I'm really enjoying this conversation! I don't know how much I have to add.
I still say yes and amen that "greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world". The Holy Spirit lives in you, continue to call on the name of Jesus and and stand in His/your authority.
Love this, Nicole! Thank you!
Another thing that pops into my head is that awesome verse in Timothy (1:7): For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Amen to that. Fear can serve as a warning but not always. What God has fortified us with is our own power, love, and a sound mind.
For me I have "sensed" spirits or whatever else they may have been but my... gift? (I kind of hate calling it that) is something different. I hear messages, sense them sometimes. I "see" paths. I don't know if I am explaining this right but let's say Jane is talking to me about some issue she has and I am listening as her friend. I will get this feeling, this peace and this warm fuzziness and then I just know what it is I can help her with. It's like I can see this sort of path unfolding for her and I just know. This doesn't happen all of the time. I can really go off at the mouth and make a total ass of myself on my own. The feeling I get makes all of the difference. I can almost hear someone telling me something and sometimes I even do hear it. I find that the Tarot helps me to organize these things better and makes me more... I guess efficient? This bleeds over into other areas of intuition as well. Dreams that come about that I know will in some way because, again, I have that feeling- this sort of shift into something else. Sometimes I will be doing something and I will see something out of the corner of my eye or sense something. Sometimes it comes in the form of sound. Once I was sleeping and I heard a car crash so loud in my ear it was like it was happening 3 feet away from me. Scared the crap out of me. I woke up totally freaked out and told DH. A few days later his boss, a friend, was in an accident. And I just knew that was what I was feeling. That's another thing. When I know it has come to be I just know it. Another time I was sitting on the couch doing whatever and I saw a man standing in my kitchen- just his outline but I knew it was a man and I got the impression it was my husband or his father or some other man having to do with him. His grandfather had just had a severe stroke we were told, later. Maybe this is all just coincidence and I am thinking too much of it. Who knows. But I know and people who know me well know that if I say "oh sh*t!" or go stiff something is about to happen. 
I totally don't understand what good these "premonitions" are though. Like so I knew *someone* was going to get into an accident. Didn't help I didn't know who. And I couldn't change DH's grandpa's stroke.
Do you think premonitions have to serve a purpose? I was thinking maybe the path thing, the being able to help people, does serve a purpose where as because I am "open" these other things are side effects. What do you all think? Could it be the same for spirits? Like sometimes they need help but sometimes, because you are open to them, you just see them because they are there?
Anyhow all of that to say re: spirits- I'm not too sure if I really sense spirits because it happens without that feeling I described above but there have been times where I felt someone has been trying to communicate with me and it feels like I am being beat up. One time I even ended up vomiting. And I prayed and prayed and nothing. And when I was pagan I tried a protective circle and nothing. I got angry and nothing. I cried and begged any form of deity that would listen and nothing. I do think that these "spirits" or whatever the heck they were were malevolent but that they were there trying to say something to me and that nothing could seem to stop them gives me pause. Why could that be?
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