What is the key to living right with God? How can I discern God’s voice? How can I grow spiritually in Christ?<\/p>\n\t
John said, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome<\/em>” (I John 5:2-3). The key to right living is to listen to our Maker explain how to live right. “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust<\/em>” (II Peter 1:2-4).<\/p>\n So many people expect something mystical, but God said He speaks through His Word. God told Israel, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them<\/em>” (Ezekiel 36:26-27). The writer of Hebrews said, “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds”<\/em>\u00a0(Hebrews 1:1-2). God’s voice is in the Gospel.<\/p>\n And it is through learning the Gospel that you grow. “Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby<\/em>” (I Peter 2:1-2).<\/p>\n Then you will know that you are following God. “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked<\/em>” (I John 2:3-6).<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: What is the key to living right with God? How can I discern God’s voice? How can I grow spiritually in Christ? Answer: John said, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[90,383,1506],"class_list":["post-41279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-god","tag-growth","tag-hearing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":19693,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/when-we-love-god-how-do-you-define-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":41279,"position":0},"title":"When we love God, how do you define love?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have been writing a paper on what it means to love God.\u00a0 I have some parts and to love God you follow his commandments; if you don't, you don't love God. But how do we define love? I have been thinking about it for a long time. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43285,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-dont-know-if-my-feelings-were-genuine-when-i-received-christ\/","url_meta":{"origin":41279,"position":1},"title":"I don’t know if my feelings were genuine when I received Christ","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: You may not know me, but I have seen what you wrote and you seem wise. I ask that you give me a genuine answer. Here goes pouring out my heart's doubts: I am not sure that I have received Christ. I don't know if my feeling was genuine\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41696,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-you-humble-yourself-in-front-of-the-lord\/","url_meta":{"origin":41279,"position":2},"title":"How do you humble yourself in front of the Lord?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: How do you humble yourself in front of the Lord? Answer: To be humble is the opposite of being prideful. A prideful man only listens to his own desires. He acts in accord with his own wishes. \"But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: \"God resists the proud,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33795,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-dont-i-feel-guilty-after-committing-fornication-with-my-fiance\/","url_meta":{"origin":41279,"position":3},"title":"Why don’t I feel guilty after committing fornication with my fiance?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I became a true Christian about three years ago! I have Calvinist points of view, and I tried to be hyper-serious to keep a holy life. I've been raised in a Christian family, but I had committed fornication before Jesus touched my life. When I left my non-Christian boyfriend\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":89505,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/commandment-keeping\/","url_meta":{"origin":41279,"position":4},"title":"Commandment Keeping","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 17, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Kevin Cauley There are those in the religious world today who ridicule the idea of keeping commandments. They claim that keeping God's commandments has nothing to do with our salvation today. If someone objects and says that we must keep God's commandments to be saved, the charge of legalism\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":55069,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/assurance-of-our-salvation\/","url_meta":{"origin":41279,"position":5},"title":"Assurance of Our Salvation","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bryan Sharp \"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}