Led by the Spirit: Following the Prompting of the Holy Spirit

Do you need God’s power to heal your body, rescue your loved one, or work a miracle in your finances?

Well, supernatural provision is available for you — NOW! So, what can you do to connect to God’s help, allowing His life-changing power to work in your life? You can learn to hear from God more accurately!

As you learn to hear from the Lord and follow His guidance, you will see His power flowing and manifesting His victory in your life. God is for you! He wants to see you overcome every adversity and win every battle. He has scheduled victory for every day of your life. But to walk in His victory, we have to follow His path.

The Lord who takes up your cause, the Holy One of Israel, says, I am the Lord your God, who is teaching you for your profit, guiding you by the way in which you are to go (Isaiah 48:17 BBE).

God’s teaching and guidance are two vital elements you need in your life consistently. First, His teaching establishes wisdom as a structure for your life, causing you to think right. With His wisdom as a structure for your thought processes, your decisions will be accurate and in line with God’s will.

The teaching of God’s Word provides a foundation for the guidance of the Lord, so don’t bypass this step! Some people become so obsessed with the idea of hearing from God that they neglect hearing Him in His written Word. Instead, they seek to hear Him in a spectacular way which opens them up to deception. When you have the security system of knowing what God has already established in His Word, you have a Word of God “firewall” that protects against enemy cyberattacks to your spirit.

While God’s written Word identifies His general will for your life, He has placed His Holy Spirit in your heart to guide you into the details and specifics of His plan that you can’t identify any other way. God desires to speak to you, directing and leading you specifically, and He wants you to be certain it is Him guiding you to act so that you move promptly.

You Can Start from Scratch

In my life before Christ Jesus, I followed the impulses of the world around me. I yielded to every sinful temptation energized by demonic influences. As a result, I spent years in drug addiction, prostitution, and a life of crime. I continued this path even after I lost custody of my children and my first husband died of an overdose. But my own cocaine overdose brought me face-to-face with my need for salvation. (For more, read Escaping Hell: A True Story of God’s Miraculous Power to Restore a Life Bent on Destruction.)

So, when I first came to know the Lord, I didn’t know anything about how to hear from Him, much less how to follow the leading of His Spirit. But I was determined to walk with Him! I couldn’t go back to the way my life was before.

I asked God to help me. In the beginning, there were times I wasn’t sure if what I was hearing was me or God. But as I have walked with Him, I’ve learned to recognize how He communicates with my spirit. 

Spiritual Communication

The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies together with our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are children of God (Romans 8:16 AMPC).

From my perspective, knowing I am a child of God is one of the most important things I will ever need to know. The Lord has chosen to make this known to me by a form of communication that cannot be duplicated or manipulated by the devil. The Holy Spirit Himself witnesses or testifies this truth directly to my heart, my spirit. There is no physical evidence that can be seen or felt to prove to me that I am a child of God, but the Holy Spirit assures me of something that is only visible in the spiritual arena.

Through that prayer, God’s Spirit confirms in our spirits that we are His children (Romans 8:16 VOICE).

When that happens, it is the Spirit Himself giving supporting witness to what our own spirit is saying, that we are God’s children (Romans 8:16 NTE).

For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we really are God’s children (Romans 8:16 TLB).

The phrases used in the various translations of Romans 8:16 provide a way for you to describe the way God communicates with you. The Holy Spirit testifies together with your spirit, assuring you. God’s Spirit confirms and gives supporting witness. The Holy Spirit speaks to you deep in your heart!

Make God’s Preference Your Preference

God’s communication is not emotional or mental; it is spiritual communication directly from the Holy Spirit to our hearts. Praise God that we don’t have to ask the Lord to show us a sign like Gideon did because we have the ability to hear God in our hearts. We don’t have to wait 21 days for the angels to fight through with a reply to our prayers like Daniel did because the Holy Spirit can speak directly to us! And the enemy doesn’t even know what God is saying if we don’t tell it.

Since God prefers this method of communication, you should prefer it too. Don’t demand that God lead you by outward evidence or events that the enemy could manipulate. Although God may lead you with a dream, a word of knowledge, or an angelic visitation, don’t insist on those dramatic leadings. Trust in the witness of the Holy Spirit and become skilled in recognizing His voice in your inner man. Look for God to lead you by His Spirit in your spirit!

Cultivate Peace in Your Heart

And then the peace of God, which transcends all our powers of thought, will be a garrison to guard your hearts and minds in union with Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7 (WNT).

One vital key to hearing from God is to cultivate the fruit of peace in your heart. Peace clears the air of the distractions of life that want your attention. Because the Holy Spirit communicates directly to your heart, you have to keep it clear of anxiety, fear, and worry. A cluttered heart will have difficulty receiving from God.

Peace is one of the ways you will identify that it is God speaking to you or prompting you to do something. Colossians 3:15 (WET) says, “And the peace of Christ, let it be acting as umpire in your hearts….” What does the umpire do? He makes the final call. God’s peace will signal to you if your decision is the right one or not. If you don’t have peace about the situation, don’t be pressured to move forward. But if you have the peace of God about your decision, it’s like the Holy Spirit standing over home base shouting, “SAFE!” So, if you have peace, follow it.

Another way to describe the peace of God in His leadings is to visualize a green light or red light. When you drive down the road, and the lights are green, you keep going. You are watching ahead for the lights to change to red, but as long as you have a green light, you keep moving forward. If the Holy Spirit needs to slow you down or redirect you, He will let you know. Be sensitive to His “red light.”

Since the Holy Spirit guides us with the presence of God’s peace, you must make peace a priority. You can’t live a stressed, worried, “tore up from the floor up” life and expect to hear clearly what the Spirit of God is telling you to do. The Bible instructs you to guard your heart with all diligence (Pro. 4:23). Jesus warned, “Let not your heart be troubled…”(John 14:1).

When you pray about a situation, make the declaration, “Father, I believe You will reveal to my spirit the right decision to make. I believe You lead me to do the right thing.” When the leading comes, act on it in faith. Don’t pull the prompting of the Holy Spirit into your mind and reason it away. Don’t give your flesh the opportunity to “muddy the water” with doubt or questioning. Instead, open your mouth and declare, “God, this is what I have in my heart. I’m going to respond to Your leading and trust You to help me.”