Following the Leadership of The Holy Spirit – 2

Posted by davidluiz in Daily Devotional, Messages, You must be Born Again

In the previous series of this message, we stated various reasons why we need to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading. To view the previous post, click here. We will move on in this second series on following the Leadership of the Holy Spirit to talk about the first way by which the Holy Spirit leads his people: the Inner Witness.
“The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” Romans 8:16
This form of the leadership of the Holy Spirit is called the Inward Witness because the Holy Spirit confirms a certain truth, step we want to take or direction in which we want to move by giving us peace in our hearts or withdrawing peace from our hearts about the issue. This method of Gods leading is considered as the basic way by which God leads his children because that’s how he confirms in our hearts that we have become his children after we confess Jesus as Lord. Most times, God doesn’t send an angel with a heavenly hymn on his lips or give us a major spiritual experience to assure us that we have become his children, rather, we just have an unshakable knowing in the pit of our stomachs (or in our hearts) that our sins are washed away and that our names are written in the book of life. An illustration of this method of Gods leadership will drive home the point more clearly:
“Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the Word in Asia, After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.” Acts 16:6-7
This passage of scripture gives us a clear example of how the Holy Spirit led Paul and his team as they journeyed from place to place to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. Although the passage does not specifically mention how the Holy Spirit forbade them from preaching the Word in Asia, we come to get a clearer understanding of what most likely happened in the second verse. It says that they assayed to go to Bithynia; in other words, they were about to go there when the Holy Spirit “suffered them not”. It is worthy of note here that if God uses the Inward Witness to assure us that we have been accepted into his kingdom and that we have become his children, it is also highly certain that he will use this same method to lead his children from day to day in their various activities.
As I round up the second part of this message, I feel the need to refer to the fact that many of us from day to day actually have this inward witness to do certain things (like to take a particular document to the office) without knowing why or seeing the need to, only to realize later in the day that that was the most important thing we needed for the success of the day at work or in school. Such gentle promptings are so easy to ignore yet firm enough to get our attention even for the briefest of moments. The problem is most of us are in too much of a hurry most times to pay attention or to consider what we sense in our hearts; much less to act on it. It is therefore on this note that I urge that we slow down and pay attention to such promptings and see God lead us by the Inward Witness.