Manifested love, Pt 27: Spirit guides
John 16:12-15 12“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He Will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.
Ephesians 4:20-24 20That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
2Timothy 3:16-17 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Romans 12:1-2 1Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
What is the truth?
All of the Word of God is true and righteous and helps us live our lives in a way that pleases God. But we humans are frail and sinful and prone to distraction. Our common enemy and the world system he works through is very good at tempting us with false truth and deceptive morality, and so we occasionally find ourselves wondering just what the right way is to live. Jesus didn’t have enough time to tell the disciples everything in his three years of ministry, and if he had done so, the disciples would have been overwhelmed with complexity and grandness of it. So the Holy Spirit was soon to be sent by Jesus to do what Jesus could not do: To complete and expand truth already given (the Old Testament), and directly inspire additional insight through the writings of the Apostles (the New Testament), and through the awakening of our understanding.
So we find ourselves asking, “Just what is truth?” Really, the only way to discern the answer is to let the Holy Spirit guide us. The subsequent question then becomes, “How does He do that?” Here’s the thing: The Holy Spirit is not some sort of phantom floating around above our heads waiting for some scheduled moment to blast us with understanding. We have to be willing to learn which in this case means to read the Word. When we study the Bible and ponder it, it allows the Holy Spirit to increase our understanding. One of the things I have found very helpful is to pick a passage of Scripture and pray it back it Him. A group of friends and I often get together over Zoom. Someone picks a chapter or series of verses and we together pray through the verses aloud. The different personalities resonate with different parts of the verses and together the presence of God increases and understanding is enhanced.
What is the right path?
The day we are born we begin a journey down a path that leads eventually to its end. Along the way we are presented with various life choices, each of which slightly alters our path’s direction. After maturity, we can make those choices ourselves and the question ought always to be, “How does that glorify God?” if the Holy Spirit is guiding us, it presupposes we are interested in following a life of increasing holiness and righteousness. If our path has brought us into alcohol or drug dependency, or into a wanton lifestyle, then it seems we have made some previous faulty life-path choices. In that case maybe a sharp change of direction is called for. Here is another opportunity to let the Holy Spirit shape us. Maybe we are uncertain of what change needs to be made, but the Holy Spirit definitely knows. Ask him. You might say, “Jesus, I don’t know where I’ve gone wrong, but I know I am off-track. Please show me what change to make. Help me draw in closer to you.”
Do we glorify Jesus?
We probably think of ourselves as being some ordinary Joe who doesn’t really know much about God, but one thing we do know for certain. Whatever Jesus says we can absolutely know it to be correct. Glorifying God sounds like a difficult, even supernatural, thing to do, but really it isn’t. The simple act of listening to Jesus through the Holy Spirit and believing and acting on what is said, brings glory to God. It shows our friends that we hold certain things to be high value; we have decided to live our lives in a better way; we are changing our path. When we started on our life journey we were spiritually dead. That is the essential meaning of original sin; we don’t know God. But at some major point in our life our path took a sharp right turn; we came to know Jesus as Savior. We are made a new creation, the attitude of our mind changes. All of a sudden, things that never once bothered us now seem to nag at our conscience. Our spirit has been reborn; regenerated. From that point on our one and only job is to honor Him.
What about me?
So the Holy Spirit is sent by Jesus to help us navigate life’s challenges and help us make the right decisions. But this presupposes we are listening. It does not honor God to continue to follow the pattern of the world. The world has been deceived by Satan into thinking situational morality is OK; that whatever feels right at the time is correct. While we are all sinful people, prone to faulty, sinful behavior, it does not honor God to indiscriminately continue in that behavior without trying to change. Jesus forgives 70x7 times a day when we come to him in repentance. And the cool thing is that having forgiven us through our repentance he never again remembers there was ever an issue; it is as if the sin never occurred. Remember though that our common enemy is in the business of deceit and condemnation. He will lie to us to get us to sin and then condemn us for listening. Our response? Hit delete and begin again. And again and again if need be. Just keep going to Jesus and he will forgive. Every time.