Listening to be Led
View all responsesI wake up in the morning and listen. I listen to the thoughts that are coming across my mind and my heart. They encourage me. I write them down to encourage others. This morning, I was hearing thoughts about the Holy Spirit. Here they are:
“The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.” (John 6:63)
If you’re not allowing the Holy Spirit to tell you where you are off track and redirect you, you’re not being led by the Spirit.
You can’t be led by the Spirit unless you let go of your desires and surrender to His.
Our desires are idols that attempt to distract us from the leading of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit wants to put His thoughts in your heart and mind and to lead you from within. Let Him!
Continually make room in your heart for the Holy Spirit. “Prepare the way of the Lord.”
When your heart is focused on your own desires it’s distracted from the Holy Spirit. That’s why Jesus said to deny yourself.
Mental assimilation and evaluation of the Bible can never take the place of the direct revelation and leading of the Holy Spirit.
To listen to, follow, and obey the Holy Spirit is to experience the tree of life. To try to figure God out with your mind is to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
You can’t be self-led and Spirit-led at the same time. Choose who you will follow and obey.
To be led by the Spirit requires focused, active, and intentional listening, as well as faithful obedience, to what the Spirit is saying to you.
If you are the one who is deciding where you go and what you do, you are being led by yourself, not by the Spirit. (Romans 8:14)
The first step to be “led by the Spirit” (Romans 8:14) is to “hear what the Spirit says.” (Revelation 3:22)
To “quench the Holy Spirit” is to refuse to be led by Him.
You can’t be led by the Spirit if you’re not conscious of His presence and if you are unwilling to hear what He is saying to you.
Religion is what happens when we approach God in ways that make us feel comfortable instead of being directly led by the Holy Spirit.
When the Holy Spirit isn’t continually focused on and kept constantly in our conscious awareness, we quickly move into being led by our own thoughts, opinions, desires, and feelings instead of by the Spirit.
“Walk by the Spirit,” not by your own desires. (Galatians 5:16)
Here are also a few thoughts from yesterday:
Are you a flesh-led Christian or a Spirit-led Christian? Paul asks a question for all Christians “After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?” (Colossians 3:3). Jesus said that no one can come to Him unless the Father draws them by the Spirit. (John 6:44)
All true Christ-followers begin by means of the Spirit. We are born again by the Spirit. (John 3:8) However, it is very common to shift away from the Spirit and into the mind — to drift away from personally experiencing and interacting with Christ heart-to-heart throughout each day and into merely hearing sermons and analytical teachings about Him. If you are not being continually “led by the Spirit,” (Romans 8:14) “you are now trying to finish by means of the flesh” (and the mind). Begin to daily surrender to and obey the risen Jesus; don’t just listen to talks about Him.
When sermons and Sunday morning programs were used to replace the presence and leadership of the Holy Spirit, church exchanged the power of God for human ability.
The Bible is much more effectively taught by demonstrating it than by lecturing about it.
Jesus overturned tables in the Temple. (Matthew 21:12) If Jesus was here today in His physical body would He be overturning any tables? I wonder if Jesus would turn over the:
* Table for book sales?
* Coffee and donuts table?
* God approves of you just the way you are tables?
* Table that holds the strobe lights?
* Tables holding up the giant TV?
* Prosperty gospel tables?
* Christian TV show tables?
* Tables of trivia conversation on Christian radio?
* Christian nationalism tables?
* Superficial preaching tables?
* Don’t worry be happy tables?
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