Your understandings on being Holy Spirit led

[Sudsy]

This thread is to share your thoughts and beliefs on what it means to be led by the Holy Spirit.

I believe most here would agree that if you are a believer in what Jesus did to save us from our sins that you have the Holy Spirit now living within you. Some may not but that is another topic.

Also this is not a thread about speaking in other tongues and/or being baptised with or in the Holy Spirit.

Rather this thread is for discussing these sort of questions -

1) How do you know when the Holy Spirit is leading you and when He is not ?
2) In what ways do you experience the Holy Spirit's leadings ?
3) Does the Holy Spirit lead us in the way that we should go, continuously ?
4) Does the Holy Spirit guide us in ways other than our study of the Bible ?
5) Might the Holy Spirit lead us in some way that doesn't make sense to us ?
6) How often do you seek the Holy Spirit's guidance on things ?
7) How much emphasis do you give on allowing the Spirit to run your life ?

I believe there could be a considerable range of understandings about the role of being guided by the Holy Spirit. Some believe because they have the Holy Spirit living within them that what they think, within certain restraints, must be Holy Spirit directed. Others believe we can know the guidance of the Holy Spirit and know His guidance beyond any other voices and/or our own thoughts.

I had an uncle who became a Christian and his initial understanding of allowing the Holy Spirit to guide Him was to stop all through his day and ask the Holy Spirit about all kinds of choices he was to make. Upon getting some kind of OK or further direction he started out his Christian life. I don't know just when he changed from this or what made him change but I believe his approach changed over time. At that time I thought some of his direction requests were common sense issues and I was sceptical that it was the Holy Spirit directing him at this level. But it did get me thinking more about how little I have had any teachings on knowing the voice of the Spirit above all other voices going on in my head.

Feel free to share your beliefs and experiences on this. I suspect some believers are very intune with the Holy Spirit and are listening for His guidance throughout the day while others don't give the Holy Spirit that kind of input to their lives. Myself, I had times in my past when I was more expectant of Holy Spirit guidance than I am today, which caused me to initate this post.

Have at it.

[MaxPC]

Great topic, Sudsy. I had so much to say on this and then I realised that for me, John 10 is the essence of my experiences with the Holy Spirit:

27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

Generally speaking, the more familiar we are with someone, the more familiar the voice and the more easily recognisable it is when the person phones even without caller id.

Daily prayer has helped me to recognise God’s voice via the Holy Spirit. I cannot say I recognise it every time but I do hear it more clearly the more I pray. I know this may seem simplistic nevertheless it is the best explanation as I view prayer as a conversation with God. I have even asked Him to help me find my glasses from time to time.

[steve-in-kville]

In my experience, you just know.

[Sudsy]

I ran across this Anabaptist article called 'Moved by the Spirit ? I'm not so sure'. https://anabaptistworld.org/moved-by-th ... t-so-sure/

Have you ever heard someone say to you 'The Spirit has moved me to tell you ---------' ? If so, how did it turn out ?

In this article there was this example that brought back a memory back in my youth when my buddy told me that an elder in the church had put his hand on him and prayed something quite similar to this quote from this article - “The Spirit has moved me to tell you that you should be tithing more.”

My buddy was quite offended at the time as he was a very consistent 10% of gross pay tither. He was very puzzled at why the Holy Spirit would tell him to do something he already was doing. Perhaps the message giver was right but had the wrong person. Or perhaps he was not really getting this message from the Holy Spirit.

Do you believe a Christian can get messed up with what they think the Holy Spirit is directing them to do and it just might be their own spirit or even another spirit leading them astray ? If so, what should they do to confirm the message is to them via the Holy Spirit ?

This guidance given to one believer by another believer via the Holy Spirit may be more of what happens mostly in charismatic groups. Another quote from this article says -

Mennonites have been accused of having a dearth of theology surrounding the Holy Spirit. Some of our theologians have emphasized the Spirit’s importance, but compared with our charismatic siblings, it could be said we don’t focus on the Spirit enough.

In your view could this be true ?

[MaxPC]

I ran across this Anabaptist article called 'Moved by the Spirit ? I'm not so sure'. https://anabaptistworld.org/moved-by-th ... t-so-sure/

Have you ever heard someone say to you 'The Spirit has moved me to tell you ---------' ? If so, how did it turn out ?

In this article there was this example that brought back a memory back in my youth when my buddy told me that an elder in the church had put his hand on him and prayed something quite similar to this quote from this article - “The Spirit has moved me to tell you that you should be tithing more.”

My buddy was quite offended at the time as he was a very consistent 10% of gross pay tither. He was very puzzled at why the Holy Spirit would tell him to do something he already was doing. Perhaps the message giver was right but had the wrong person. Or perhaps he was not really getting this message from the Holy Spirit.

Do you believe a Christian can get messed up with what they think the Holy Spirit is directing them to do and it just might be their own spirit or even another spirit leading them astray ? If so, what should they do to confirm the message is to them via the Holy Spirit ?

This guidance given to one believer by another believer via the Holy Spirit may be more of what happens mostly in charismatic groups. Another quote from this article says -

Mennonites have been accused of having a dearth of theology surrounding the Holy Spirit. Some of our theologians have emphasized the Spirit’s importance, but compared with our charismatic siblings, it could be said we don’t focus on the Spirit enough.

In your view could this be true ?

In my perspective and experience (i.e. the “long in the tooth view”) most fellowships and denominations will experience phases in which the focus will shift regarding aspects of theology and discipleship. It may be a slow shift, one that may take longer than a single lifetime.