Stage 2: Level 1 - Class 3

- A class on being led by God's Spirit

By Pastor Simon

God, because of His love for you as His child, has marvellous plans for you. He declares to you,

I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11 - NIV.

God has plans for you. They are the "plans of His heart". (Psalm 33:11) They are plans for you to have a future full of well-being and a knowledge of His care for you. They are plans He longs to see you benefiting from but He can't carry them out without your involvement in them.

God needs your co-operation and your active participation in His plans in order for them to happen for you! He's got to have you working with Him on His plans.

Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians about this,

Each one will receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are God's fellow workers.

1 Corinthians 3:6 - NKJV.

Jesus sends to you His Holy Spirit with this in mind. As a believer, the moment you receive the Holy Spirit, the Spirit begins to disclose to you God's plans. At the same time He begins to reveal to you how marvellous they are and to guide your participation in those plans so that you may prosper.

The Holy Spirit is God's discloser of His plans, His revealer of His intentions, His guide in His ways. God's Spirit has been given to us so that we may know the things that are freely given to us by God. Paul taught this by inspiration of the Holy Spirit in his first letter to the Corinthians. He wrote,

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit...Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

1 Corinthians 2:9-10, 12 - NKJV.

God's Spirit is with us to reveal the things of God to us. We must know how His Spirit communicates with us so we can receive these revelations.

How God speaks

God speaks through visions - this is how He communicated with Peter on the roof top in Joppa. God speaks through dreams - this is how He communicated with Joseph to get him and his family out of Bethlehem. God speaks by prophecy - the fulfilment of Paul's apostolic calling began this way. (Acts 13:2)

God communicates with His people in an audible voice. When the Lord spoke to Saul on the road to Damascus it was with an audible voice that even those with him could hear. On the mount where Jesus was seen by His disciples in His glorified appearance God spoke from the light-radiant cloud in an audible voice. (Acts 9:4-7; Matthew 17:5.)

All through the Bible we read of times when God spoke audibly or times when he communicated with His people in spectacular manifestations of His power and glory. Thank God though that we don't have to wait for the spectacular to have God communicating with us. God loves to communicate with us constantly.

God delights in communicating His counsel, His wisdom and His guidance to us - His children - at any time, in any place, under any circumstance by His Spirit. God's Spirit has a variety of ways He communicates on a day to day, moment by moment basis with us, His children.

Voice of His Spirit

The most everyday way - the every moment way - God communicates with His people is by the voice of His Spirit in the quiet of our hearts. Jesus encouraged His disciples by telling them this. He said,

When they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

Matthew 10:19,20 - NKJV.

God's Spirit speaks in you! The prophet Elijah had to learn (1 Kings 19:11-12) that God speaks by His Spirit within His people and not always in the external realm of the physical senses. He had to learn to attend to the still, small voice of God coming from the quiet of his heart. He found out when God was not heard in the strong and mighty wind, the earthquake or the fire He would be heard in the delicate, whispering voice known to the heart.

There is no harshness in the voice of the Spirit. There is no hint of domineering in the voice of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not drive God's people but gently leads His people in company with them. God's Spirit gently leads us in the right way and tenderly teaches us to profit.

By Isaiah the prophet He declares,

I am the Lord your God, Who teaches you to profit, Who leads you by the way you should go.

Isaiah 48:17 - NKJV. (See also Isaiah 40:11.)

God's Spirit lives in you and speaks in your heart. He speaks to you there of your new relationship with your Heavenly Father and He discloses to you His plans and purposes. In a delicate, whispering voice the Holy Spirit intimates the things of God to you in your heart.

God's Word makes His Voice distinct

You have to come to recognise the Spirit's voice and to do so as easily as you recognise the voice of a dear loved one.

How can this happen? It will happen as you daily take time to hear God's written word speaking to your heart. In this way you'll become familiar with the very accent and texture of the Spirit's voice. You'll soon be recognising His voice because daily you'll have been hearing with the ears of your heart His recorded voice.

The written Word of God in the Bible is a recording of the voice of God's Spirit as the holy men and women of God heard it. They wrote it down so you could receive it today into your heart.

When the Holy Spirit breathes life into the written Word for you and you welcome it into your heart that Word will live there in your heart. It will give you power to discern what or whose voice is arising within you. The Bible says,

The Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12 - NKJV.

The Word of God in you sets apart in your life whatever is soulish in origin from whatever is spiritual in origin. It also sets apart whatever is fleshly in origin. The result is that you know what or whose voice you are hearing.

You'll recognise the voice of your soul. You'll recognise the voice of your flesh. You'll recognise the voice of your spirit and the Holy Spirit. You'll also have discernment of the purposes and intentions of what is arising in your heart by the Holy Spirit.

Borne along by God's Spirit

Every time you meditate on God's Word you have an opportunity to be Spirit led. You can look to be borne along and taught by the Holy Spirit as you read God's Word. It's important that you use this opportunity. A believer who accustoms himself to being Spirit led in his Word study time will readily accustom himself to being Spirit led in his decision making time.

You can be borne along by the Holy Spirit as the surfer is borne along. The Holy Spirit can pick you up from where you are and carry you forward to where you should be. He comes to bear you up and on to your destination when you give Him your co-operation.

You can surf in scripture under the power of the Spirit - riding where the Word has life for you. You can surf in life under the power of the Spirit - riding up above it all. You can begin in one place and allow the Holy Spirit to bear you along to another and then to another.

The holy men and women of God spoke in this way. They were borne along by the Holy Spirit. Peter in his second epistle tells us,

For no prophecy ever originated because some man willed it, but men spoke from God who were borne along (moved and impelled) by the Holy Spirit.

2 Peter 1:21 - Amplified Bible.

The men of God who gave us scripture spoke for the record as they were borne along or moved by the Holy Spirit. They knew when they were speaking by divine inspiration because they sensed the power of the Holy Spirit in their words moving them forward as they spoke.

How to study God's Word

The Word of God in the Bible should be as much a spiritual experience for you reading it as it was for the men and women receiving it and recording it. Your reading should never be a chore but a blessing; never an intellectual exercise but a spiritual experience.

Jesus said,

The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

John 6:63 - NKJV.

When Jesus by His Spirit speaks to you God's Word then the words spoken come as spirit and life to you. The Holy Spirit at these times is anointing His words making them spirit and life and so a wonderful sense of well-being arises in your heart. It happens because your heart is being prospered. So while you're reading you should be asking, "Is my heart being prospered by the Word I am reading?"

You should ask questions like this is your daily activities too - ask yourself, "Is my heart being prospered by where I am or what I am engaged in?" Then you look to the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. Your inner witness will let you know whether you're in the right place doing the right thing or whether you need to move on.

(Notice where the witness of being in the right place or doing the right thing comes from. Don't look to your body or your mind and emotions. They can be screaming "Stop!" and "Get out of here!" when you're right where God wants you to be. Why? Because the devil puts the squeeze on them attempting to get you to forsake God's pathway into His plan for you.)

Recognising your inner witness

What is your inner witness? It's God's Spirit through your spirit letting you know exactly where you are at!

At its most fundamental level this inner witness tells you you are God's child.

The Spirit also bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.

Romans 8:16 - NKJV.

On its daily operational level your inner witness tells you when you're in the right place doing the right thing.

How does it do this? It does this by witnessing to what's happening in your heart. It's very similar to what Paul told the Colossians to do when he wrote to them saying,

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.

Colossians 3:15 - NKJV.

Paul was telling the Colossians that they were to let God's peace umpire in their hearts. They were to let it adjudicate what was rightly placed and rightly done.

You can know whether you are rightly placed and doing things rightly by letting God's peace be umpire. When a sense of well-being and prospering is arising in your heart you're in God's plan.

Promptings of the Holy Spirit

What if your inner witness is that you're not in God's plan? Then you look to the Holy Spirit to bear you on to where His peace rules you are in it. What you'll get is His prompting. The Holy Spirit will prompt you. He'll prompt you to act, to speak, to move, to do whatever is necessary to get you in motion. Once you're in motion He can pick you up from where you are and bear you forward to where you should be.

So now we serve not under (obedience to) the old code of written regulations, but (under obedience to the promptings) of the Spirit in newness (of life).

Romans 7:6 - Amplified Bible.

The promptings of the Holy Spirit - like the inner witness of the Holy Spirit - come from within and they require the believer to be sensitive. You can't be noisy and rough in character, conduct or attitude if you want to be prompted by God's Spirit. God spoke through David saying,

Be still, and know that I am God.

Psalm 46:10 - NKJV.

The Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He does not force Himself on a believer nor does He insist a believer follow His prescribed course of action. On the contrary, the Holy Spirit prompts us towards a particular course of action and it is then up to us whether we respond to that prompting or not.

Guiding of the Holy Spirit

If you are yielded and sensitive to Him the Holy Spirit will be to you a companion who will continually guide you in the way of life. Jesus said,

When He, the Spirit of Truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth.

John 16:13 - NKJV.

The Holy Spirit isn't a tourist guide. He doesn't stand off in front of you pointing the way. Rather - whenever you are ready and willing - the Holy Spirit gently takes you by the hand and prompts you to walk with Him while He shows you the way. His guiding is like the guiding a loving parent gives a small child on a Summer's day walk.

You have to let the Holy Spirit take you by the hand and guide you. You have to submit yourself to the gentle leading of the Holy Spirit. You have to become as a little child with the Holy Spirit, having the utmost confidence in His loving desire to bring nothing but good into your life.

One of the most helpful verses I know in learning to be prompted and guided by the Holy Spirit is found in Psalms. It expresses so well the need to have real sensitivity and yieldedness to Him. David wrote in Psalm 32,

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with my eye. Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle.

Psalm 32:8-9 - NKJV.

Testimony of the Spirit's leading

I can illustrate for you these things I have written about hearing from Heaven with a personal testimony. I was living in South East Asia between 1979 and 1989. On one occasion I needed to travel south down from Thailand to Java in Indonesia.

I prayed and in response I heard in my heart the still, small voice of God. It was directing me definitely but lovingly to go overland to Singapore, by ferry to Tanjung Pinang - a small, Indonesian island close to Singapore - and from there on to Java.

This plan sounded fine, except for one thing - all the information I had said there was no passenger boat service from Tanjung Pinang to Java. Nevertheless, I set out by faith - not by my information - and after a long journey I arrived in Tanjung Pinang.

Almost as soon as I arrived there I was prompted to take a taxi to the fisherman's port. As I approached the port a marvellous sight greeted me - a brand new passenger ship. It was making an unpublicised trial voyage to Java. I am sure you can imagine my joy as I boarded that ship.

You can hear from Heaven too. You can have the overflow of joy that comes when you are led by God's Spirit.

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This class is part of High Impact Christianity - now available as a six part book series!

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