"...where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" - II Cor.3:17
In the process of learning to be led by the Holy Spirit, it's important we understand that the Holy Spirit gives us liberty - He doesn't bring us back under another type of fear and bondage. If we're not careful, that which was intended to give us liberty can end-up bringing us into another type of bondage. I'll explain...
Perhaps we were once bound by obligations and limited by our own thinking, and then we began to become free of it through learning to be led by the Holy Spirit. We began to experience the freedom and limitless blessing that come by following the Spirit instead of remaining bound by obligation or limited by our own understanding.
But then while enjoying the new lifestyle, if we're not careful, we can allow a fear of missing God's perfect leading to begin to negatively effect us. We can become nervous, harsh, irritable, judgmental, condemned, regretful, sorrowful, stressed and striving. That which was intended for our liberty turns into bondage.
The key is to remember that God gave us the Holy Spirit to help us, to empower us, to make us happier - not to give us a harder set of rules to follow.
It can happen in church-life too. For example, in the pre-reformation days when much of the Church was bound by the wrong belief that only the ordained clergy could minister in the church, God began revealing to believers that anyone can contribute to a church-service even if he's a layman. So the Brethren Church was inaugurated in order to have a freer, more blessed type of church-service where any of the brethren could contribute as the Spirit leads.
But in their zeal to cherish that new concept of freedom, some of the Brethren went too far and felt it's wrong to ordain a pastor. In an effort to protect their newfound revelation about the liberty of the brethren, they created another stringent rule of their own: that it's wrong to have a Senior Pastor. It negatively affected some of their consciences and hindered the growth of some of their congregations. Some Brethren churches got free of it, ordained pastors, and grew.
Whole denominations have been founded because they mistook a leading of the Holy Spirit to be a hard-set rule. For example, a century or so ago someone saw in the Word that preachers went two-by-two and didn't preach in buildings. Instead of understanding that that was a helpful, Spirit-led strategy at the time, he applied it as an unalterable rule: that all preachers should travel two-by-two, and the church should never own real estate. The group now has thousands of followers all around the world, because their preachers did get out and evangelize - but they are in bondage because there's nothing wrong with owning real estate and there's nothing wrong with a preacher traveling alone or in a larger group than two. Something that Jesus was led by the Spirit to do on one occasion was turned into bondage by them. Jesus never meant all evangelistic teams always had to consist of exactly two people (Jesus Himself often had a larger team; so did Paul - and sometimes they both ministered alone).
The Welsh revival of 1904 is another example. It was started because someone learned to be led by the Holy Spirit. Every effort was made to allow the Spirit to lead the meetings. There was great freedom. Consequently God manifested greatly. But then the leader of the revival began to feel stressed about following the Spirit exactly - so stressed that he had to take a break from the ministry and never again returned to the ministry. A revelation about the leading of the Holy Spirit produced perhaps the greatest revival the world has ever seen - but becoming stressed about the leading of the Holy Spirit hindered a great revivalists' emotional health and ministry.
So the key is to remember that the purpose of the Holy Spirit's leading is not to give us a new type of stringency, but to free us from stringency in order to experience greater blessing. We don't have to let something that was intended for our freedom make us more miserable than we were before!
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty!
He is not a spirit of bondage and fear. He is the Spirit of power, love and of a sound mind.
If you find yourself becoming stressed, confused, fearful, judgmental, stringent - then give yourself a break and remind yourself that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of freedom, power, love and of a sound mind.
We are not justified by following external instructions - even if we feel the instructions are coming from the Holy Spirit. We are already justified freely by His grace. We don't lose our sonship entirely just because we feel we've missed a prompting of the Holy Spirit. Instead, the Holy Spirit is given to us to enhance our happiness. He helps us express the fullness of the blessing which we already have in us. He is given to confirm that we are already justified. He is not a new set of rules. He is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost! He leads us in order to help us enjoy the freedom already purchased for us. Enjoy!
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