The Guide, The Spirit

ALL – Psalm 64:1-10
ALL – Proverbs 23:23
OT – Isaiah 33:13-36:22
NT – Galatians 5:13-26

Interesting passage for the day: I advise you to obey only the Holy Spirit’s instructions. He will tell you where to go and what to do, and then you won’t always be doing the wrong things your evil nature wants you to do. – Galatians 5:16, The Living Bible

Thought: We need the Scriptures because they help us to learn to recognize God’s voice, and they correct us when we think we heard God’s voice and later find out otherwise.

But I’m growing more and more impressed with how often the New Testament writers urge us to listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice as we make our daily choices. We believers have the Holy Spirit living in us! He whispers to our hearts and minds what His desires are for us in every situation. And we are called to listen and obey.

This certainly involves challenges. We have to learn to distinguish between our own desires and the Holy Spirit’s. We need enough humility to admit that we sometimes claim we’re hearing His voice when we really aren’t. We still need to discipline ourselves to return to the Scriptures, even though some people might deny this is a necessity since the Holy Spirit is guiding them (but then, wouldn’t the Holy Spirit’s desire for us include time in God’s Word?).

But we should be able to walk through life a lot more confidently than we often do. We should be confident that we can make good choices consistently—GODLY choices—not because we have perfectly read, studied, memorized, systematized and analyzed the Bible, but because we walk with the Holy Spirit every moment.

Question: What decisions are you thinking through today? What direction do you hear the Spirit leading you to take? Share it here and share your impressions with believing friends. You’re free to follow wherever He leads.

To review the Bible reading plan options, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yj2o7jz.

Weekly Sermons in Swanton: Don’t Swallow Just Any Pill

The message, preached on March 28th, 2010, covered 1 John 4:1-6, and it can be heard via streaming audio at http://www.swantonalliance.org. People may think of “testing the spirits” as a special, high-spiritual-power showdown between the forces of good and evil, but that’s not what it’s about. We’re told to learn to discern between God’s Spirit and any spirit or voice that would lead us away from God, and the one simple goal is to keep going where God’s Spirit leads. Note: Past sermons can be accessed through the resources page.