least the next six weeks, and then Dave moves to Jacksonville to start a brand new church there next year, 2026 and so what are we talking about today, Dave? Let's dive right in to our conversation. One
• 1:34
  Dave Leake: of our listener questions has recently been, what's the role of feelings in my spiritual walk?
• 1:42
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, it's a good question. It's one that I haven't actually pondered recently, but especially, I think in Pentecostal charismatic circles, one of the critiques of our stream of things tends to be that it's emotional. It's hyper emotional, it's hyped up. It's just all about feelings. It doesn't produce any kind of fruit. And yet, at the same time, I think everybody would recognize that there is some kind of a role that feelings play within your daily life. You want to feel connected to God, you want to feel inspired, you want to feel joy and peace, all of those things. So I guess the balance comes in. And by the way, I'll just mention we love it when we get listener suggested topics. So if you do have a something you want us to talk about, we'd love to to cover that. So where do we go with this? Where do we start?
• 2:34
  Jeff Leake: Dave,
• 2:36
  Dave Leake: yeah, well, I think, I think that's probably, I think one of the things you mentioned is that it's often a criticism of the movements either that we belong to or that are sort of adjacent to us, maybe a little further down certain roads in some ways, in terms of just wanting to have, you know, the criticism is wanting to have an emotional experience with God, right? And I guess, to start, we've sort of maybe talked about this a little bit, but it might not be bad for us to discuss.
• 3:05
  Dave Leake: You know, there are different sort of leanings within churches, you know, before we even get into, like, the role of feelings we talk about at APC, you know, the head, the heart and the will, right? And I think there are different churches that tend to lean in different focuses. So one, we're talking about a head based thing.
• 3:22
  Dave Leake: There's not as much criticism around that, but it's, it's knowledge of the Word of God.
• 3:28
  Dave Leake: It's, it's logic and reason.
• 3:28
  Dave Leake: It's understanding. It's studying and memorizing Scripture, all this kind of thing. Yeah,
• 3:34
  Jeff Leake: churches and streams of churches that aim towards the head are interested, often in theological orthodoxy. They want to make sure that they are correct there. They want to make sure that they're aligned biblically, that they are functioning in the context of the word, that they're properly interpreting what the Scripture teaches, and that their doctrine and lifestyle is aligned with objective truth, which I would say a lot of that is very valuable. Bless you, Dave, very important as a part of things.
• 4:07
  Jeff Leake: But I think for any stream we're going to talk about is that you have to have a combination of all right, so a lot of that stuff's good. Yeah, that's great. Head only. If all you're aiming for is the head, then you're probably going to be missing something. Missing something,
• 4:23
  Dave Leake: right? And Proverbs says, Knowledge puffs up, yeah?
• 4:26
  Dave Leake: So knowledge without action or an outflow is just an inflow that doesn't lead to anything,
• 4:30
  Jeff Leake: yeah? So like the book of James says, even the demons believe, and they're afraid and they shutter like one God, but they're not right with God. So you can have your head right, but if your heart's not right, then you're not right. So okay, so what's the other ones?
• 4:48
  Dave Leake: Okay, so we talked about, you know, a heart a heart led Church, which I think is often associated with emotions and and spiritual feelings. You could say, man. Funky. Put this on. There we go. All right, yeah, so spiritual feelings, so typically, I would say these tend to be places where. And this isn't a bad thing, necessarily, but it's like where the desire is to have an encounter with God. And it's, it's often extensive worship services. And it's, you know, it's, it's hunger, focused spiritual
• 5:22
  Jeff Leake: audiences and manifestations of His presence, right? Yeah, signs and wonders and and, you know, a lot of inspiration and motivation. So heart, without head, though, you can go into a lot of craziness, right? If you're not grounded in solid, objective truth. You can go into false teaching. You can become cult like you can. You can be manipulated and even abused if you're, if you're only into the emotions of your spiritual walk, but not into something rooted in truth,
• 5:59
  Dave Leake: and you can totally misunderstand what the voice of God is, if you get to that. And
• 6:03
  Jeff Leake: I think, yeah, that's what we're going to get to eventually, which is, what role do feelings play in my daily spiritual life? How much credence do I give them? You know, what's the weight that I put on them versus other things and making decisions, what role do they play in me, judging my effectiveness in my spiritual walk. I mean, all of these things are are packaged,
• 6:23
  Dave Leake: yeah. So, and to finish the sneak preview of this, feelings play some role in our spiritual journeys, but if we don't use discernment, well, they can be destructive and even catastrophic. Okay, so let's keep going. Then we talk about this idea of a will based churches, which I don't know if it's a whole stream of churches, not or just a you think that you've talked about. That you've talked
• 6:43
  Jeff Leake: about it as a so not practice. That's a good question. Is it a stream of churches? Just a unique quality to who we
• 6:49
  Dave Leake: are? Well, I think a lot of churches do this, but I don't know that I've heard it talked about in a way that you talk about it as
• 6:54
  Jeff Leake: much. Yeah. Yeah. So now we've described the soul, your mind, your will and emotions, right? So, if we are body, soul and spirit, and our spirit is that inner part of us that gets ignited into life at the moment of salvation, our body is the temporary person.
• 7:08
  Jeff Leake: You know, outer, outer cloak, tent, the Bible calls it, that we live in, that this body, anyway, this body, and then eventually we get an eternal one, right? So, so our soul remains intact for, for eternity. It's just that the body becomes new, but, but our but, she should say, our person, right? The spirit, soul and body. So the sole part of us is our mind, will and emotions. We just start talking about, some churches lead toward the head.
• 7:36
  Jeff Leake: Others lead toward the heart. We lead toward the will. And the reason why is, for me, obedience is the key. It's it's one thing to understand what's right. It's another thing to do it right.
• 7:47
  Jeff Leake: It's another thing that one thing to feel what's right. It's another thing to align your choices with what you know to be the right thing to do, right.
• 7:53
  Jeff Leake: And then the will, the act of the will, actually, is what brings about an activation of our partnership with God, like in order for us to be saved, our will is involved in US confessing out loud that Jesus is Lord, right in order for us to experience the Holy Spirit's work in our life, we have to verbalize our worship, like when we get out of ourselves and we begin To praise actively, that choice is what changes things.
• 8:20
  Jeff Leake: Hearing and understanding about the importance of forgiveness is one thing, but saying out loud with your will I choose to forgive is the thing that unlocks your spirit from that tightness. And I know
• 8:34
  Dave Leake: we're going on a little bit of a bunny trail, but just I think this is a good framework, before we get into the feelings part, even the idea of believing there's a there until, like, it doesn't get to a realm, realm of faith in the Bible, until it becomes a will thing, yeah?
• 8:49
  Jeff Leake: Because, well, faith is a conviction that that we live out of. It's not a feeling, feeling, convictions have feelings,
• 8:56
  Dave Leake: but it's also not knowledge. Is what I'm trying to say, right? No, it's not like belief. It contains it. A belief isn't even just knowledge. Like, knowing something to be true is different than acting on like, because if there's like, I know this is technically true, but I don't know if I'm sure enough to live in it, to actually act out of it, then it hasn't gotten to the will. It's a head knowledge thing of a technicality. Yeah, so not a real belief. It's
• 9:20
  Jeff Leake: like, I'm on the top of a mountain and I'm strapped into the hang glider. Faith knowledge says I understand how this hang glider
• 9:28
  Unknown: works. And that would work if I do it. Yeah, it should work if I do it. Faith
• 9:33
  Jeff Leake: is, is the moment when you jump right. And so for us, we tend and then feelings are like, whatever
• 9:41
  Dave Leake: the nerves are before and then right after, yeah, we tend to try to lead towards the will, because it's a way to activate all three, in essence, in a way, yes, it is
• 9:51
  Jeff Leake: like what you understand about the hang glider, what it feels like to hang glide. Both of those things come together when you jump right and you trust the process.
• 9:59
  Jeff Leake: That's the thing. When you trust God with what you understand and what you feel at the moment, it all sort of synergizes at that place where, where your decision to trust God with something or believe or give or forgive or whatever it is, the will tends to to be the thing that crystallizes or connects it all together.
• 10:20
  Dave Leake: Okay, so, so let's talk about the role of feelings now. Yeah. So I think, I think traditionally, like in most streams of churches, the main thing we would hear about feelings is, don't trust your feelings. Don't let your feelings lead. You know, if you follow your heart too much like the heart is evil, you know, there is a way that seems right to him, but in the end, it leads it leads to death. That kind of a thing, hard is deceitful above all else. And who can know?
• 10:47
  Dave Leake: Yeah, we can get into some of those things. I think we want to talk about the balance, though.
• 10:50
  Dave Leake: So there's, there's a distrust that's maybe not the right word, like, it's not a skepticism either, but it's a level of like a grain of salt, a filter we need to have when it comes to hearing, you know, feelings of the heart or or, you know what I'm saying, Does that make sense when we're trying to discern?
• 11:09
  Dave Leake: Okay?
• 11:10
  Jeff Leake: So I think there is the general rule for how we live our life, which is that feelings should not lead great. Okay, so let's talk about this, and then there's the second thing that you're talking about, which is you cannot really follow the Holy Spirit's leading to prophesy or to function in aggressive faith without learning to feel inwardly what the Holy Spirit's leadings and promptings are like. Right? So in some ways, in some facets of our walk with God, feelings should never lead in other facets of our walk with God.
• 11:41
  Jeff Leake: Feelings have an enormous role to play, and us being able to tune in with the now activity of the Holy Spirit's work in our
• 11:49
  Dave Leake: life. Okay, so let's, can we just start by talking about where we get in the Bible beyond the verse we just quoted, but you know the idea of not letting feelings lead so like, what I mean? I have some verses here that I've pulled up.
• 12:04
  Jeff Leake: I have some thoughts, but go ahead. Okay, well, so the one I
• 12:07
  Dave Leake: just quoted at the beginning, the second, Corinthians, five, seven, it says, like, for we walk by faith and not by sight. And I think sight, the idea is, what we perceive, what we feel, even it's, it's, you know, it's faith is, is, you know, the assurance of things unseen like. So what faith means, like, even though I feel this, I'm going to choose to believe God at His Word instead of how I feel, even though I feel like I'm hopeless or that there's no way out of this, I believe that God is able and that he's gonna come through, you know, even though, you know, even though I have lost relationship with a family member, I believe God wants to win them back, and I'm gonna choose to believe they will come back, even though all natural signs. So it's over an overriding of what we feel or perceive through an act of faith. Proverbs, three, five and six is a classic one, trust Lord, with all your heart, lean on your own understanding and all your ways knowledge him, you'll make your path straight so lean, not on your own understanding the idea of but that seems like a mental thing, and maybe not just a hard thing, right? You mentioned this one.
• 13:10
  Dave Leake: Jeremiah, 17, nine, the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure, who can understand it? That's a, that's a very direct way of putting that. I mean, we see this all over.
• 13:24
  Dave Leake: Galatians, 516 walk by the Spirit. You will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Sometimes feelings come from the flesh and its desires aren't good. Romans, 86 the mind is governed by flesh. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit as life and peace. I guess that's maybe a distinction to talk about is, are feelings always a fleshly thing, an impulse, or are feeling sometimes a spirit thing? I
• 13:52
  Jeff Leake: think there could be either or. Yeah. So I may have shared this on this podcast before, but I remember my dad sitting down with me and teaching me this. This This was one of these precious moments I had with my father when I was a teenage, teenager, and I was just beginning to follow Christ, and he had a napkin, and he he sat down and he showed me this diagram. He so he said, your life is like a train with three cars. Okay. Do you remember me talking about this before? No, not at all. Okay, so you have facts, you have faith, and you have feelings. If you if you let the feelings be the engine, and you put your faith in what you feel, what happened, and you put let the facts trail behind, then what happens is your life becomes like a hose that's unattached, like that is no one's holding the end. It's like, all over the place. It's it's like James chapter one, which says, If you know, if you lack wisdom, you should ask God.
• 14:48
  Jeff Leake: And he gives generously to all without finding fault. But the one who asks has to believe, or else he's like the waves of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. Okay? So if. You let your feelings lead your your life will be all over the place.
• 15:01
  Jeff Leake: You'll be going crazy. So you have to put the facts as the engine and the feelings as the caboose. And when you put your feet, faith in your in the facts of God's word, then the feelings, while they may not always follow easily, they eventually catch up. And so I would say, like this, Dave, it's like, um, if, if your feelings don't align with the facts of what God's Word says, then your feelings are wrong and they have to be subjugated or submitted to the to the truth that we understand. Right? If your feelings align with God's word, then at that particular moment, we'd say, okay, that's, that's the wonderful moment when what we know to be true based upon the Scripture and what we feel to be true are are at, you know, connected at that particular moment. But a lot of times our feelings like, I might feel like God doesn't love me anymore, but that's not true, because we understand that nothing can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ, Jesus, our Lord, right? So I may feel like I'm completely condemned and I can never be forgiven, but I know Romans 81 says There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ, Jesus. So my the truth of God's Word, the facts of God's word, always override what I feel at that moment, right? So facts have to lead, specifically the facts that we read in Scripture, right? Truth? Maybe has to leave truth. Yeah, facts, truth. But you know, they're kind of similar, because they're because it's alliterated facts, makes more sense. So one more
• 16:34
  Dave Leake: time it was facts, facts,
• 16:37
  Jeff Leake: faith and feelings.
• 16:37
  Jeff Leake: Facts. Faith, either the facts of God's Word or your feelings are going to lead your life. But if you put your faith in your feelings, you'll be, you'll be all you'll be, you'll be going crazy up and down. If you put your faith in your fat and the facts, the feelings eventually will
• 16:51
  Dave Leake: follow. Yeah, that's good. Okay? So, um, so we can't have our feelings lead right?
• 16:58
  Dave Leake: What other roles do they play?
• 17:02
  Dave Leake: Like, how else do we filter through this?
• 17:04
  Jeff Leake: Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting. I just preached a message Dave on Daniel chapter five, about the moment when Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, was using the instruments of the temple to worship the gods of gold. So he took the holy, consecrated vessels, and he was using them to party with, yeah? And God sends a hand to write on the wall, and Daniel comes and interprets what was written on the wall, which basically is a statement of judgment against belshazzen Wade and found wanting. Yeah, I'm going to give your kingdom to somebody else needs in the Persians. Yeah.
• 17:42
  Jeff Leake: What was what? It was really interesting. And I shared this in the messages Belshazzar response was completely feeling based, because what he does is he gives Daniel gold, and he promotes him into a place of honor. But he never repents, and the chapter ends with that night he dies, and his kingdom is passed to somebody else. Yep, and I think it's very common in our especially in the context of cultural Christianity, that people hear messages and they feel convicted about what they hear, and they feel like because they felt a moment of guilt or a moment of inspiration or motivation that that's kind of enough, and they don't actually change. They leave and they say, Oh, what a great service. What a great worship moment. You know, man, that word was that word was penetrating, but without action.
• 18:41
  Jeff Leake: You don't, you don't really change. And there's so I actually think sometimes in motivational situations, we can receive ministry, and the ministry we receive can go nowhere, because all we have done is felt something. We haven't actually, we actually haven't altered anything.
• 18:58
  Dave Leake: Yeah, you know, that's actually like that happens to a number of different people in the Bible, where they have a message and they believe it, but they don't do anything.
• 19:07
  Dave Leake: Yeah, they don't like Eli does this too, yeah? He's first saying, right?
• 19:11
  Jeff Leake: Samuel gives him a word, and he's like, that's a good word,
• 19:13
  Dave Leake: bro. Yeah? He says, There's judgment coming against your house, because what you've allowed your corrupt sons to do, you know, sleeping with him in the temple, like being manipulative, take stealing from God, like being sacrilegious. I mean, they were evil, wicked people, and he allowed their wickedness to stay and profane the temple of God. And he gets judgment against him. And what he says in First Samuel 318, after he hears this, here's what's gonna happen to you. He says, It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to have, like there's no repentance, no
• 19:42
  Jeff Leake: you just, you know, or you might even think, all right, I actually think there are some people, especially in American culture, who are living in the same sin. They're living in a perpetual, unrepented sin pattern, and they go to church on a Sunday and they feel spiritual for 90 minutes. Mm.
• 20:00
  Jeff Leake: And they feel like that sort of scratched an itch I know I need to get right with God. And they go back, and they go right back into the same sin pattern, and they do not change. And then they go back on Sunday, and they feel inspired and motivated and a little closer to God, and then they go back into the same sin pattern. So sometimes inspiration and motivation can mask a serious spiritual issue that God is trying to address.
• 20:25
  Jeff Leake: And eventually what happens is your conscience gets broken, and then it's even hard to feel inspired anymore. And then people just sort of drop out of church, like, Ah, just doesn't It doesn't suit me anymore. And it could be just simply because your heart's gotten hard and you can't feel it. Your feeler is broke, because instead of taking what you have sensed from the Holy Spirit and acting on it, you've been ignoring it. And so you stopped feeling the presence of God, and you stopped feeling that inspiration, because your heart got hard. And so I think that's a real danger is to feel convicted but not really repent.
• 21:05
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, that's another. That's another, I guess, challenge with the feeling piece. Now we're talking about the negative side of what feelings are. Ephesians
• 21:11
  Dave Leake: four, actually, it talks directly about what you just said. Yeah. Ephesians 418, and 19, where says they're darkened in their understanding and separate from the life of God. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality.
• 21:21
  Dave Leake: So I think that that's that idea, like the continued choice to feel close but not respond to God slowly darkens and darkens and darkens and hardens our heart until it's, you know, you lose, I guess what? Like the spiritual rationality.
• 21:39
  Jeff Leake: I guess you get like a callus on the on your heart, so that your heart can't feel the same things it used to feel.
• 21:44
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, and it's good. And so, so this is the downside of the spiritual rush. I've jumped off the cliff and I'm floating in the air. This is such a great spiritual experience, man, that worship time was amazing. Sacred assembly was incredible. But real intimacy with God doesn't happen because you have a moment of inspiration or or a moment of anointing. It happens because you obey God in the difficult places, right? And you press into God even when you don't feel stuff. See, actually, that's where real maturity comes in, is I don't feel like it, but I'm doing it anyway, right?
• 22:18
  Jeff Leake: Because I know this is what God wants me to do. My flesh is telling me no, no, no, and God's saying yes, yes, yes, and I've chosen to do what God's asked in spite of what my feelings tell me that's that's actually where you really grow close to God, where you really become mature is when you you subjugate your feelings to your obedience, right, or to the truth of God's Word. So feelings always are secondary in that regard,
• 22:44
  Dave Leake: okay, but feelings aren't always bad. I mean, no, right? Actually, God,
• 22:48
  Jeff Leake: we just caution side, right? That's right, yeah,
• 22:51
  Dave Leake: I guess one, one point that's worth addressing is that God does care about our emotions. I mean, there's a bunch of Scripture about this.
• 22:58
  Dave Leake: I'll just hit a few of these that I was looking up. You know, Psalm 38 434, 18 says the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. You know, it's God sees when our emotions, not just when our emotions, when we're hurt, when we're broken, and that matters to him. You know, the shortest verse in the Bible, John 1135 where it says Jesus wept, but shows that Jesus experienced and expressed deep emotions. You know, Hebrews 415 talks about, we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weakness. And that's both, I think, an idea that Jesus experienced it when he was in bodily form, but also that he understands. Now, you know Peter first, Peter five seven, says, Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. So I think we have to realize God is a God that does see and understand and care about emotions. Also. Emotions are given to us by God,
• 23:56
  Jeff Leake: sure. Well, even the Holy Spirit has a disposition, right? The first three of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians, five, love, joy, peace. Peace is an is an emotion, in a way, it's a condition of your life. It's an emotion. Joy is an emotion. Love produces emotions. When you feel loved, you feel accepted, you feel secure. So the Holy Spirit is producing some dispositional qualities inside, right? The Yeah, the emotions that are there. God, God. God is in touch with what we feel, but he doesn't cater to it. Yeah, right. He is wanting to impart certain things to us, but he doesn't want us to depend too much on it, because if we, if we depend on our feelings, then again, we'll be led by by those things, rather than by something deeper. Yeah, that's right. So he, he's the best friend you could ever have. He empathizes, he sympathizes, he cares, and he is trying to produce, you know, healing and wholeness and restoration and joy and peace.
• 24:57
  Jeff Leake: But all of that is still second.
• 24:57
  Jeff Leake: Secondary to obedience, right?
• 25:02
  Jeff Leake: So, cold, hard obedience is really not like he's an evil task master, but ultimately he knows that the will being aligned with his will is what leads us into a place of health and fruitfulness.
• 25:18
  Dave Leake: Okay? So, um, a couple of thoughts and directions to go with us. So the original question is, what rule do feelings have? My spiritual walk or spiritual journey? So I guess we talked about how they're secondary. God cares about them. Our will and our decisions to submit, to surrender, to follow Jesus, are the most important things. But what about this idea of, you know, like, so both the positive and negative stereotypes of like seeking God and pursuing an experience with God, is it? Is it inherently bad to pursue an experience with God? Like a really good question.
• 25:53
  Jeff Leake: What do you think?
• 25:55
  Dave Leake: I think, no, but I
• 25:57
  Jeff Leake: Okay. So, what experiences? What experiences so,
• 26:01
  Dave Leake: okay, so let's see.
• 26:01
  Dave Leake: I would say, you know, when we think about, like the early, some of the early, like Americans, you know, like when I think people like the Quakers, or some of the great revivals where they, like, sought God and they they wanted a genuine encounter, or even, like, you know, the Azusa Street Revival, there was, there was a hunger that I think was out of the Spirit that, like, urged them to seek God, until they had a manifestation of His presence.
• 26:35
  Dave Leake: By, by the way, when we say manifestation, not in a Buddhist way, but just in a tangible, palpable, describable way, where it's not a vague, oh yeah, like God's around me, but I don't sense it, but it's actually like you can understand how God's interacting with the world. And obviously we see this all throughout the Bible, where God touches a place in power. You know, like at the end of Acts, is it three or four? I think it's three, where it says they were praying, and the place around them was shaken. You know what I mean is that x3 at the end of
• 27:04
  Jeff Leake: it? So those were experiences they had. I'm not sure they were experiences they sought. No, you're right, but
• 27:10
  Dave Leake: hold on, I'll keep going with this. I understand that. It's not like so they prayed to God, and then God showed up. It's not like they were seeking them. But I'm saying, I guess if we're saying is seeking experience a good thing? I would say maybe the experience is the wrong thing to seek. But I
• 27:25
  Jeff Leake: think if we're seeking God in a way, do we want seeking the relationship? Yeah, to encounter God in a full way.
• 27:32
  Jeff Leake: And you can't have relationship with God without there being an experience, experiential dimension to it.
• 27:37
  Dave Leake: I think that's what I'm trying to say. If you get close to God, you will have
• 27:41
  Jeff Leake: an experience. But if you seek the experience rather than the person, that's where you can get off into, oh, I want to, you know, some people are like sort of the charismatic caravanners they go around to every, you know, church that has some kind of gifted communicator or worship leader because they want to feel the goose bumps of the presence of God, and I maybe that's okay. I guess there's worse things you could seek, right? Worse ways you could spend your time. But ultimately, it's not about how it makes us feel. It's about who he is that
• 28:14
  Dave Leake: feels like a misalignment, right? Because, okay, so I think there is a difference, and it's subtle, and maybe it's sometimes a heart thing, but you can see it in the fruit of somebody's life as to whether they're seeking. I want to have this experience where I want to feel this I want to feel close to God, like, I want to feel cleansed. I want to feel joy, whatever it is like, I want to have that experience again. I want to be that's like, like the seeking of the environment or the encounter, is maybe the wrong thing to seek. There's a there's a fine line between that. And I want to seek God.
• 28:48
  Dave Leake: And I think when you're wanting to see God there, you can have a contentedness, even when you don't have the feelings, sure, so like the it can, I guess I'm just saying it can start out of that same hunger, that same place, like, I just want more intimacy with Lord. I want to understand him better. I want to know His Word. I want to know his heart. And if it then shifts from, you know, God's heart or his person to, or you know, you hear this, towards seeking God's hand, which often means provision, but it could also mean like a touch from God. If what we're seeking constantly as a touch from God, then we're maybe not seeking God Himself.
• 29:22
  Dave Leake: Yeah,
• 29:24
  Jeff Leake: and here's how the I'll just share some personal experiences, how that can go wrong. Okay, so when I was a teenager, I was seeking the baptism in the Holy Spirit, okay, which is a biblical thing that we find in Acts chapter two. So I had given my life to Christ, 15 years old, and I was wanting to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, and I wasn't breaking through to the experience yet, and I was becoming, I thought a bunch of things, because I haven't had this experience. Number one, something must be wrong with me, okay? Or I must be doing this wrong, or maybe this isn't in the Bible. So the lack. A breakthrough in feeling made me question everything, because everyone else was and I hadn't yet. And at some point, one of my friends looked at me and said, Man, you are seeking God so much in this season. I actually think you're growing closer and closer to him. You just haven't stepped into what what it is to be baptized in the Holy Spirit yet, but that's coming. Like, don't condemn yourself. There's nothing wrong with you at all. Like the intensity with which you're seeking God is actually beautiful, and you are moving closer and closer. So, so I remember another time, Dave, there's a, okay, this is, this is an experience that we see in the Bible on occasion, and it's called being slain in the Spirit. This is, yeah, right, right. At times God's where
• 30:43
  Dave Leake: do we see this? In the Bible,
• 30:45
  Jeff Leake: if we see it's hinted at a couple times, like when the soldiers are ready to rest Jesus, and they fall back under the power of God, and they're, you know, laid out, but they're not worshiping. And I know Acts chapter 10 where Simon Peters on the rooftop of his house, he he falls into a trance. So I guess that's in a way, like a spiritual
• 31:05
  Dave Leake: so being slayed in the spirit is going into a trance.
• 31:08
  Jeff Leake: I think at times, I think at times it is like, Okay, I heard people describe it as they they came into the place of the presence of God, and the presence God was so strong they couldn't stand anymore. And while they were laying on the crown. They had a vision. Yeah, they had, they had a sense that God was doing something in some particular way. So I think that could fit into that. Has this happened to you before? So I have had some moments where I fell under the presence of God, but I don't know, because it's not a biblical term. It's a really hard thing to define, right? So I remember being at Three Rivers Stadium here in Pittsburgh, and there was a special speaker that was there, and he he it was in an era where the slain in the Spirit thing was sort of a novelty. And he got us all down on the field and lined up people, 300 people long, and then he went down and he prayed for each one. And I remember standing in that line and waiting for him to come to me, and I was sort of like this, if this experience is from God, I want to have it, and if it's not, I don't want to fake it, right? And so it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, everyone falling down. And he got to me, and he tapped my head. And I didn't, I didn't. I wasn't overcome by anything. I didn't feel anything. And I stood there, and I was like, the only person standing in this line of people. And then I remember people saying to me, why didn't you fall down? And I was like, Well, I'm not gonna just lay down on the ground just to mimic an experience. But there were a lot of people on the field that day that were longing to have that slain in this spirit experience. And I think that's probably slightly off, right?
• 32:50
  Jeff Leake: Because what's so if you, if that happens to you, you fell down, you got back up, but, but nothing's really changed in your life, or you haven't made any decisions to move closer to God, or you just can't notch that off the list. Well, I've had that one. Now, I've did that one.
• 33:02
  Jeff Leake: Like, I don't think that's New Testament Christianity, where you just sort of check the boxes of, okay, I've done, I've been, I've laughed in the spirit. I've been slain in this very like, I don't think that's but in certain charismatic streams, the experience is the goal.
• 33:20
  Dave Leake: Yeah, yeah, that's probably dangerous. Yeah, right.
• 33:24
  Dave Leake: I'd say that's dangerous. I think that's dangerous because I think that that is beginning to miss the focus that we're supposed to have, like seeking God for Okay, let's so we'll get off track for a little bit. I know we're talking about spiritual feelings, but we'll get off track. I think seeking God, to know Him better, to become more like Him, leads to an outflow. It leads to evangelism. It leads to discipleship. Sometimes the people that you're talking about where the focus is on having another experience seem to be the most in flowy people, like they'll pray for others. Maybe there's even a little bit, but it's like they, they constantly have super long prayer meetings, and it's like the, it's almost like the unstated goal is to have that laughing moment, or to have that I went to a place like, I don't know, 10 years ago, and it creeped me out. It creeped me out. I
• 34:18
  Unknown: know, were you talking about? Yeah, like I it was like a
• 34:21
  Dave Leake: spiritual free for all I know that you've said that you've seen genuine things where, like, somebody wasn't looking for it, and a move of the Spirit happened, and then all of a sudden people just like, begin to, like, oh, be overcome with joy and laughter.
• 34:31
  Dave Leake: And that sounds like something so different than what I experienced, because I went in and it was like it felt like, you know, in the Batman movies, when then he puts, like, laughing gas, and like, all them are, like, on the floor, and it's creepy, like I was like, this is not and, I mean, I'm Pentecostal, like, you know what? I mean? I believe in the presence of the Holy Spirit, and I believe in the baptism, and I believe in God, you know, still moving in the world today to demonstrate His power. I believe all those things. But. Like man, when it when it gets focused too much only on me and God, instead of like the mission that God's given to us, I think it gets
• 35:10
  Jeff Leake: all right. So I know I've talked about this before today, but 1997 Allison Park church, we had a revival, and it was a genuine outpouring of the Holy Spirit, where we're where God moved, and people got saved, baptized in water, made significant changes to their life. I think I mentioned before, during this season, we had a trash can at the front of the church, and people would bring in their sinful attachments and put them in the can. So pornography was put in there. Someone put a gun in there, put people put their drugs in there, like it was a place of repentance. It was real, genuine change that lasted for two and a half months. At some point, after about two months, we were still coming to church because we were meeting almost every night of the week for services, and people were pouring in by the hundreds. And at some point, I started to feel like, I think we're chasing the feeling like we're singing the same songs, and we're expecting like this is going to be another one of these nights where we have these experiences. And we were becoming inwardly focused without realizing it. It was becoming about us and the feelings that we would have in the context of revival services, and we made a strategic decision to stop the nightly services so we could go back into doing healthy church life with small groups and biblical teaching and spiritual growth steps for people and serve day like in it, we were almost becoming a Spiritual goosebumps center, like we're all going to come together, and the only thing we do is worship and try to have these spiritual experiences. And I think if we had done that, we would have become very inward and it would have become stale.
• 36:52
  Jeff Leake: Instead, what happened is that revival shifted our culture and we started planting churches, we became more missional and outward, because we took the empowerment of Holy Spirit and we leveraged what was happening in our life to fulfill what God was calling us to do. And I think there is a danger in becoming too believer centric and too experientially focused, even though there are moments in time where God breaks through and we have these outpourings of God, which we feel more alive than we've ever felt before, but they can't ever become the target they have to become, I guess, a wonderful byproduct of a moment with God.
• 37:39
  Dave Leake: I think that's part of why we have a little bit more restrictions on expressions of pursuing God than maybe other places do
• 37:47
  Jeff Leake: like I've heard. I know the word restrictions is correct. I would probably put we provide a little bit more pastoral guidance. Okay, but there
• 37:55
  Dave Leake: are some things you'd be like, we're not doing that. You know what I'm like, for instance, like blowing a shofar in the middle of a service, oh, which has happened that as an experience? No, no, I'm saying, I'm saying something that is pursuing, not, not that God does, but I'm saying that's pursuing God in an individual way of worship, like, in terms, okay, some places it's a little more free for all, like, you know, if you So, for example.
• 38:18
  Dave Leake: And I'm not saying this is always like, we're talking about right and wrong, but we're talking about stylistic. You know, 20 years ago, you were like, we're not going to shout out words from the congregation.
• 38:30
  Jeff Leake: Okay, true. Yes.
• 38:30
  Jeff Leake: Interruptive spiritual gifts were something that we stopped, not because it was feelings oriented. It just, I think it just, there was a better way to function. So the blowing of the shofar is just really a cultural thing, right? Sure, it was an Old Testament practice that often is now associated so it's a ram's horn. That's what a shofar is, if you don't know what that is, it was used to summon the Israelites to battle or to warn them that the trouble was coming, or bring them to a place of fasting or worship, and in charismatic circles, it often is used like as a,
• 39:10
  Dave Leake: what would you call it? I don't know, prophetic declaration or something.
• 39:13
  Dave Leake: There's nothing worse really wrong with the show, and I'm not I'm not saying that, but
• 39:18
  Jeff Leake: more of a cultural misfit with where we live in 2025 in most contexts. Now, if you were in a Messianic Jewish congregation, maybe that fits, sure, right? But it probably doesn't fit. Most people would be like, what was that like?
• 39:32
  Jeff Leake: Okay, so that's more strange, but what I'm trying to say is feelings oriented.
• 39:35
  Dave Leake: I've been, I've been in and around congregations, not not for a long time, but visiting where, you know, there's been, like, messages like, yeah, like, we need, we need to be sometimes, some people will go too far, is how they said in their pursuit of God. But that doesn't mean that we should, like, limit, you know, what's allowed, because we really just want to desperately seek God and stuff. I would say for us, I. Yeah, like, we have sort of the, you know, First Corinthians 14, yeah, okay,
• 40:03
  Jeff Leake: that's, that's good.
• 40:03
  Jeff Leake: I'm glad you're going there, because first Corinthians 14 basically says when we get together. Because, in the church in Corinthians, the Corinthian church in Paul's era, they had, they had, sort of one of these spiritual free for alls. It was like a place where, like, goosebumps Central. It was like God was moving, and there was all the gifts of the Spirit that were operating, and people were coming, and they were sort of basking in it, you know, they were soaking in it. And Paul comes along and pastorally instructs, not restricts, but instructs. And basically, he says,
• 40:37
  Dave Leake: sure, but what's the difference at a certain point?
• 40:40
  Dave Leake: Basically, don't do this
• 40:41
  Jeff Leake: stuff. He says, what you have to be thinking about all the time is, does this edify others? True? You cannot use your personal liberty to flow in the function of the Holy Spirit without thinking about when you're with other people. Does this edifice edify or benefit somebody else? That's true.
• 40:58
  Jeff Leake: Every gift has a purpose, and this is actually good to get to Dave, because one of the roles that feelings, one of the roles that feelings have in our in our spiritual life that lead us into a really good experience, is being used in the gifts like you have a deep desire in your life to be used in the gift of prophecy. And prophecy is designed to edify and build up other people. The only way you get a word of prophecy in your heart is if you feel it. You sense that God is speaking to you, and that does require some level of emotional connectedness to what the Holy Spirit is doing in the moment, sure where you have this impression or prompt on the inside, a feeling that then prompts a thought that then you speak out loud by your will to somebody that needs to hear it, and that that gift of the Spirit is an experience you should seek. Because actually, the Bible says in First Corinthians, chapter 12, that we should What 14 follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts. Not not spiritual experiences, for my sake of feeling the goosebumps, but spiritual gifts so that I can distribute something good, something supernatural, to somebody in need. The problem with the Corinthian church in First Corinthians 14 is that they were having experiences that were the end in themselves and what they were after. What Paul was saying is, use the gifts man like step into that you should long for that, but make sure you do it because you want to edify somebody else. And so if you give a word of knowledge, or you are functioning in a word of prophecy, or you operate in the gift of faith, all of that starts in some ways with some level of feeling impulse, which is then good, right? This even, even when we make decisions in life, oftentimes we'll look for an inward confirmation that we're on the right track, which is, is this sense of peace about something so feelings in your spiritual life aren't a bad thing. They're actually play a part. They often confirm the facts that God has given us, or the leadings and promptings that God has given us, but if taken apart from any of that, they lose their purpose and value. So I you know, I guess we're debating over whether this is pastoral instructions or restrictions. I guess textually, Paul was giving some restrictions. He was saying, when you use these gifts, make sure you follow these guidelines. Yeah,
• 43:21
  Dave Leake: that's all I'm saying. Yeah, I guess it's not for the for the goal of somebody else controlling others, but it's them controlling themselves, but it's still self benefit restrictions, yeah, for the benefit of others. And honestly, the reality too is, you know, the devil thrives in chaos. And what Paul is saying is, make sure there's order, because the Holy Spirit works in order. Not that the Holy Spirit can't do things that are messy sometimes, sure, but whenever it's disorderly, and it's beyond messy, it's disorderly in a way that is not considering the edification of the church or non believers that are coming in.
• 43:57
  Dave Leake: That's a lot of First Corinthians 14 consider people that are entering in that are going to think you're crazy, if there's not consideration given for that, I don't think it's a good justification based on First Corinthians to say, Yeah, but our passion for God should overrule things like order or sense.
• 44:15
  Jeff Leake: Well, there's a delicate balance with that, right? So we're a church that wants all three, your mind, your will and emotions to be involved. We especially aim toward the will, because what we want is obedience, but we also are not going to forbid emotion.
• 44:28
  Jeff Leake: So like you have this story of Hannah, who's in the presence of of God in the tabernacle, and she's grieving because she so desperately wants to have a child, and she's praying out loud, and Eli shows up, is it Eli? Yeah. Eli shows up and says to Hannah, what's wrong with you? Are you drunk? Because she was sort of muttering under her breath because she was being emotional, yeah. And so sorry, yes. That's better way to say it. Sometimes people are emotional in church. Much and they should. They should have the freedom and affirmation to be emotional, yeah, if they're grieving something or calling out to God for something, or experiencing something without feeling slammed because they're over hyping things.
• 45:14
  Dave Leake: Well, by the way, the god the Hannah moment is like a godly weeping pouring out her heart in prayer, and God honors that and gives her a son in Samuel, so but, but Eli thought she was crazy. He did drunk, but God, I'm saying to affirm your point, God honored that expressing emotion from
• 45:31
  Jeff Leake: a pure place. But then there's that, if Hannah showed up at the tabernacle every week and had the same experience, sure, right, this, and went through like, almost like a Pentecostal, charismatic liturgy of response to God, right? Right? At that point, Eli would have need to pastor her, and this is what we're talking to some people. It's one thing to have a moment with God where you're emotional, because it's a genuine, authentic thing, and it's another thing to mimic that same emotional response every time you come to church, okay, and and to to think that widening and broadening the emotional spectrum of things is going to make things more
• 46:06
  Dave Leake: spiritual. So here's, here's the thing this.
• 46:08
  Dave Leake: This gets us to a I have several other places we can go with this, though, but this is one, one that was on my mind this.
• 46:14
  Dave Leake: This sort of brings me to the point of, like, I think that sometimes a trap that people can fall into and in different circles, but probably specifically in Pentecostal charismatic circles, is the only way I know I feel close to God is when I feel him right, as opposed to being close to God in ways that aren't feelings based, you know, actually, like I, you know, as we do learn the word of God better, we do become closer To God, you know, like, sure, we become, you know, what is it?
• 46:44
  Dave Leake: Romans, where it says, it says, Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Like our mind is renewed as the word of God dwells within us. And so as we, even if we don't feel things actually like, and I've had this experience. I know you taught us this growing up, but like spending time in the Word of God every day does something to your outlook and your perspective and your spirit, to where, even if you don't feel like you've had a strong time of devotions, like meaning I had an experience, and I feel great now, and even if it felt like nothing happened, it actually does affect you.
• 47:16
  Dave Leake: Because, like spending time in God's word, even if it's just a mind thing, actually has an effect on us. I think sometimes the way we interpret, have we crossed a finish line, or maybe that's the wrong way opened the door to really enter into God's presence. If our way to determine that is based on feelings, we're actually missing the fuller expression of what it is to be close and to walk with God, yeah. Because I think even when it comes to like a spouse or a loved one, like you don't have to have feelings of elation or, you know, whatever it is, every time you're with them to be intimate, you just need to spend time with them.
• 47:53
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, there's so there's qual, qualitative and quantitative, right? You don't feel richer when your money's in the bank, but there's compound interest. And if you look at the end of a month, you'll see you have more, right? Same thing is true. Like, I've had moments with Melody when, like, for instance, for our 13th anniversary, we went to Aruba and you guys, you guys were all really small. This is our first time away together for a whole week. That was a time of great elation. By the way,
• 48:20
  Dave Leake: it's really weird to think about. I'm only six years away from my 13th anniversary.
• 48:22
  Dave Leake: I'm like, oh, geez,
• 48:27
  Unknown: you were getting old, my friend. Yeah.
• 48:30
  Jeff Leake: So, I mean, we were together in a gorgeous place, walking hand in hand on the beach, and we felt very much in love. That's qualitative.
• 48:35
  Jeff Leake: Quantitative is we go on a date night every Friday, and sometimes that date night is very ordinary. There were sometimes we had no money, so we would take some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and sit by North Park Lake and have some extra bread to feed the ducks.
• 48:52
  Jeff Leake: Wasn't all that exhilarating, but it was time put in and over 38 years of marriage.
• 48:56
  Jeff Leake: Qualitative and quantitative are both important. Sometimes you feel nothing. But if I had ignored those weekly dates with Melody, certainly the lack of discipline in our relationship would have caused us to feel further apart. And then, of course, you need these grand moments where it's an anniversary celebration and you just feel so connected to each other. But marriage isn't always going to feel romantic. Yeah,
• 49:28
  Dave Leake: you know, I would think we would, we would recommend counseling for somebody, if they if, every time they were around somebody, they needed to feel like they're making me happy, or else Something is wrong. Well, some
• 49:42
  Jeff Leake: people do go into marriage thinking that, yeah, right. Like, it's going to be a constant roller coaster ride with all kinds of exhilaration every week. And it's not. There are days, there days that you feel nothing, but if you keep on loving somebody, even when you feel nothing, that's what makes you mature.
• 49:57
  Dave Leake: Yeah. Okay. So, like, obviously. If you sense something is off, you want to respond to that, like, Yeah, something's between us. But a lot of the time with friends or with my wife, Sarah, it's like there's a grounded level of stability, like we are good. I'm happy to be with her. Like, this is wonderful, but it's not like an emotional roller coaster, because that's not the sign of whether you're an intimate intimacy with somebody like to be good doesn't mean you have to feel like, oh my gosh, you know, yeah. And I just think that's a miss identification of what intimacy with God looks like.
• 50:34
  Dave Leake: That sometimes gets pursued.
• 50:35
  Jeff Leake: And over time, I think Dave so I can speak to this because I am older and been at it longer. There are times when Mel and I will be driving somewhere and not talking to each other at all, not even thinking about each other, but there's sort of a settledness to the closeness that we have, where we can be who we are in that moment and feel very deeply connected. I have the same kind of thing in my relationship with God like I remember. So my mother is 83 years old, and I was just driving back from being with her. I'd stop in on her every day. And I was thinking about the thought of one of the commandments, Honor your father and mother. It'll go well with you in the land. And I was just, I was Miss meditating on that it's an it's a privilege to honor my mom and to be a part of her life right now. And and I just felt like the Holy Spirit just kind of breathed to me.
• 51:22
  Jeff Leake: This is pleasing to me. Thank you for doing this like it wasn't a I didn't feel goose bumpy, I didn't feel this rush of emotion. I just felt this deep settledness, like I love pleasing God. And then I just said, sort of said out loud, you're, you are my best friend.
• 51:38
  Jeff Leake: God. I love you so much. Thank you for letting me serve you. I want to, I want to be pleasing to you today. And that was all it was. It wasn't like a big revelation of anything. It wasn't like I got this deep inspiration from a particular scripture. It was just a settledness that comes with years and years of intimacy together, and that time put in of both quality and quantity creates a level of connectedness in relationship that only increases over time. And that's a feeling, in a way, but if it was, if my relationships had only been built on the goose bumpy pursuit of experiential moments, I would never have that deep, resonating sense of intimacy, sure, with either my wife or my relationship with God. Now let me just come back to this I know before we close, Dave, so one of the things that I really admire about you is that you have this hunger to be used by in the gifts of the Spirit, especially in the prophetic and I wanted to ask you, what role do feelings play in that aspect of your pursuit of
• 52:42
  Dave Leake: God, great. That's why that was my last topic.
• 52:45
  Dave Leake: Okay, good, because
• 52:46
  Jeff Leake: I want to hear how you would describe it, because there is a role that feelings play that I think are somewhat primary when it comes to following a prompting.
• 52:56
  Dave Leake: Okay, the weird thing is, like, it's not necessarily feelings, but it is senses. And I don't mean in the sense of necessarily, smell, taste, touch, sight, you know, sound. I mean it can be those things, but there is a like when it comes to listening to the voice of God in a sense of like the gift of prophecy. It does have something to do with feelings. Now, by the way, you know, just around the subject, we do believe that God is an act of speaking God. We don't believe the gifts the spirit of ceased in any way. Think that's actually crazy nonsense. And I think that everybody is hardwired to hear the voice of God. And so this was sort of the last sort of topic I had in my mind is, I think honing, or we could say the gift of discernment, not necessarily even just the spiritual gift discerning of spirits, where you can sense if something is demonic or it's fleshly, but I just mean discerning between what is my thoughts or my feelings, versus God's thoughts God's feelings. Think that's one of the harder things that comes with maturity. So can I Okay, can I can I give a couple of scriptural examples real quick, and then I can talk about my personal experiences. So it's interesting, because, like, actually, even in the even in the Bible, as far as people that are recognized prophets, they don't always get confirmation of whether it was God or not until much later, or until they've had the active faith, meaning they sometimes they weren't even sure. You know, like, there's there's
• 54:30
  Jeff Leake: take. It's always a step of faith when you're used in a gift, isn't it, right?
• 54:34
  Dave Leake: Okay? But so like Jeremiah 32 Okay, and here I can pull this up, but essentially, what happens? Jeremiah gets this word from God. Let me pull this up, okay? And it says, this is the word that came to the Lord.
• 54:51
  Dave Leake: This is verse 1/10 year. Okay, let's see. I. Okay, and so, okay, here we go. Verse six, Jeremiah said the word of Lord came to me, hanamel, son of shalom, your uncle, is going to come to you and say, buy my field. To Anathoth, because, as nearest relative is right, and due to buy it, okay, he gets this word that a relative is going to come and say, hey, buy my field. Verse eight, then, just as the Lord had said. My cousin Hannah Mel came to me and said the same thing, right? And then he says, At the end of verse eight, I knew that this was the word of the Lord, so I bought the field and a thought.
• 55:29
  Dave Leake: So, like, the idea is like, like, he didn't actually know it was necessarily the word Lord until it came to pass. He thought this is what God and then he's like, Well, God spoke this to me. There's a confirmation. Now I know it was God because it actually happened the way that I thought it would.
• 55:43
  Dave Leake: I think even with somebody that's like Jeremiah, like, you know, a major prophet in the Bible, like, had all these experiences and everything, like, even there still needs to be, even in the Old Testament, a sense of discernment and like, what what parts of my feelings or thoughts are mean, and what are God's
• 56:03
  Jeff Leake: with? So it's so it's almost like, in some ways, these this isn't just feelings.
• 56:06
  Jeff Leake: It's like, just like your ears sense sound, and your eyes sense light, your spirit is a sensory device, in a way that interacts with the Holy Spirit and and so do this sound create a feeling in you? It does, but it's less about the feeling created, and it's just more of the fact that your spirit is has a sensory capacity to Yeah. So yeah. So does your skin like if I come up to you and flick your forehead, you feel it. You might have some feelings that result from it, but it's that your skin has been impacted your spirit is also has sensory component to it. It does, and when the Holy Spirit begins to interact with you, you you have a sensitivity to it.
• 56:51
  Jeff Leake: Now that may also come with joy or peace or warning, but it's more just that you learn, over time, as a follower of Jesus, to listen to the sensory nature of your spirit that then, if you interpret it properly, becomes God speaking to you, or you beginning to step out to be used in some kind of gift. That's right.
• 57:13
  Dave Leake: So my point in reading the verse there was that even recognized biblical prophets still have a step of faith moment and a discernment, is this God? Okay? Actually, was God like, was that's good, I think with us, like everybody who has felt the Holy Spirit is hardwired to hear God. And I think God is speaking all the time. It's just learning to listen and to discern His voice.
• 57:35
  Dave Leake: And so I guess some tips, maybe that I would say,
• 57:42
  Jeff Leake: and often, I think if we get over exaggerated on how, if we wait for super, super duper feelings to to be accompanying the sensitivity of the Holy Spirit, we way over expect what that's like. I think sometimes people don't get you don't step out into discerning the voice of God, because they expect it to come with super duper feelings,
• 58:06
  Dave Leake: that's right, or a big sign, or it's lightning, or it's
• 58:09
  Jeff Leake: a voice in the sky, or just like, hearing audibly, yeah, is kind of ordinary. Means something we should remain grateful for. Being sensitive to the Holy Spirit is often very ordinary. Yeah, it's extraordinary. That's the Holy Spirit speaking to us. But it's a small, still, still small voice. It's a whisper, it's, it's, it's not typically with trumpets and like, and that's actually what makes a person miss it. But keep going,
• 58:35
  Dave Leake: yeah? Well, I think what, what makes it so, yeah, what makes it tough is it often sounds just like how your voice sounds, yeah, like it's like, was that a me thought, I don't think like almost ever. Whenever I hear a word from God, it doesn't feel like so distinct or different than how I feel or think that I'm like, that has to be God. Typically, it's like, I don't know or not if that's God right away and the thought that I had in my head. So you have to go through filtration process.
• 59:03
  Dave Leake: But just quickly. God always wants to speak to us, but I think we have to filter through.
• 59:06
  Dave Leake: Is this what the Word of God already agrees with and says?
• 59:09
  Dave Leake: And if it is, then, even if it's not God speaking to me right now, he's already spoken it. So we should do this. And if it's not something directly in the Word of God, this is aligned with the principles, you know, like, if I'm getting a word for somebody else, and it's, you know, that that God is, I feel like God's asking you to lay this down, and God's gonna bring you peace. You know, you've been really fighting and struggling, but God's saying, give control up, and he's gonna give you peace. That that is not, I mean, I guess that is according to Scripture and aligns with the principles. So that helps me to sort of sense is what I'm hearing, a part of what maybe what God wants to say to them.
• 59:45
  Dave Leake: Well, it aligns with what God says. And then I think one of the big like, already says in the words what I mean. And I think one of the big ones is like, especially whenever there's, like, a question, Is this me or just God is like, do I stand to gain anything from what I'm gonna say? Okay, because that's the big difference. Like, sometimes God wants something for somebody else that will also be good for me, but if it's good for me, I have to take a second or third look first,
• 1:00:13
  Jeff Leake: yeah, so you're not manipulative,
• 1:00:15
  Dave Leake: yes, because it's, it's easy to be like, well, this would be good for them, by the way, God wants.
• 1:00:18
  Jeff Leake: I hope every This is at the end of this particular episode. I hope you stayed for this, because this last little section, I think, was part of the or one of the best parts of our talk. And maybe Dave This prompts us to another conversation, which would be guidelines for being used in the prophetic that might be good, that might be good episode where we could dive a little bit more in detail, because I feel like now we're at the end of the time there. There are probably for those who are listening, who are who are new to this, or like the prophetic sensitivity of saying something on behalf of God to somebody else. That might be something you're very curious about, but you're not, you're a novice at. We probably need a lot more time to unpack that shortly. Okay,
• 1:01:01
  Dave Leake: well, then be then I'll wrap it up in this way, because the gift of prophecy, saying something on God's behalf to somebody else is one thing, but often you people say, Well, I really feel like God told me this. Do you understand, even in that case, whether it's directives or it's what I should not a word of prophecy, but how I should treat somebody else, or a decision I should make. I think the the question, do I stand to gain anything from this should be a factor and taking those filters, yeah, because I think one of the common things that I think is is often when you see things go off a little bit is like you wanted God to say that, like, I know God didn't say that. I know God didn't say that, because the way you're saying this now, and what the actions this is, this is not according to the principles that God has. It might not be direct, which was one of the dangers of being led by your feelings Exactly. And when we equate our feelings to this is probably what God's telling me, but it's really probably what we want. I think it gets into a place that can be shaky.
• 1:02:06
  Jeff Leake: This is how you also need someone that you're submitted to exactly, or guide, yes, what you have heard, yeah, so you don't make a big mistake.
• 1:02:14
  Jeff Leake: Yeah,
• 1:02:15
  Dave Leake: we're supposed to test every word, you know, test the spirits. Yeah, all that to say, we can do another episode about, you know, prophetic and things. But I think as far as like hearing from God, it's not to say we should be discouraged and not trust anything as God ever, because it could be me.
• 1:02:33
  Dave Leake: Faith always requires a level of risk, but we should take it seriously. We should weigh our feelings. We should filter through it, and we should seek God, because God does want us to experience him in more than just our mind or the Word of God. So any closing thoughts,
• 1:02:51
  Jeff Leake: boy, we covered a lot of territory there. I'm just, I guess I would say like this, I'm really glad that there are moments where God allows me to feel his presence. I'm not I want to become overly dependent on that. I want to operate out of faith, which means I'm convicted that certain things are true, that He's real, even when I don't feel it. But I'm really grateful for the fact that he allows us to have these moments of intimacy and exhilaration that come from being in his presence.
• 1:03:17
  Dave Leake: Yeah, that's wonderful. Yeah. I'm glad that God has created us holistically, where our emotions aren't the devil, yeah, like, but where he wants to fit in their their proper place. That's right, yeah. And that, like a relationship with God is holistic too. Like we feel, we actually learn to feel what he feels. I actually think part of God trusting us is him trusting us with his heart, like as we handle that same care that he wants us to, whether that's people or it's matters or it's beautiful surrender we feel what He wants us to feel. All right.
• 1:03:47
  Dave Leake: Well, we appreciate you joining us in this episode. Hopefully this was enlightening or clarifying in some ways for you.
• 1:03:54
  Dave Leake: If you have any more questions, you can actually go in the if you're on YouTube, you can go right below in the comments, and you can let us know what you think, or if you have other questions. You could do that.
• 1:04:04
  Dave Leake: You could always email us as well. Our emails are probably on the podcast. They're definitely on the Allison church website, Dave L at Austin or Jeff L. You can let us know if you have any other thoughts or topics as always, if you can help us share in one of the different ways, by liking and subscribing on YouTube, by giving a five star review on the whatever podcast platform by sharing it, that would be super helpful to us. It would only take a second, but it helps us a lot. So hope you enjoyed this. We'll see you guys again next time you.