We have choices in life. We have free will. We can do the right thing. We can do the wrong thing. If we walk closely with the Lord, there is often another choice.
Sometimes God will reveal to us what He would have us to do. It may not be what we would choose for ourselves.
How willing are you to put down your desires and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit?
Hopefully, you have experienced the prompting of the Holy Spirit. But what if you don’t think you have?
If you are saved, you received the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation.
Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
Acts 2:37-41
When you receive the Holy Spirit, His influences are available to you.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-25
You still have free will. You can grieve the Holy Spirit.
And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
Ephesians 4:30-32
Ultimately, when it comes down to walking in the Spirit, it’s your choice. For God to be able to reveal His will to you, you must be willing to surrender. How clearly you hear God is often a measure of how surrendered you are to Him. The measure of the fruit of the spirit you have is also a measure of how surrendered you are to Him.
LIFE APPLICATION
Key Focal Verse:
We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.
1 John 4:19-21
Today’s challenge is to ask God to help you see that whatever happens to you, He has brought or allowed in your life. When someone is not nice to you, you can get angry or you can witness. You can be bitter or you can forgive. Ask God to show you what it means to fully surrender your will to Him.