God speaks trough feelings

"You have come not to feeling, but to faith." I heard this phrase often in my environment as I grew in the things of God and His Holy Spirit. It’s a true and trustworthy word, because indeed—faith is something different from feeling. Faith is a certainty and firm confidence, as the Heidelberg Catechism puts it. Pistis, the Greek word for faith, literally means trust.

Faith Involves Feeling—But Isn’t Ruled By It

Believing and trusting God doesn’t bypass our emotions. Still, we can’t always rely only on feelings. God created humans as living beings with a soul—consisting of mind, will, and emotion—alongside spirit and body. That means God gave us feelings, and we’re invited to learn how to use them. Especially in discerning God’s voice or discovering His revealed will.

“Faith and trust do not bypass our emotions.”

A Cleansed and Healed Consciousness

Our feelings—or conscience, as the Bible also calls it—are complex and vulnerable, but just as essential as intellect or will. If it weren’t important, God wouldn’t have given it to us.

To reliably hear what God speaks through our feelings, our conscience must be cleansed. That’s where healing comes in. Inner healing means applying the sacrifice of Jesus to our emotions. We become sanctified people—able to let God heal the wounds of our past and open our heart to hear Him from a healed and purified place.

“How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14)

Baptism is also an important step in cleansing our conscience. Through union with the resurrection of Christ, we become positioned to receive God's will in our purified inner being.

“…baptism now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 3:21)

Natural and Spiritual Sensitivity

God speaks through our conscience, through our emotions, even through our physical sense of touch. The very feeling of the skin—via nerve endings—is a gateway to experiencing the world. Just as someone touching us can transfer sensation, so can spiritual experiences convey impressions and revelation.

“Even our natural sense of touch can be used by God to reveal His will.”

Spiritual sensing, or “discernment,” goes deeper. It's the intuitive experience—the spiritual atmosphere or energy (sometimes referred to as an aura)—that we feel in a person, place, or moment. These impressions might not be audible or visible, but can carry critical divine insight for alignment with heaven.

 Moved Like Jesus

Paul expresses this powerfully in Romans 12:1–2, writing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit:

"I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies (oiktirmos* = compassion/inner being) of God, to present your bodies (sōma = physical bodies) as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your logical (logikos) act of worship (latreian = devotion/service). Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed (meta-morphoō = completely changed in form) by the renewing of your mind (nous = inner self/sense organ for feelings and thoughts) so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God."*

Isn’t it amazing that heaven can speak through our feeling and sensing?”

Isn’t it amazing that heaven can speak through our feeling and sensing? We are invited to stretch out toward this, to become like our Master, our King Jesus—who, in the midst of a pressing crowd, felt that someone had touched Him and needed Him (Mark 5:25–34). The compassion that moved Him to bring reform to the temple (John 2:15–16). The compassion through which He "saw" the multitude and, from deep within, felt a tremendous love that helped Him to reveal the Father’s love and to endure His own suffering (Matthew 9:35–38).

There’s something tender and powerful in that thought—that divine revelation can stir not only our minds but our emotions and intuitions, just like it did in Jesus. Would you like me to help craft this into a devotional reading, blog post, or spoken message? It has heart and depth worth sharing.