4th of December, 2022.

THEME:HOW TO BE LED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD
LESSON:THIRTEEN
TEXT:Numbers 13:17-33, Galatians 5:16-21, Philippians 4:5-9

MEMORY TRACK:

By God’s grace, in our last lesson, we learnt that the soul needs to develop some skill set in our senses to be able to easily yield to the leading of the spirit. It became imperative for us to be committed to reading and meditating on the Word of God for these skills to be imparted.

Training the Soul to be Easily Led by the Spirit (Heb 5:14)

We continue again, looking at some other skills that we must develop to easily respond to the leading of the spirit. These skills are inexhaustible, but a few has been highlighted for today’s lesson:

  1. Putting more emphasis on spiritual things (Phil 3:20, Col 3:1-3): The more emphasis you put on spiritual things the more mature you are and the more you can pick the leading of the Spirit. Many times, we do not understand that God cares for our natural needs and affairs of our natural life, but He wants us to know that we ought to place priority on what is most important and be assured that our natural needs will be met. This takes a lot of trust. In doing this, we are delivered from the hold of idols, thereby coming into stronger ties with the Lord.
  2. Learning to take steps of faith (Numbers 13:17-33): The leading of the Holy Spirit will always clash with the voice of our physical senses and the more we choose not to yield to the leading of the spirit, the more we deaden our spiritual senses. Our spiritual senses are awoken when we take steps by faith in consonance with the word of God. It builds our relationships with God; God becomes real and our reliance on Him increases. The reason for leading of the Spirit is to please God and it takes faith to follow the leading of the spirit because without faith, it is impossible to please God. In fact, taking steps of faith is another name for being led by the spirit of God.
  3. Developing the fruit of the spirit (Gal 5:19-22; Eph 5:8-10): One of the best ways to develop the soul to yield to the leading of the spirit is to cultivate the fruit of the spirit (nature of Christ in the soul). The highest benefit of the leading of the spirit is change of nature which are manifestations of the fruit of the spirit, cultured in the soul, through light and then established as nature through our walk of obedience. The fruit of the spirit is love. So, growing in love, walking in love (love towards the saints, charity, love of the brethren etc) is to be led by the spirit and the surest way of developing mastery in picking the leading of the spirit (Eph 5:2). The fruit of the spirit makes us sharp in the spirit while works of the flesh dull the soul. These fruits are instruments/soul senses of judging leading of the spirit accurately and anyone that has this fruit will always be accurate in following leading of the spirit.
  4. Learning to cast your cares upon the Lord (Matt 6:25; 1 Peter 5:8, Phil 4:6-7): The devil saps life out of our soul by putting burden and cares of this present life upon our souls. These are legitimate cares, but we must learn to cast them upon the Lord. These cares come with pressures and demand for hasty decision making. We cannot pick the leading of the spirit if we respond to the care of life like every natural man. We have to understand that these cares are from spiritual realms, generated by evil spirits, SO CARES OF LIFE AND CARNAL BURDEN ARE SPIRITUAL. The effect of yielding to them is also spiritual.
  5. Strengthening your spirit against flesh (1Cor 14:14; Eph 3:16): The weight of the flesh can be overbearing for the soul, which makes it difficult to pick the leading of the spirit. Another way of enhancing leading is to pray with our spirit for a prolonged time focusing on the Lord. This will calm the soul down and cause the spirit to ascend above the soul.