When our spirit is renewed, our spiritual intuition becomes heightened. We mentioned before that our conscience and our intuition work hand in hand: our conscience teaches us what is right and wrong and our intuition leads and guides us in God’s way. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." It’s our sensitive intuition that will give us discernment of those "paths."

Can God really direct our paths? Not unless we have a receptive and heightened intuition. And, this does not happen naturally. Scripture tells us that, "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." (Proverbs 14:12) This means that to the "natural man," his own self-centered ways are fine. He has no understanding that down the road, his pleasure-seeking life will eventually take its toll and, in the end, he will be separated from God. This is why it’s critical for believers to continually renew their spirit and listen for our spiritual intuition to lead and guide us.

Only God knows the "right way" for us to walk and only He can guide us along that path that He knows is best for us. The moment God’s Spirit says "stop," we must be sensitive enough to stop. When He says "be careful," "watch out," and "something is wrong here," we must heed His nudging. In my own life, every time I have overlooked God’s "red flag" and His gentle squeeze on my shoulder, I have gotten in trouble.

God reveals His will to us through His Word and through His Spirit, not through our own reason or our own thoughts. This is a hard concept for many very intelligent people, but the Bible tells us that it’s "not by might [or our own strength], but by God’s Spirit" (a heightened intuition) that things are made known to us. (Zechariah 4:6)

Therefore, the more abandoned and the more surrendered we can become to God’s Spirit of discernment, the more insight and revelation we will have.

Everyone who walks intimately with God will enjoy His secret communication and the bestowing of His revelations. This is often called God’s anointing or, simply, "His presence to give light." The Old Testament word for "anoint" means oil producing light. And this is exactly what God means here. God anoints us with His presence and, thereby, gives us His supernatural revelation—supernatural wisdom and understanding. This anointing happens in our spirits and enables us to know God’s thoughts. This is what gives us understanding. Our natural mind cannot even conceive of all "the deep things of God" that He wants to bestow upon us. These things can only be given to us by supernatural revelation.

I think of revelation like God simply "turning the lights on" for us. In other words, only God’s Spirit knows God’s thoughts. Man in his natural state can never comprehend the "deep things of God;" they require special spiritual enlightenment. It’s only through our spirit, our heightened intuition, that we can perceive the wondrous things of God and that He can lead and guide us as He intends.

As we have said before, God’s Spirit works alongside God’s Word to give us supernatural revelation. Not only revelation about others, but also revelation about our own selves. In other words, God’s Spirit enables us to see our own selves as we truly are. Only by His Word and His Spirit working together can our lives begin to change from the inside out.

Repentance and the cross is the way God has laid out in Scripture for us to deal with our sin. We are to recognize it, confess it, repent of it and take it to the cross. Revelation and the cross is the way God has chosen for us to deal with our self. Through our renewed spirit, God will reveal what part of our "self" needs to be dealt with. Then it’s our responsibility to bring that self to the altar or to the cross and surrender it to God.

Therefore, one of the greatest blessings of a purified and renewed spirit is the communion, fellowship and friendship with God that results. When we learn to intimately commune with God, a friendship is established. Friendship simply means a union of two wills. Friendship begets intimacy and intimacy comes from abiding and sharing common ideals, goals, objectives and secrets,

Human friendship means not allowing anything to hinder our face-to-face relationship. Well, friendship with God is the very same thing. It’s not allowing anything to come in the way of our face-to-face relationship. It’s being governed and constrained purely by our love for each other. A friend of God is simply someone in whom God confides and shares secret things. It’s not only experiencing His company, it’s also conversing back to Him and doing all that He asks.