Let’s begin today by looking at Romans 8:14. It says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” We can see from that verse that sons of God should be led by the Spirit of God. Since God wants us to be led by His Spirit, then we immediately know that the enemy would like us to be led by other things. Let’s look at a few things that the enemy may try to use to lead us. We are not to be led by our feelings. Just because you don’t feel like doing something or you don’t have the desire to do something doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it. If you’re led by your feelings, then you are not being led by the Spirit. We are not to be led by opportunity. You may have an opportunity to do something, but that does not mean that you should do it. It may be something that looks like you shouldn’t pass up or even “can’t” pass up, but if you are led by opportunity, then you are not being led by the Spirit. We are also not to be led by our own understanding, or you could say by our heads. If you make decisions based solely on natural knowledge, then you are not being led by the Spirit. There’s nothing wrong with having natural knowledge, but you should never make decisions based on natural knowledge alone. When you are in a situation where it looks like it makes perfect sense to do something, but the Spirit of God says “no”, then you should follow His leading and not your head. Lastly, we are not to be led by money. If you take a job solely based on the fact that it pays more or buy something solely based on the fact that it’s cheaper, then you are being led by money and not being led by the Spirit. We need to train ourselves in every situation to never make a decision without first looking inside and getting direction from the Holy Spirit. We should make every decision solely based on what He says and nothing else.
There is a world of spiritual benefits that open up to the believer who is led by the Spirit of God. Let’s look at five of those benefits right now. The first benefit of being led by the Spirit of God is that the more led by the Spirit you are, the more free you will become. John 16:13 says the Holy Spirit will lead you into the truth, and John 8:32 says that the truth will make you free. Being led by the Holy Spirit will lead you into a life of freedom. Freedom from sin, freedom from sickness, freedom from poverty, freedom from defeat, and freedom from any other evil thing that you want to be free from. Secondly, the more led by The Spirit you are, the more extraordinary you will be. John 17:17 says that the truth will sanctify you. Sanctifymeans to be set apart from what is ordinary. The Holy Spirit will lead you into truth that will set you apart from what is ordinary. Thirdly, the more led by The Spirit you are, the further away from Satan you get. John 8:44 says that there is no truth in him. As the Holy Spirit leads you into truth, He leads you further away from the enemy’s plan for your life. The fourth benefit to being led by the Spirit is that the more led by the spirit you are the more you will experience all the good things God has prepared for you. Hosea 4:6 says that a lack of knowledge will cut you off from the provision God has prepared for you. 1 Corinthians 2:14 says we have received the Holy Spirit so that we will have knowledge of and experience all the good things that God has prepared for us. The Holy Spirit will not only give you knowledge of what is yours, He will lead you to the place where you are experiencing it in your life. The fifth benefit of being led by the Spirit is the more led by the Spirit you are the more effective you will be. Being effective in this life is all about being in the right place, at the right time, and in that place saying and doing the right thing. The only way to accomplish that is to be led by the Holy Spirit. He will never lead you to the wrong place at the wrong time. He will never lead you to say or do the wrong thing. As a result, you will be more effective than you have ever been before.
All of those benefits are marvelous, but how does the Holy Spirit lead us? Let’s look at Romans 8:16 to get the answer. It says, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” It is vital that you understand that when God communicates with you He does it through your spirit. Not through your head, not through your senses, not through an external sign or through a fleece, but through your spirit. If I gave you a cell phone and said from now on when I communicate with you, I’m going to do it through this phone. Then, if you wanted to hear from me, it would do you no good to try to hear me through your refrigerator because I said I was going to talk with you through that phone. When a person tries to hear from God externally, through their senses, through their feelings, or through a sign, it would be like trying to hear from me through that refrigerator. God never said He was going to communicate with you through your head, through your feelings, through your senses, or through a sign. He said he was going to communicate with you through your spirit. Therefore, if we desire to hear from God, we need to endeavor to do it through our spirit by looking and listening to what we are getting inside where our spirit is located. You could describe this leading that comes from the Holy Spirit as a sense or a knowing or your intuition. It is when God shows you something inside your heart or you hear something from God in your heart. Jesus heard from the Father just like this. In Mark 2:8 it says, “Jesus perceived in his spirit.” In John 6:61 it says, “Jesus knew in himself.” Jesus isn’t hearing something with his physical ear, but rather he is getting direction inside. The reality is we are supposed to be hearing from God in this same way every day of our lives. This is called The Spirit-Led Life. We should be looking inside all the time for direction from The Holy Spirit. When we get direction from Him and yield to Him, we will walk in all the benefits that we discovered earlier in this teaching.
Jesus lived the Spirit-Led life when He came to Earth. Matthew 4:1 says, “Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness.” It is important to understand that even though Jesus was God, and is God, He functioned on the Earth as a man. Jesus didn’t operate in the all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present powers of God. Philippians 2:6-7 (Amplified Bible) says, “Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained, 7 But stripped Himself [of all privileges and [rightful dignity], so as to assume the guise of a servant (slave), in that He became like men and was born a human being.” Jesus didn’t operate in the “all-knowing” abilities of God when He walked the Earth, but rather he functioned as a man and therefore had to be led by the Spirit. Jesus was completely dependent and totally reliant on the leading of the Holy Spirit. He simply would not move until he had the wisdom of God from the Spirit of God concerning what He should say and do. John 5:19-20 (Easy-To-Read Version) says, “I assure you that the Son can do nothing alone. He does only what he sees the Father doing. The Son does the same things the Father does. The Father loves the Son and shows him everything he does. This man was healed. But the Father will show the Son greater things than this to do. Then you will all be amazed.” Jesus only did what the Father showed Him to do. John 5:30 (Message Bible) says, “I can’t do a solitary thing on my own: I listen, then I decide. You can trust my decision because I’m not out to get my own way but only to carry out orders. If I were simply speaking on my own account, it would be an empty, self-serving witness.” Jesus did not just pick and choose what He wanted to do and when He wanted to do it, but rather He was led by the Spirit about what to choose. John 8:26 (Amplified Bible) says, “I tell the world [only] the things that I have heard from Him. I do nothing of Myself (of My own accord or on My own authority), but I say [exactly] what My Father has taught Me.” We can clearly see how dependent upon the wisdom of God and the Spirit’s leading Jesus was. He said over and over again that He could do nothing of Himself. That means He did not just decide what He wanted to do, where He wanted to go, and what He wanted to say. Jesus only did what the Father showed Him to do and only said what the Father told Him to say. You could say it like this: Jesus only did what He saw and said what He heard. If you saw Jesus do it, then it was because the Father showed Him to do it. If you heard Jesus say it, then it was because the Father told Him to say it. Living this way enabled Jesus to ALWAYS be in the right place at the right time and saying and doing the right thing. This is the reason why Jesus was so effective in His life and ministry in the Earth. We never see Him pray something that didn’t come to pass, speak to a mountain that didn’t move, or lay hands on a sick person who didn’t recover. The reason was because He was led by the Spirit of God in all that He did. The more led by the Spirit you are, the more effective you will be.
Trying to live this life of faith apart from the leading of the Spirit will yield sparse results and leave you tired and frustrated. One reason that believers have been so ineffective is because they have dove headfirst into their principles (lay hands on the sick and they will recover, speak to the mountain and it will be moved, ask in Jesus’ name and you’ll get it) all the while skipping the one principle that God said was the first principle. Do you know what that principle is? Proverbs 4:7 says, “Wisdom is the principle thing.” Wisdom is the principal principle. As believers, we have no business moving until we have the wisdom of God. It is never the responsibility of the believer to decide what they are going to do in a situation that they are facing. It is not for you or me to decide what principle from God’s word we are going to engage. There is a right thing to do and a right thing to say in each situation we face, and the only way to discover it is to be led by the Spirit. John 6:63 says, “It is the spirit that quickens (gives life); the flesh profits nothing.” If you just start praying or speaking to the mountain or praying in the Holy Spirit and you haven’t looked to the Spirit of God first regarding your situation, then all those principles you engage, while they are full of power, will be futile in your life. When you chose what to do based on your natural wisdom, which is the flesh, the flesh will profit you nothing. John 5:30 (Message Bible) says, “I can’t do a solitary thing on my own: I listen, then I decide. You can trust my decision because I’m not out to get my own way but only to carry out orders. If I were simply speaking on my own account, it would be an empty, self-serving witness.” Jesus said if He were to speak on his own or do something of His own accord, it would be empty or, you could say, void of power. This is not to say that you shouldn’t lay hands on the sick or speak to your mountain because you should, but before you do anything, you need to be looking inside to the Spirit of God to find out what He wants you to say and what He wants you to do. In Matthew 11:27 (The Message Bible) Jesus said, “The Father has given me all things to do and to say.” That reveals to us that Jesus did not pick who to lay hands on, who to cast demons out of, or when to multiply the fish and the loaves. Rather, in every one of those instances what Jesus said or did were things that the Father showed Him to do first. Whatever you do that is Spirit-Led will be backed by the power of the Spirit to bring about the results that you desire. Everything Jesus did was motivated by the Spirit, and therefore backed by the power of the Spirit. If you want to be backed by the Spirit, thenyou must be led by the Spirit.
As believers, we should be interested in being led by the Spirit. We should be interested in seeing what God wants us to do and hearing what God wants us to say in every situation so that we can be effective and experience the type of results that He wants us to experience. In John 16:13-15, Jesus gave us a promise regarding the Spirit-Led life. He said, “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.”According to that verse you and I can live a life where we are led by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is going to show us what to do and tell us what to say the same way He did Jesus. If we will learn to look to Him and yield to Him the way Jesus did, we will do the works that Jesus did and even greater works than those according to Jesus in John 14:12. The same Spirit that led Jesus will lead you. Here are three keys to cultivating the Spirit-Led life.
1. You must look to Him. If you’re not acknowledging the Holy Spirit and seeking Him for wisdom and direction you will not get it. (Proverbs 3:6)
2. You must have hearing ears and seeing eyes. When the Holy Spirit speaks to you, you need to be in a place spiritually where your heart is tender so you can hear and see what He is saying.
3. You have to yield to what He says.
I believe that those who will make a commitment to look to the Spirit of God for direction and wisdom regarding their life will see and hear from God more clearly and more frequently than they ever have. I believe that this has been the missing component in areas where you and I have been stuck or hit a roadblock. Every roadblock can be broken through with the wisdom of God. There’s no such thing as roadblock to a man who has the wisdom of God. There is a way through every roadblock that you’re facing, and God knows the way. Take the time to get quiet before Him, and He will give you wisdom of what you need to do regarding your situation. When you act upon what he says, breakthroughs, miracles and great victories will manifest. In John 2 when water was turned into wine, the mother of Jesus gave us the key to great victories, the key to miracles. It was this: Whatever He says to you, do it. However, before you can do anything He says, you have to hear what He says. In a situation that looked impossible all they needed was the wisdom of God. When they heard the wisdom of God and acted upon it, something unprecedented happened; water was turned into wine. If we will look to the Spirit of God for wisdom, receive that wisdom when He gives it to us, and act upon it in faith we will breakthrough every roadblock and overcome every obstacle that has been keeping us from our victory!