The Holy Spirit Guiding The Believer Into A Life As A Son

The true Christian living means being personally guided by the Holy Spirit, not ruled by fear or endless self-made regulations. The Holy Spirit never leads contrary to Scripture, and His guidance brings freedom, not bondage. Those who surrender to the Spirit's leading live as mature sons of God, enjoying liberty and confident direction in life.

The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 8:14, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”

In this passage, we see the Holy Spirit taking the conduct of the believer's life. A true Christian life is a personally conducted life, conducted at every turn by a Divine Person. It is the believer's privilege to be set free from all care, worry, and anxiety as to the decisions which we must make at any turn of life.

The Holy Spirit undertakes all that responsibility for us.

A true Christian life is not one governed by a long set of rules without us, but led by a living and ever- present Person within us. It is in this connection that Paul says, “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.” A life governed by rules without one is a life of bondage . There is always fear that we haven't made quite enough rules, and always the fear that in an unguarded moment, we may have broken some of the rules which we have made. The life that many Christians lead is one of awful bondage; for they have put upon themselves a bond more severe to bear than that of the ancient Mosaic law concerning which Peter said to the Jews of his time, that neither they nor their fathers had been able to bear it (Acts 15:10).

Many Christians have a long list of self-made rules, and if by any chance they break one of these self- made rules, or forget to keep one of them, they are at once filled with an awful fear brought upon themselves the displeasure of God (and they even sometimes fancy that they have committed the unpardonable sin). This is not Christianity; this is legalism. “We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear,” we have received the Spirit who gives us the p lace of sons (Romans 8:15).

Our lives should not be governed by a set of rules without us, but by the loving Spirit of Adoption within us. We should believe the teaching of God's Word that the Spirit of God's Son dwells within us, and we should surrender the absolute control of our lives to Him and look to Him to guide us at every turn of life. He will do it if we only surrender to Him to do it and trust Him to do it. If in a moment of thoughtlessness, we go our way instead of His, we will not be filled with an overwhelming sense of condemnation and of fear of an offended God, but we will go to God as our Father, confess our going astray, believe that He forgives us fully because He says so (1 John 1:9) and go on light and happy of heart to obey Him and be led by His Spirit.

Being led by the Spirit of God does not mean for a moment that we will do things that the written Word of God tells us not to do. The Holy Spirit never leads men contrary to the Book of which He is the Author. If there is some spirit which is leading us to do something contrary to the explicit teachings of Jesus or the Apostles, we may be sure that this spirit who is leading us is not the Holy Spirit. This point needs to be emphasised in our day, for there are not a few who give themselves over to the leading of some spirit, whom they say is the Holy Spirit, but who is leading them to do things explicitly forbidden in the Word. We must always remember that many false spirits and false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1). Many are so worried to be led by some unseen power that they are ready to surrender the conduct of their lives to any spiritual influence or unseen person. In this way, they open their lives to the conduct and hostile influence of evil spirits to ruin their lives.

A man who made great professions of holiness once came to me and said that the Holy Spirit was leading him and “a sweet Christian woman,” whom he had met, to contemplate marriage. “Why,” I said, in astonishment, “you already have one wife.” “Yes,” he said, “but you know we are not friendly, and we have not lived together for years.” “Yes,” I replied, “I know you have not lived together for years, and I have looked into the matter, and I believe that the blame for that lies largely at your door. In any event, she is your wife. You have no reason to suppose she has been untrue to you, and Jesus Christ teaches that if you marry another while she lives you commit adultery” (Luke 16:18). “Oh, but,” the man said, “ The Spirit of God is leading us to love one another and to see that we ought to marry one another.” “You lie, and you blaspheme,” I replied.

“Any spirit that is leading you to disobey the plain teaching of Jesus Christ is not the Spirit of God but some spirit of the devil.”

This perhaps was an extreme case, but cases of essentially the same character are not rare. Many professed Christians seek to justify themselves in doing things which are forbidden in the Word by saying that they are led by the Spirit of God. I protested to the leaders in a Christian assembly where at each meeting many declared to speak with tongues in distinct violation of the teaching of the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:27-28 (If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and God. The defense that they made was that the Holy Spirit led them to speak several at a time and many in a single meeting, and that they must obey the Holy Spirit, and in such a case as this, were not subject to the Word.

The Holy Spirit never contradicts Himself. He never leads the individual to do that which in the written Word He has commanded us all not to do. Any leading of the Spirit must be tested by that which we know to be the leading of the Spirit in the Word. While we need to be on our guard against the leading of false spirits, it is our privilege to be led by the Holy Spirit, and to lead a life free from the bondage of rules and anxiety that we shall not go wrong, a life as children whose Father has sent an accurate Guide to lead them all the way.

Those who are thus led by the Spirit of God are “ sons of God,” that is, they are not merely children of God, born it is true of the Father, but immature, but they are the grown children, the mature children of God; they are no longer babes but sons. The Apostle Paul draws a contrast in Galatians 4:1-7 between the babe under the guidance of the law and differing nothing from a servant, and the full-grown son who is no more a servant but a son walking in joyous liberty. It sometimes seems as if comparatively few Christians today have thrown off the bondage of law, rules outside themselves, and entered into the joyous liberty of sons.