Being Led by the Holy Spirit

 You love God. You experience his love in his presence. The Holy Spirit is not just a theological term for you. You know Him personally, but you are perhaps sometimes misunderstood in your congregation.

You may hear teachings in church that don't sit right with your intuitive spiritual mind.

Preachers and church leaders are flawed people, just like you. They study the Bible and theological teachings and they do their best. Even if they want to learn directly from the Holy Spirit, just like you, they can make mistakes, just like you.

It may be that you hear a teaching or a prophecy from God himself in the church, but you sense that God wants to lead you a different way. God has a unique plan for each believer.
 
Is your personal conviction wrong then? Maybe you have misunderstood God's guidance in your life, but maybe not.

A few years ago I was in a very good church where the leadership followed the leading of the Holy Spirit. I attended a very good meeting every Friday evening.

After the service, the pastor took to the streets in the nightclub neighbourhood. Many others also joined in. They spoke to many people on the street about Jesus. That was undoubtedly from God and I went along too.

But I was tired after my work and the next day I was tired too. I prayed about it. I was supposed to preach the gospel, but how and when?

I realised that I could communicate God's message best on the Internet. I needed peace and quiet and time to pray, read and write.

I continued to attend the wonderful Friday night service, but I stopped going out on the street.

I know Christian women who visit brothels to help prostitutes. I know a woman who came out of the brothels through her ministry and is now very faithful and active in God's service.

Are you called to do this? I also met a preacher who once visited a brothel because God sent him to save a woman. Not everyone can do that and not everyone should try.

What do you hear from God? How can you best follow Jesus?

‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ Jer 33:3 NASB95

It is very good if you can find a good church where the leadership serves with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but it is even more important that you are familiar with the guidance of the Holy Spirit in your own life.

Why you are not like other people.

Why you are not like other people.

For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? 1 Co 4:7 NIV

This text teaches us not to be proud. 

You and I must not claim the credit for what God has called us to do because with the calling, God also gives the inspiration, the wisdom, the faith, the love, the knowledge, the strength and the skill to fulfil His purpose in His way.

However, there are other lessons hidden in this text.

Firstly, we differ from one another. Some of the differences are by God’s design.

God did not call Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederick Handel to be preachers, but to write some of the most glorious music ever heard on this earth.

God did not call Billy Graham or Reinhard Bonnke to teach theology in a Bible college but to preach to great crowds to bring millions of lost men and women into the Kingdom of Heaven.

If God has gifted you to transform the lives of children, He may not have given you the gift of preaching to crowds of adults.

One of the saddest things in churches is the low value we put on children and children’s ministry.

Samuel was a child when he heard the voice of God and became a prophet. Mary was a young teenager when she conceived the Son of God.

In Mozambique, Heidi Baker adopts abandoned children and raises them up to preach the Good News of Jesus to hostile Muslims and witchcraft workers.

Little boys and girls open blind eyes and deaf ears and whole villages come to faith in Jesus Christ.

Children’s ministry can be a place of training for preachers to adults, but we should not only see children in this way.

I often hear people speak of children as “the church of tomorrow.” I hate this saying.

Although it is partly true, it poisons the church with unbelief concerning the potential of children to be heroes of faith right now.

In churches where these thoughts are accepted, the adults are often spiritual underachievers as well. God save our children from becoming mediocre unbelieving believers!

Another reason for differences between believers is simply that only some believers have learned the secret of receiving in order to give.

“For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive?” 1 Co 4:7

Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little." Lk 7:47 NKJV

You need to receive forgiveness before you can teach the gospel of forgiveness.

You need to receive love from God before you can love God or love others. You need to have a calling from God before you can be effective for Jesus. 

You cannot appoint yourself to a ministry. You need to be called, and to hear from God to know what your calling is.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. Jn 10:27–28 NIV

You need to hear from God himself before you can teach others to hear from God.