The only requirement for being a follower Jesus Christ was clearly stated in the scripture by Him with these words:

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”
John‬ ‭10:27‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

In other words, a Christian does not only hear the voice of Jesus, but he is diligent to follow in obedience to what is heard.

It’s not enough to say the sinner’s prayer, in repentance of sins and acceptance of Christ Jesus into the heart. That’s not the only thing which makes you a Christian. A true believer in Christ Jesus must show diligence at all times to obey Jesus.

There has to be a response with the action of faith to obey Jesus, following our acceptance of Him into our lives as Lord and Savior.

The followers of Jesus Christ don’t seek to please themselves, but Him alone. They see God’s written word as having the final say in all of their decision-making process. They take God’s word literally for what it says, without adding to His word or subtracting from what is said.

And with this type of attitude of paying careful attention to His word, it becomes easier to listen so as to hear Him directly with the heart. If you’re not walking in obedience to God’s written word, you can’t walk in obedience to His voice also. It’s just as simple as that.

God’s Spirit lives on the inside of us as Christians to reveal His voice to us, as we are walking in obedience to His written word. That’s why a Christian reads the holy scriptures daily – so as to keep on listening and obeying Jesus.

The moment a Christian stop reading and meditating on God’s written word (the Bible), that Christian has taken the decision not to hear His voice. You can’t alienate the holy scriptures from the voice of the Lord.

A Christian will never struggle to obey Jesus. There should be no doubt within that believer’s heart, as to the authenticity of His voice. He has trained himself to walk in obedience to the Lord, by meditating on the word of God every day and every night.

Now, it’s possible to be reading the Bible daily, without even hearing God’s voice. And this happens when it is being read with a heart, that’s not open to obey His voice.

There are those who are reading and studying the Bible, so as to satisfy the lustful desires of their flesh. They are seeking a justification from the scriptures for their sinful lifestyle patterns, instead of repenting from those sins.

But the scriptures say:

“He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”
‭‭I John‬ ‭2:4‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

You can’t say that you have a relationship with Jesus, but at the same time you are finding it difficult to obey His word. You are just calling yourself a liar for not obeying His word. You are saying that you’re not actually a true Christian by doing this.

Quit masquerading as a Christian, when you know that your heart is not fully devoted to Him and His word.

Remove the religious mask that’s covering your heart, so that everyone will know that you’re really who you claim to be, through your acts of obedience to His word. Then you’ll be a follower of Jesus Christ.

Deep calls to the deep in the spirit.

But for the Holy Spirit filled Christian there is a supernatural ability that he possesses within himself, which can help him in guarding his mouth from speaking lies and evil.

This supernatural ability in him helps him to guard his mouth from speaking evil like the people of the unsaved world. It also helps him to become skillful with the use of the gifts of the Holy Spirit who lives in him.

This is a lifetime supernatural skill development, that every Holy Spirit filled believer gets better with daily.

It’s important for him to be using these gifts for his spiritual growth. The more he is functioning with these spiritual gifts, the more effective he will become, in enforcing Christ’s victory over the enemy on the earth.

The enemy knows you by the constancy with which you are exercising your spiritual skills and authority over him. This is how he gets to know you very well, as he becomes terrified whenever he sees that, you are getting more and more effective with the usage of the spiritual gifts (Acts 19:15).

The Bible says:

“Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them…”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭12:6‬a NKJV‬‬

There are a lot of Christian with spiritual gifts. But they are not stepping out by faith with the use of the spiritual gifts that they have. That is why they are not growing spiritually in the knowledge of God. The ability to develop skills in using these spiritual gifts, is on the inside of every Spirit filled Christians.

Whether or not a Christian is developing skills with these gifts is personal. We will all have to give an account about, what we’re doing with our spiritual gifts before Jesus one day (see Matthew 25:14-30).

There are however great potentials within every child of God with each one of these spiritual gifts. These potentials within us were what Paul was referring to, when he prayed for the Ephesians in this way by saying:

“That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭3:17-19‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

David also foresaw these potentials when he wrote:

“Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me. The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me— A prayer to the God of my life.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭42:7-8‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

As David called deeper and deeper in the spirit while praying to the Lord, he recognized that the Lord kept pouring of Himself upon him for deeper prayer and intercession (for travailing). And as God’s presence overwhelmed David, a new song sprang up from his heart to the Lord.

David had written his Psalms and songs from the abundance of God’s presence upon him. Apart from being anointed of the Lord, David had learnt to develop spiritual skills to get into God’s presence at any time.

And today we are still being blessed with the depth of some of the wisdom, that were revealed by the Holy Spirit to him from his personal spiritual encounters.

For us today however we are in a much more privileged position than David was in. We do have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us.

David could only see as much as the anointing over his life would allow him to see. But we as Christians today do have the fullness of the Godhead Himself, living permanently on the inside of us.

This is one advantage that we have as Christians today over David.

God will fill your mouth with new songs.

And by releasing ourselves to sing as David obviously was doing; we can begin to tap into so much wisdom from the presence of God. The wisdom of God flows from His fullness within us – the fullness of His presence and His word.

A Christian who is not calling out to God cannot gain access into His wisdom. As you lift up your voice to sing in the spirit and by the Spirit to the Lord, the depth of your spirit man will begin to call to the depth of God’s Spirit within you.

Whenever you step out by faith to sing in the spirit, you are moving into the realm of the supernatural, which is spiritually sealed to the devil. The evil one does not know what you are doing as you are singing.

This spiritual exercise takes your focus away from the distractions of the world, so as to be focused on Jesus alone. The devil will use all kinds of tactics to prevent you, from stepping out by faith into this spiritual realm. But you must be determined never to get yourself distracted by him:

“Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double minded”.
James 4:7-8 NKJV

And no matter how tough your spiritual warfare may become, as you are progressing while singing in the spirit; you must understand that you are in fact taking the spiritual warfare itself into a new level against the enemy.

You are stepping into the realm of the spirit that the enemy can’t penetrate into. You are hidden from him, as long as you are in total and complete surrender to God.

But it is also in this spiritual realm that every strategy of the enemy against you can be exposed to you by the Lord.

That’s why we need to be very cautious about what comes out of the mouth in this realm. The tongue has to be completely yielded to the Lord. The angels are on a very high alert in this realm, because you are standing in God’s holy presence.

God’s holy presence is not the place where you can just say anything with your learnt language. Otherwise, you may end up saying the wrong things. It is better and safer to speak in other tongues in God’s presence, instead of speaking foolishly.

Therefore:

“As you enter the Temple, keep your ears open and your mouth shut! Don’t be a fool who doesn’t even realize it is sinful to make rash promises to God, for he is in heaven, and you are only here on earth, so let your words be few. Just as being too busy gives you nightmares, so being a fool makes you a blabbermouth”.
Ecclesiastes 5:1-3 TLB

Your sacred and protected language in the realm of the spirit before God has to be in other tongues.

The scripture warned us about what to say with the tongue, when it says:

“And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.”
‭‭James‬ ‭3:6‬ ‭NKJV‬

According to the Apostle James the tongue has the ability to set your whole body “on fire by hell.”

In other words, your tongue can get you easily defiled, if you’re not using it to glorify God. It has the ability to put sicknesses and diseases on the body. And your tongue also has the power in it to destroy your life.

But by taking your eyes off the distractions around you, so as to start using your tongue to glorify the Lord God with spiritual songs; you are deliberately keeping your focus on Jesus, instead of being distracted by what the devil is doing.

Singing in the spirit will help you in taking your eyes, off the pains and agonies of sicknesses and diseases. Your tongue will then begin to magnify Jesus as the Healer; instead of using it to whine and complain about the sufferings and pains of being sick.

The tongue has the ability to disrupt the natural course of the body, to function and protect itself from falling sick. God created your body to naturally heal itself. But your tongue can also disrupt this natural ability of the body for you, if you’re using it to say negative words.

However, we can get smarter with the use of the tongue while in the spirit, by using it against the devil, without necessarily getting ourselves distracted by him. We ought to be doing this in destroying the plans and the tactics of the enemy, which are being revealed to us in the spirit and by the Spirit.

God has given us the tongue to declare the blessing on the earth. It was never created for cursing or for declaring the works of the devil.

God’s primary intention of giving us the tongue was in the commandment, that was given to Adam and Eve from the time of creation.

The Bible says:

“Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1:28‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

With the tongue we can command the devil and every other created thing on the earth. And Jesus said that we can bind the devil on this earth with the tongue also (Matthew 18:18).

We can destroy every activity of the devil on earth today with our tongue. What are you using your tongue for?

Every created thing, demonic activities, sicknesses and diseases are subject to us as we exercise authority over them with the tongue. We have dominion and power over them all. They do not have any dominion or power over us.

The only dominion and power that they have over you, are the ones that you are allowing them to have. It’s what you permit on the earth, that the hosts of heaven will agree with you about. Jesus has placed all dominion and authority on our lips as His people on the earth, so as to rule and dominate the earth with our spoken words (Mark 16:17-18).
.

Just like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, we had been created in God’s image to “be fruitful, multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.”

You were not created to live under the curses of sicknesses and diseases on the earth. You were created by God to become fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth and to subdue it with God’s glory with the use of your tongue.

Unfortunately, some Christians are being ensnared by their tongues. They have become the victims of their own creation, through the misuse and the abuse of their tongues, as they are declaring the works of the devil, instead of declaring the blessing.

What was created to be used in healing the body, and declaring the blessing of the Lord, is being ensnared to create destruction and anarchy in their lives.

One of the best ways of training the mouth in declaring the blessing, and to curb the excessive exploitation of the tongue by the devil, is to cultivate the habit of singing spiritual songs to the Lord. Don’t yield your tongue to the devil. Yield it to the Lord by singing spiritual songs of praise to Him.

Praising and worshipping God with the tongue is something that the devil can’t withstand. He does not want you to praise and worship God. He flees away from you as you begin to do it.

You can praise and worship God in your natural language, which the devil has the ability to understand. But he does not understand what you’re saying and doing, when you’re praising and worshipping God in the spirit. You do this by singing psalms with other tongues to the Lord.

When you are singing in other tongues, the devil does not understand what you are saying:

“For the one speaking in a tongue does not speak to people but to God, for no one understands; he is speaking mysteries by the Spirit”.
1 Corinthians 14:2 NET.

So, he moves far away from you because he knows that you are able to release the power of God against him, through any spoken word from your mouth at any moment.

As you are in the spirit before the Lord, you have the ability to tap into every strategy of the enemy against you.

It is from this realm that you can easily speak words with your natural language (which is understood by the devil), to terminate and destroy all his plans against you. The Holy Spirit will give you the words to say in annihilating the works of the devil at that time.

It’s possible to sing in the spirit (other tongues) and in the flesh also. The mind of a Christian that is not being renewed, can become a target of the enemy with evil thoughts. The devil will ensnare the mind and the tongue that are not being renewed, to start singing in the flesh.

A Christian who is not filled with the Holy Spirit can’t sing in the spirit (other tongues). You must therefore be filled with the Holy Spirit as a child of God, so as to be able to start tapping into the full potentials of God within you.

Your tongue will begin to glorify God and not the devil on the earth. You will become fruitful and multiply to replenish the earth with the glory of God.