Part 2 (1/2)
CHAPTER 7.
Do You Want Misery, Mediocrity, or Victory?
I am convinced only a few people ever enjoy the fulfillment of G.o.d's perfect plan for their lives because they don't know how to listen to G.o.d's leading or know how to follow Him. We can live the abundant life if we learn to listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit who came to live in us at our new birth.
Even though I had accepted Jesus as my Savior, sincerely loved and wanted to obey Him, and was very active in church for years, I was miserable. I understood I was saved by faith and would go to heaven, but I did not live in victory and was not affecting anybody else in a positive way. I am not sure my daily witness would have encouraged anyone else to make a commitment to Jesus.
During all those years as a Christian, I didn't realize G.o.d wanted to communicate directly with me. I certainly didn't understand He intended for me to enjoy victory in my daily living and simply enjoy life itself. I was unhappy and dissatisfied, and people like that usually make others unhappy. I went to church on Sunday but it was not enough. I longed for a deeper relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d and I did not know how to have one. Just going to church and trying to follow rules would never give me the deep contentment and joy for which I longed.
As I sought G.o.d for something deeper, He began teaching me His Word and it renewed my mind and changed the way I thought about everything. Through His Word, He helped me understand He does want to communicate with us individually and has a plan for our lives to take us to a place of peace and contentment. G.o.d's will is for us to attain knowledge of His plan through His divine guidance. We should do good works, but they should be done out of our relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d and not as a method of trying to earn something from Him. I serve Him because I love Him, not to get Him to love me. G.o.d's love for us is unconditional. He cannot be bought with good works.
G.o.d does want to communicate with us individually and has a plan for our lives to take us to a place of peace and contentment.
Knowledge is progressive and we don't learn everything we need to know about Jesus overnight. Jesus told His disciples He still had many things to say to them, but they would not be able to grasp everything then. Jesus was going away, but the Father would send the Spirit of Truth to guide them and to teach them all things and bring to their remembrance everything Jesus told them. It was advantageous to them for Him to go away, because without His leaving, the Comforter (Counselor, Helper Advocate, Intercessor, Strengthener, Standby)-the Holy Spirit-would not come to them.
When Jesus spoke these words He was talking to men with whom He had spent the previous three years. They were with Him day and night, yet He indicated He had more to teach them. You would think if Jesus was with you personally for three years, day and night, you could learn all there is to know. From a human perspective, I think if I had one uninterrupted month with people, I could tell them everything I know, but Jesus said to expect more. He was telling the disciples, and us through His words recorded in the Bible, He will always have something to say to us about new situations we are facing. The Father would send His Holy Spirit to them, and us, to help. The Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth, advise us, and empower us to live the life G.o.d desires for us.
When we receive Jesus, we become adopted sons and daughters of G.o.d. Everything Jesus has is ours in our joint inheritance. We need only learn how to receive it by faith, and that means we may not always feel or see anything, but we choose to believe G.o.d's Word as truth. Jesus became flesh and experienced the types of things we experience and understands our needs (see Hebrews 4:1516). He was led by the Spirit, just as we can be led by the Spirit. He overcame temptation, just as we can overcome temptation. He chose to come to earth in a fleshly body so He could be our High Priest and understand everything we go through.
Jesus was confined to a body, just as we are, and could only be in one place at a time. But the Holy Spirit is able to be in every single one of us everywhere we go, all the time, individually leading and guiding us. G.o.d knew we would need help in understanding His plan for us and sent the Holy Spirit to dwell inside every believer. The Holy Spirit tells us what He hears from the Father. The Holy Spirit is our Guide, our Teacher of Truth, our Counselor, our Helper, and our Comforter (see John 16:7). He will never leave us nor forsake us. When we learn how to listen to Him and follow His leading, we can trust Him to lead us on the right path every day.
CHAPTER 8.
Follow His Lead There are three functions of your spirit. The first is fellows.h.i.+pping with G.o.d. The spirit is the place where you fellows.h.i.+p with G.o.d and the place you really hear from Him. The second is intuition or discernment. Intuitive living by your spirit comes with learning to ”hear” G.o.d inside yourself in a way the Bible calls ”a still, small voice” (1 Kings 19:12). It is an inward witness, a peace, a spiritual knowing different from head knowledge or intellect. It is a way of knowing things that don't come from stored knowledge or because you learned them somewhere along the line. It is a deeper knowing, a sensing of truth. Life is so much easier when we simply follow the inward witness rather than ignore it. This means if you don't have peace about something, don't do it.
There are times when I know that something is not right for me to do and I don't even know why. Everyone else might be doing it, but I sense in my spirit it is not what G.o.d desires for me. I have learned to trust that ”inward witness” even more than I trust my own thoughts, feelings, or will. It took a long time to make the transition, but life is much better now that I have.
The third function of the spirit is conscience. Your conscience is the best preacher you'll ever hear, and it preaches to you all day long. Many people have no personal relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d, no real fellows.h.i.+p with Him, because they have a seared or hardened conscience. They have ignored their conscience for so long it is no longer soft and tender. They are able to do wrong things and not sense much conviction. Pray that G.o.d will soften your conscience and learn to listen to it because it is G.o.d trying to speak to you.
There are also people who have an overactive conscience. They tend to feel guilty about everything. The only remedy for this is a thorough study of G.o.d's Word in order to learn what G.o.d's will really is. He wants us to enjoy a life of freedom, yet not use that freedom as an excuse to sin.
Walking in the Spirit means listening to the advice your friend Jesus is giving you through learning the Word and listening to G.o.d's Spirit living in you. It means following your enlightened conscience and not doing something if you don't have peace about it; basically, doing what G.o.d tells you to do. If you are not accustomed to walking in the Spirit, it will take time to learn how to do it. But G.o.d is patient and will continue to teach and change you.
Walking in the Spirit means listening to the advice our friend Jesus is giving you through learning the Word and listening to G.o.d's Spirit living in you.
Over the last few years, I've developed a habit of occasionally stopping for a minute to see what I sense in my spirit about something. When the devil is putting wrong thoughts into your head, accusing you of being incapable or unable to succeed, it is amazing how taking a minute to hear from G.o.d will set you back on track.
In the early years of my ministry, my mind would start telling me, You're not going to make it. This is not going to work-it's stupid. n.o.body cares what you're doing. You're not even hearing from G.o.d, anyway. You have no business trying to teach people anything. The enemy, the devil, was using those kinds of thoughts to accuse me and keep me from working for G.o.d. You may have times in your life when your thoughts are saying, Give up and your feelings are right in line. You want to give up; you feel like giving up, perhaps other people even tell you to give up, then you get quiet somewhere for a minute and say, ”Now, Lord, what do You have to say about this?” You will hear Him say, ”Keep on pressing forward and never give up.” No wonder the Bible says in Psalm 46:10 (KJV), ”Be still, and know that I am G.o.d.”
The closer you grow to G.o.d, the easier it is to develop a lifestyle of making the right choices. Philippians 2:12 says to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. This means after your salvation at the new birth, you build your relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d by studying, learning, praying, and fellows.h.i.+pping with G.o.d. You let your relations.h.i.+p with Him affect every area of your life. G.o.d is not willing to live in what I call a ”Sunday morning box.” He wants to invade every day of your life and be involved in everything you do. I encourage you to turn your will over to G.o.d and let the Holy Spirit work that salvation through your soul-let Him think through your mind, teach you to love what He loves, and use your emotions and your will to serve Him. Many people would be comfortable using all their emotions at a football game, but they feel uncomfortable displaying emotions in their wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d. We need to realize that He wants us to use everything He has given us in serving Him. Make all of your resources available to G.o.d. Be willing to use your energy, talents, and finances in serving Him. As you let His light s.h.i.+ne through you, it affects the people around you in a positive way and they begin to want to know Jesus too.
CHAPTER 9.
The Right Truth at the Right Time When Jesus told His disciples the Father would send the Spirit of Truth to guide them into all truth, He was describing a method the Holy Spirit uses to free us in areas where we struggle. In 1976 I reached a point in my life when the Holy Spirit knew I was ready to face truth and let Him do a thorough work of healing in my life.
Many of us live in a false reality we have developed to protect ourselves. I spent a lot of my life avoiding issues that needed to be dealt with. I blamed other people, felt sorry for myself, and had a bad att.i.tude, but none of that was changing any of my circ.u.mstances. One of my difficulties was developing and maintaining good relations.h.i.+ps. I was convinced all the other people in my life were the problem, and they were the ones who needed to change for us to get along.