How Conscious Do I Need To Be of the Spirit's Leadership?

Guest post by David Dorr

Paul identifies a child of God as one who is led by the Spirit of God (Romans 8:14). So one of the questions that arises from this statement is: "How conscious do I have to be of the Spirit's leadership?"

Well, praise God, if you are trusting in Jesus alone to wash you of your sins and have placed yourself under His rule, you don't have to be conscious of the Spirit's leadership to be a child of God. You will go to heaven when you die, but you won't experience much of heaven before you die.

The Spirit is how we experience the life of God right now. Paul has a number of different action verbs associated with the Spirit: walk by, be led, sow to. Generally speaking, these verbs are different ways of saying the same thing. Since these words demand action, the Spirit's activity in your life deserves a majority of your concentration.

The problem is the Bible doesn't tell you HOW the men and women of the New Testament were led by the Spirit. When someone prophesied was it a thought in their head? Was it an audible voice? How did they know when to heal, or preach a certain message, or when, brought before kings, how did they know what to say?

Well we are not told. Thank God! We would try to systematize it, making it a formula. But being led by the Spirit is not a formula, it is a relationship. It is something we learn. Just like we only discern someone's voice by time spent in relationship, we only learn the leadership of God by time and relationship.

But we can learn from Jesus. Jesus was a man perfectly led by the Spirit. And what was the Spirit doing with Jesus? The Spirit led Jesus by teaching him what to do and what to say. And that is what the Spirit is in your life to do: to teach you what to do and what to say as you live out the events of your life.

If you're counting on Jesus, He will lead you whether you are conscious of it or not, but it's better not to kick against the goads. Instead, we have the priviledge of experiencing the life that comes from listening to and obeying the Spirit of God.