be_led

Be Led By The Spirit

To all who believe and accept Jesus Christ as personal Savior, besides the promise of eternal life, God also sends the Holy Spirit to dwell in each and everyone of them (Eph 1:13). The Holy Spirit is of the same One Spirit (Eph 4:4) and the same One Lord (Eph 4:5) in all the children of God irregardless of their denominations in the Christian community. There is no such thing like the Holy Spirit in one is lesser than another's. However, in our opinion we cannot help feeling that we really know of someone or another who seems to have a "more powerful Holy Spirit". We often wonder why.

When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, we have a new nature (new self). The new self is the one with the Holy Spirit who wants to do things to glorify God (live Christ-like) while the old self will continue to struggle against it and wants to do things for the desires of the flesh (Rom 8:5-8). Do we want to give up our old selves to Christ and be led by the Holy Spirit in all that we do? By this, in my opinion, it means the authority to control our conscience.

God knows the bottom of our hearts and we have to be very honest. God gives man the freedom to His will or to do man's own will. As a Christian, it is our duty to live by the spirit (Gal 5:16) and to make ourselves available to God's plan for us. Jesus said that if we want to come to Him, we must deny ourselves so that we can follow Him (Matt 16:24)

The Holy Spirit is to do God's work in us. He will convict us of our sins and our sinful nature. He will take charge of our conscience showing us the righteous from the evil. He will also show us all our past sins so that we can confess and repent. This is conviction by the Holy Spirit.

During the period of conviction, we may feel :
- upset (since you realise the sins eg. we did some wrong to someone...)
- disturbed (knowing the truth and righteous from the wrongs ...)
- confused (struggle between the old self and the new self...)
All we need to do is to stay focus on the Lord for guidance and strength. He will give us peace and strength to overcome while we are learning to walk with Him. We have to be sensitive and listen to our conscience (where Christ is in control) and hold fast to our faith in following Christ.

The Holy Spirit also works on our inner self (character) towards godliness. God may send His vessels of wrath & mercy to build us up. It may means that we have to go through some trials in some godly manner so that God can tame our bad temperament, make us humble, teach us to be kind to our friends...etc. In so doing, we will recognise what are of the devil - boastfulness, cruelty, impatience ..etc. This is santification by God. We learn to accept that God is doing all these for our good just like a farmer pruning and weeding his crops to yield the best harvest. We have to appreciate the loving care God has for us and these corrective and training processes are part of our growing up as children of God. We may even not be aware of the changes God has done for us until someone points it our to us. At such times, it means we bear the fruits of the spirit (Gal 5:22,23).

As children of God we have to check where are we putting God in our lives? Christ should be sitting on the throne of our lives and are we doing that? There has to be a decision and an act of will on our part to let Christ be in control of our lives.

How prepared are we to let Christ be in full control of our lives (daily lives)?
Answer 1 : Sometimes & occassionally.
Only when we happen to remember God (eg. on Sundays only). This means that we are not thinking of God enough and we actually forget about Him most of the time. We should not be doing this to God.

Answer 2 : Selectively.
As and when we see the need only. (eg. crisis, emergencies, when we need help) We will pray for God's guidance when we think that only God has the super power to change the situation to our favour and also when we cannot manage the situations. We pick and choose the things for God to work on. For the rest of the time, we continue to handle our daily lives according to our own wisdom and desires because we feel that we can manage without God telling us what to do. Consciously or otherwise, we would rather keep the credits to ourselves (our pride) and if there is failure or obstacle, then we will go to God as our backup plan.

Before, we have been making our own decisions, deciding the path we want to take according to our desires. After being a Christian, we may not even realise that we are still hesitant to hand the reign of our lives to Christ. There are times we would say "God, do your work for me but please do not thwart my plans" and we wish God can compromise. At other times, we even daresay things like this to others "God gave me peace to do it this way" when the actual fact is deep down in our hearts we know it is against God or we did not even seek God's approval for it. We think : "Why need to go to God for this matter when I can manage and be happy in my own way?" We just want God to do all the good things for us and answers "Yes" to all our requests without delay. We are always ready to let Him handle all our troubles and difficulties but we are reluctant to give up our desires and pleasures of the world.

If we share any of the above answers, it is time to look into ourselves without delay. Are we treating God with love and respect as our Heavenly Father? Or as a part-time servant who does the task when we give Him. God does not want any of the above situations.

God knows our weakness and the Holy Spirit is given to us to help us to stay right with God. It is also because God wants to be with us. Through the Holy Spirit, God will enlighten us of our sins, guide us in our walk towards righteousness, comfort us in our sorrows, train us to be strong in Christ, teach us about God Himself, gain strength to overcome temptations of the world and to bear fruits of the spirit. (Gal 5:22, 23) However, the Holy Spirit can only manifest Himself to the fullest if we seriously want and allow ourselves to be led by the spirit.

We have to be very honest with God. The Holy Spirit in us knows completely. So when we say that we want to let Christ be in full control, we must have faith and be obedient to God's plan for us. In the course of working towards God in our daily ives, God will help us and reveal Himself through the things and people around us. The Holy Spirit is our Helper and will connect us to God.

Pray unceasingly. Give thanks to God for all the things He has done for us. We have to pray to God and have communion with Him constantly. Put efforts to build a close relationship with God. Talk to Him about everything in your lives, do not pick and choose on the subjects. There is no need to hide anything from God. He knows everything but He rather waits for us to tell Him. We can discuss, talk and even share our grievances with Him like a close personal friend. We will feel God's presence within us, His peace will come to us. When we walk sincerely with God, He will be with us always and with His helping hands ever ready for us. However, if we are wanting to do something not righteous, the Holy Spirit will prompt us against it (our conscience), so let us be led by the spirit.

The Holy Spirit will intercede for us when we ask in accordance to God's will. When we make our prayer requests to God, we must be sincere and have faith in God that He answers every prayer.

We rejoice when God is quick to answer "Yes"! What is our reactions and behaviour when God says "No" or "Wait"? Very often, we are angry. We must not ignore negative replies as answers from the Lord but how many times did we refuse to accept "No" & "Wait" as answers from God? We rather choose to ignore these answers. We think that we have been praying hard and deserve only a "Yes" from God and other than "Yes", we will think that God is callous, indifferent to us or worst still, we cry: "God, where are you when I need your help?"

What do we take God our Heavenly Father for? Someone at our beck & call? We must trust that God has His timing for all things and we just have to accept His positive and negative answers. Be patient with God's plan and continue to pray faithfully and ask Him to show us His way. We need to learn to be dependent on God for His guidance everyday for everything (big & small issues and under all circumstances). Do not think that God will find you troublesome but He wants all of you!

Besides prayer, we also have to read the bible. The bible is inspired by God and is a powerful guide in our walk with Christ (2 Tim 3:16, 17) . The bible holds the Truths of God (John 17:17). We must read the scripture as it is food for our spirit and that it will strengthen us daily. Before reading, always pray for guidance, understanding and wisdom so that as we read, we may be able to understand the Word and put them into application in times of need.

Remember some of God's words by heart. When tempted by the devil, with the power of the Holy Spirit, we can recite God's Word against the devil. In times of troubles, God's Words can give strength to overcome it and also sustain our faith in God.

Reading the bible also helps us to know God better. Much of God's divine nature is revealed through the bible. Through the historical records, God's behaviour was shown to man especially in the Old Testatment when He spoke to man directly. We learnt that God is love, power, wrath, judgement... He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

From the bible, we learnt that one of the common characteristic of God's people is that they are all god-fearing. We as Christian should all learn to be god-fearing to be in God's favour. The fear we have for God is not the worldly fear of danger or something uncomfortable which is going to happen to us. Rather, it is fearing God with due respect and love, not wanting to provoke or hurt Him as our Heavenly Father. This spiritual fear in us helps to be obedient and to cherish our relationship with God. It is one of the key factors which results in total obedience to God.

In all, we have to be committed in our faith in God, dedicated to our decision and act of will to follow the calling of the Holy Spirit. Like a disciple learning from a master, we as followers, must learn to act and behave like Christ as well as love, trust and have faith in our God. God will do wonders in our lives and we can look forward to enjoying a fruitful relationship with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Be led by the Spirit

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