Week Of Prayer – Week 15
September 5 – Trusting the Holy Spirit to Lead Us
We continue in the series of devotionals from A.W. Tozer’s book, A Cloud by Day, A Fire by Night. This week is “Trusting the Holy Spirit to Lead Us.”
Who is this angelic messenger God sends before us? I believe we have here an illustration, or symbol, of the Holy Spirit. God, the Holy Spirit, is guiding us and directing us to the place of His choosing. We need to surrender to Him, we need to know who this Holy Spirit is, and we need to get to the point of trusting Him in our day-to-day decisions. If we are to get to where God wants us, we must fully accept His provisions along the way. This Holy Spirit is God’s omniscient providence and provision for us.
September 6 – Trusting the Holy Spirit to Lead Us
Consider some of the attributes of this Angel. In Exodus 23:21 we read, “Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.” I want to point out here that this Angel cannot lead an enemy. That is not His purpose. He is not leading the enemy to where God wants them to be. God has given Him no authority over the enemy. That’s something we need to grasp a hold of. He also has no authority to overlook stubbornness, rebellion, unbelief, or disobedience in us. He has to deal with all of these things, which is why the Scripture says, “beware of him.” He has what is needed to bring us to and keep us on the right path. The relationship of a physician with his patient would be a good illustration of this. The physician must have cooperation. If the patient is fighting against the doctor, the doctor cannot do what needs to be done for the patient. It is when the patient surrenders to the doctor that he gets the help he needs.
If we are fighting against God, if we are overlooking the leadership of God through this Angel before us, we are not going to get very far. The path before us is of such a nature that we cannot navigate it on our own—we need a guide. This Angel will not overlook anything; He is under divine orders and responds and reports to God, not to us. He is not at our dispatch. He is in our lives to fulfill God’s purpose, not ours.
September 7 – Trusting the Holy Spirit to Lead Us
Of course, the question before us is, what if we sin? Like the prodigal son, if we acknowledge that we have sinned, we will find the forgiveness of God. Sin cannot keep us from God if we follow his voice and obey him. The history of Israel tells us that God did exercise forgiveness with them. One generation was walking where God wanted them to walk and was in the delight of God. The next generation made their own choices and consequently experience the displeasure of God. For some reason, they wanted to go their own way instead of God’s. “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 17:6)
We find this also in the New Testament. Churches started out going in the right direction, but soon they wanted to make their own decisions and go their own way. Most of Paul’s epistles were directed to churches to stop this practice, turn around, and continue to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. This happens today. We are trying to validate the culture around us so we can in good conscience pull it into the church.
Certainly, sin will prevent us from going in God’s direction, but this does not apply to sin repented of. That is the key. Sin was the great deterrent in Israel’s history and in the church’s history, and it is in our own histories as individual Christians as well. The imperfection of man did not come as a surprise to God. All of His plans have been put together with every contingency thought through, so when man fails, it is no surprise to God, and he has a solution already in motion. If He had not included the potential for man’s imperfection, His plans could only fail, and that is also unthinkable. Man’s imperfections are proof of God’s grace.
September 8 – Trusting the Holy Spirit to Lead Us
Think of Jacob and his failures. He probably had more failures than anybody else, but he repented and God restored him. It is the restoration of God that makes the difference in our lives. Jacob encountered that ladder to heaven, and it completely changed his life: “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.” (Genesis 28;16)
I read of Job in the Old Testament, where he says, “Behold, I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.” (Job 40:4) But that was not his end. He went through insufferable difficulties, and nobody seemed to be on his side, not even his wife. When he says, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” (Job 13:150, that is Job finding out that his imperfections did not matter when it came to following God. God could rise above all of the failures in his life. The same is true of Elijah when he cries out to God, “Take away my life.” (1 Kings 19:4). Later, there is the wonderful scene of the chariot escorting Elijah into heaven (2 Kings 2:110. Sure, Elijah had his problems, but an unrepentant heart was not one of them. He repented, turned to God, and gave God the opportunity to use him.
September 9 – Trusting the Holy Spirit to Lead Us
In the New Testament, there’s the occasion when Peter said, “I know him not” (Luke 22:57), referring to Jesus. What a heartbreaking experience that must have been for Jesus. Peter spent all his time with Jesus, and when it really mattered, Peter denied the Lord. However, that was not the end of the story. Even though he denied the Lord, he turned his heart around, confessed his sin, repented, and was brought back into the leading position of the church at that time. It was Peter who preached at Pentecost, which began the move of the Holy Spirit that is active even today. God’s grace is not only for our imperfections and weaknesses and failures. His grace is a reflection of His character and His nature, not our weaknesses.
September 10 – Trusting the Holy Spirit to Lead Us
Meister Eckhart, the German theologian, wrote hundreds of years ago, “God does not look at what you do but only at your love and at the devotion and will behind your deeds…. He is concerned only that we shall love him in all things.” Most importantly, the Bible records these words of Solomon: “I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it; and God doeth it, that men should fear before him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14). God waits for that moment when we repent of our sin and then experience the overwhelming sense of His forgiveness. No one can sin too much to receive God’s mercy if he or she repents sincerely.
There’s A Wideness in God’s Mercy
“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea. There’s a kindness in God’s justice, which is more than liberty. There is no place where earths sorrows are more felt than up in heaven. There is no place where earth’s failings have such kindly judgment given.” Frederick William Faber (1814-1863)
September 11 – Trusting the Holy Spirit to Lead Us
“O gracious Father, Thy guidance in my life is so greatly needed and appreciated. When I try on my own, I only fail. The work of the Holy Spirit in my life is guiding me to the destination Thou hast established. May I be faithful, God, to Thy leadership. May those around me see Thy work in me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”