The
Guidance of the Holy Spirit
The apostle Paul experienced the leading of the Holy
Spirit in his daily life. He saw a great spiritual principle in the Christian
life. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God”
(Romans 8:14).
How has God been leading you lately? Is the Spirit of God
taking you deeper and deeper into the love of Christ? Has He illumined your mind
and heart to a greater longing for God’s righteousness? Has He led you to
individuals hungering and thirsting for the righteousness of God? Has He brought
into your life unbelievers with whom to share the saving grace of God?
It is the ministry of the Holy spirit to take sinners and
sanctify them. He sets them apart for God's unique purpose.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of holiness and He can only lead
and guide holy people. He can lead us
into nothing else than the very holiness of God.
There is a place in which the unsanctified mind and heart cannot
enter.
There are hidden recesses of the heart, deep down in the unseen realm of
the human life, where the Holy Spirit dwells and where He teaches us right
decisions and sanctified purposes. It is in this hidden sphere of activity in the inner
life that the Holy Spirit takes up His residence and there He moves and impels
us to become filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding. Spiritual understanding comes only with the growth of the
spiritual person. One who wishes to know the leading of God must yield himself
completely—mind, heart, will, imagination, personality—to the control of the
Holy Spirit. The Christian must open up his life to the continual abiding
presence of the Spirit of holiness and power.
“An angel of the Lord” told Philip the evangelist to go
down a “desert road” (Acts 8:27). In obedience “he rose and went” and along the
way he met a court official to the queen of the Ethiopians. God had prepared the
official’s heart as he sat in his chariot reading Isaiah 53. The Holy Spirit
said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot” (v. 29). Philip explained the
meaning of Isaiah 53:7-8, “and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus
to him” (v. 35). Guided and directed by the Holy Spirit Philip “kept preaching
the gospel to all the cities, until he came to Caesarea” (v. 40).
The Holy Spirit is the administrator of world missions. He
chooses the people and the places where He wants us to serve. He puts the right
person in the right place at the right time to share Jesus Christ with the right
person. He leads, guides, opens and closes door at just the right time—His own
perfect timing.
The apostle Paul was on his second missionary journey
revisiting churches that were planted on his previous missionary trip. Paul,
Silas and Timothy were passing through cities, strengthening the churches in the
faith, as well as seeing daily increase in people being saved (Acts 16:4-5).
“They passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region,
having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and when
they came to Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them; and passing
by Mysia, they came down to Troas” (vv. 6-9). It seemed that everywhere Paul and
his team tried to enter to preach the gospel the door was closed after they left
Galatia. Did Paul give up? No. He “kept on trying, attempting” to go into
Bithynia. He was not being disobedient. Paul was searching to see where God was
at work and in the process it became evident the Holy Spirit was the one doing
the forbidding. The Administrator of missions closed the door. That is not where
He was at work. “The Spirit of Jesus did not permit them” (v. 7).
Paul and his missionary team were in Troas, “And a vision
appeared to Paul in the night: a certain man of Macedonia was standing and
appealing to him, and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us’” (v. 9). Dr.
Luke who wrote Acts gives us the impression that he could have identified the
man if he wanted to. Perhaps it was Luke the beloved physician who was the man
in the vision. Paul saw the vision and “immediately we sought to ago into
Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them” (v.
10). Paul shared the vision with Silas and Timothy and “immediately we sought to
go into Macedonia.” Their hearts were united as they sought the guidance of the
Holy Spirit.
In obedience to His leading they “Therefore put out to sea
from Troas, we ran a straight course . . .” (v. 11). “We ran a course.” “We—the
author joined them at Troas. We will not know until we get to heaven who that
“man” was, but I suspect he has already subtly informed us.
The Holy Spirit led Paul to Philippi (v. 12), and a prayer
meeting down by a riverside (v. 13). That is where God was at work and the place
He wanted His messengers to proclaim His message of sovereign grace.
Selah!
Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006
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