To Walk in the Spirit is to Obey the Initial Promptings of the Spirit

Spiritual Growth

Who do you turn to for daily guidance on how to live or what decisions to make?

Scripture tells us the only Guide worth trusting is the Holy Spirit. He is the One who knows our pasts completely, from the moment we were conceived to the present, and who also knows our futures, from this day to eternity. he knows God’s plan and purpose for us today and for each day of our lives. He also knows what is good and right for us.

Jesus repeatedly referred to the Spirit as the “Spirit of Truth.” Note what He said about the Holy Spirit’s activity in your life: “He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come” (John 16:13). The Spirit of truth is like an inner compass in our lives – always pointing us toward what Jesus would be, say, or do in any given moment.

God desires to make His will known to you. He wants you to know what to do and when to do it. Therefore, you can trust the Holy Spirit to be your daily Guide. After the Lord poured out the Holy Spirit on the disciples, they found themselves led in profound ways by the Spirit. The following verses give just a few examples of how the Holy Spirit dealt with His people in ways that provided very personal and specific guidance. What He did for them then, He desires to do for you today.

“The Spirit told me to go with them, doubting nothing” (Acts 11:12)

“As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them'” (Acts 13:2)

“When they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia” (Acts 16:6)

The leaders of the early church relied on the Holy Spirit to give them this kind of specific, personal guidance and we are wide to do likewise. Both Romans 8:14 and Galatians 5:18 refer to our being “led by the Spirit” – the norm of the Christian life.

You may ask, “Are there any conditions placed upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our lives?”

Yes.

First, we must stay yielded to the Spirit. We must say yes to the Spirit when He prompts us to take a certain action or say a certain word. We must give mental assent to the Spirit’s direction, and then we must actually obey His prompting and follow through by doing or saying what He has called us to do or say.

The Spirit often speaks to us in the stillness of our hearts with a word of conviction or assurance. When the Holy Spirit is directing us away from something harmful, we very often have a heaviness, feeling of trouble, foreboding, or uneasiness in our spirits. When the Holy Spirit is directing us toward helpful things, we tend to feel a deep inner peace, an eagerness to see what God will do, and a feeling of joy.

How can you know if you are yielded to the Holy Spirit? You are yielded to Him when you can to say to Him, “Here is what I desire. But if Your answer to this is ‘no,’ it’s all right. I’ll do what You say.”

Second, we must believe and obey His guidance. We are much more likely to hear what the Holy Spirit has to say if we are actively listening for Him to speak. We are much more likely to see the Holy Spirit’s direction if we are looking for Him. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that God is a “rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” We are to be diligent in seeking His guidance. asking for it, watching for it, anticipating it, and receiving it.

The Holy Spirit has come to reveal the truth to us. He has come in His all-knowing ability to impart to us what we need to know in order to live obedient and faithful lives. Trust Him to guide you, now and always!

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Content in this article taken from the Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible, second edition. This Bible, with over a million sold to date, is designed to lead believers into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ, and to help them experience the Good News about God’s mighty kindness and love. The updated second edition is the best way to experience this bestselling classic—with a completely new design featuring Thomas Nelson’s NKJV easy-to-read Comfort Print typeface, 100 specially designed maps and charts that bring biblical places and themes to life, and over 43,000 cross-references to enrich your study of the Word.

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Patty Land

2016-03-04 16:26:48

I am very passionate when I see or hear of bulling. I myself has been billed in grade school, I am sure that is why zI can not stand by an watch a group or an individual bulling on someone smaller, younger etc. I have many times stepped in an stopped the what was happening.

Mark Besh

2016-03-04 14:08:57

Years ago, Bob Dylan recorded a song called “Gotta Serve Somebody.” His message was that no matter your station in life, no matter how independent, self-sufficient, or in-control you might try to be—or think you are—you will still ‘serve’ something or somebody.

The word “serve” here is important. Webster’s first definition of it is “an act of helpful activity or unselfish aid”—very similar to the definition of “kindness.”

Not surprisingly, kindness has been a ‘trait’ that great thinkers and writers have celebrated down the centuries. The Roman philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius declared, “Kindness is mankind’s greatest delight.”  So, it is not that real kindness requires people to be selfless, it is rather that real kindness changes people in the doing of it, often in unpredictable ways. Real kindness is an exchange with essentially unpredictable consequences. It is a risk precisely because it mingles our needs and desires with the needs and desires of others, in a way that so-called self-interest never can. Kindness is compassion in action.

At Christmas God shed His ‘light’ on the world through His Son, Jesus. We can also shine that ‘light’ into some dark ‘corners’ to brighten up people’s lives and give them hope by SERVING them. That’s why Jesus said, “…let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven” [ Matthew 5:16 ]. 

If one reads Matthew chapter 25, Jesus tells a parable that ‘looked’ into the future to the “day of reckoning”—where all people will be separated into two ‘sections’. The thing is, only one ‘side’ will be welcomed into the joy and glory of Heaven. Jesus said those will be the people who ‘walked their talk’—the ones who fed the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the poor, tended to the sick, and ministered to the prisoner. Those turned away from Heaven will be those who, regardless of their verbal claims, ignored the hungry and thirsty, turned away from the stranger, the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned. Matthew 25 doesn’t catalogue all the ways that God’s people can live out their faith, but what it does describe is an active faith that visibly demonstrates the love so freely shared with them.

Jesus also mentions that the unselfish acts of mercy and compassion we do that are done to those in need, He will consider them as having been done to Himself. Likewise, for those too preoccupied with their own lives to worry about someone else, it will turn out that they have ignored Jesus, not just the needy. This says that these acts of mercy were not done to curry favor or impress, but were a genuine response to human need that arose out of hearts overflowing with God’s love. They were not performed because one “had to” or “ought to,” but because they “wanted to.”

So, we can see that God looks ‘favorably’ on these who serve unselfishly, and even more so of those who have chosen to serve others as a loving ‘servant’ of His!   All this to say that Dylan got it right, “Well it may be the devil and it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” You can search the Bible from cover to cover and you won’t find any example of ‘spiritual neutrality’. We all have the option whether or not to CHOOSE God or not—and He wants us to SERVE OTHERS, especially the hungry, thirsty, poor, sick, and the ‘imprisoned’!  So, just one question for you: Since everybody is going to serve ‘somebody’ (even yourself) or ‘something’, who or what are you centering your life on today?

Have you made your decision? “Who” will you serve?

[ NOTE: There are many organizations that try to address social injustice. One of them is “Covenant World Relief” (http://www.covchurch.org/relief/), an organization that is part of the “Evangelical Covenant Church,” and has been responding to the needs of the world’s most vulnerable—the poor and marginalized suffering from extreme poverty, hunger, disease, and injustice—with humanitarian aid for the past 60 years ].

Mark Besh
LifesDeepThoughts.com
[ Excerpts from the February 2012 post “Gotta Serve Somebody” ].

Peter

2016-03-03 04:30:48

Not a very popular subject but so accurate. I love that you directed the atprticle away from personal justice for the individual (justice for me) which is what many Christians are focused on. To many see the word as there personal self improvement plan. On justice I wonder how 400 years of slavery could be allowed to exist and be practiced with so many ‘giants of our faith’ around during that time and they would have known Gods character and study these and many other verses about justice. Byrd even some of them practiced slacery or at least did not openly fight against it. Even now the church has been selectively silent about injustice in community depending on which church you go to.

My point is that the key temptation of Satan ‘you will be like God’ is where man fell and continues to fall. What Adam and Eve forgot is that they were already like God created in His image and likeness. Satan’s trick is that we would be awaken to using our God likeness outside of Gods control, guidance, or influence. And when that happened injustice begin to manifest in the earth with Adam’s “the woman made me do it” defense to God.

So yes we are made in His image, but we need Him to reform, transform and create in us new hearts through the power of Christ sacrifice and the in dwelling of the Holy Spirit so that we are truly manifesting the quality and character of the creator in all that we do. Other wise our ‘desire for justice’ internal drive will be hijacked by our own prejudices and preferences and we will selectively apply it and believe we are being like God. Notice God punished them all: Satan, Adam and Eve.