(ver 1.1) This is now Part 10 in a series of very important basic Christian Bible lessons on the subject of Being Led by the Spirit of God.  These lessons contain critical spiritual information necessary for the spiritual growth of every Christian and they directly apply to us in the modern world because we are the same church body serving the same God as those in the book of Acts.  We have covered a tremendous amount of information that will not be repeated so if you have not read this from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1” first.   I have been moving through the book of Acts and observing the recorded (direct and indirecly statedt) methods used by God to lead the early church.  We have already observed at least 7 different direct methods either being observed in action or described in words.  These methods will be the same ones that God will use to lead us in these last days.  I believe that the church today requires the Holy Spirit’s involvement just as much and even possibly more than the early church.  The early church certainly encountered great physical opposition and persecution, jail, beatings and even death and these are beginning to emerge on the earth again today as Christians continue to proclaim the same Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Living here in the United States it is often too easy to ignore what is going on in the other parts of the world and in other countries.  But, Christians are being murdered, imprisoned and persecuted for doing nothing but claiming to be a Christian.  The Muslim populations of many countries kill people for them just looking or acting like Christians and doing nothing but giving humanitarian aid to their people.  Christians in Egypt are now under attack from the Muslim Brotherhood and they have burned churches and killed several Christians in the streets in name of their new laws.  A recent Christian in Iran was jailed and sentenced to death for not denouncing his faith in Jesus.  These are the types of things that the Holy Spirit’s guidance can be very beneficial to us to help us avoid.  God already knows the end from the beginning but that does not mean everything that happens is set in concrete.  It means we need to learn to hear from God and be obedient to allow us to be in the right places at the right times to help the right people.  If God knows which flights will crash, it would be best just to not be on that flight, do you agree?  I believe that persecution will increase in these last days as we get nearer to the return of Christ.  Let’s continue to go through the book of Acts to study God’s spiritual leading of the early Church:

ACTS CHAPTER 8

Act 8:1  And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles.

We should recognize what is happening in this chapter because it goes along with many other verses in the New Testament that are pivotal to your spiritual understanding.  The religious Jewish leadership in Jerusalem came down very hard on the rapid expansion of the church of Jesus Christ because they did not believe in the God of their father Abraham anymore.  That statement probably shocks many Christians today that still view Israel as God’s chosen people, but they obviously ignore who it was that hung Jesus on the cross when the God of Abraham came to them personally in the flesh.  This was a clear failure to recognize their God and a direct rejection of their God.  You should learn many things from that reality.  First don’t put your God in a box that limits what He can do.  Because the Jews believed that God was not a man, they failed to see Him when He purposefully chose to come to the earth in the form of a man.  There is a great deal of difference between being a man and appearing to us in the form of a man.  This was God thinking outside of the box and it was a radical approach to take.  The Jews at this time of God’s visitation had replaced the worship of the God of Abraham with a manmade religion full of rules, ignorance and unbelief.  During this time, the church becomes highly motivated to widely disperse from Jerusalem to flee the Jewish persecution and the certain death as we witnessed with the loss of the life of Stephen in chapter 7.  This is a very essential part of my lesson to why it is important to be led by the Spirit of God today.  If you do not see the growing persecution of the church in the modern world then you are living in an ostrich like isolated false reality with your head buried in the proverbial sand. 

Do you believe that these people in the church in Acts fled Jerusalem out of fear or by the guidance of the Holy Spirit?  What was their motivation?  I personally believe that they were led by God to safer places to carry on the spread of the church’s growth in other regions. You of course can believe whatever you like, but only this interpretation fits with my verse that says “those who are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God’ (Rom 8:14).  So if God was not leading them to flee Jerusalem then they are no longer the children of God.  Yes I know they still had free wills and that they could have been doing things independently from God, but why would God write about their independent actions in a book about the acts of the Holy Spirit?  It just doesn’t make sense to me.  This is the book of Acts written about God’s work in the church and for the church.  Therefore, pay attention to what the church is doing and you should be able to see what God is doing for them.

Act 8:4  Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word.

Here is an obviously brilliant strategy move that was missed by Satan.  If Satan would have not persecuted the church they may have remained only in Jerusalem and probably never have grown into the rest of the world.  But, since they were being persecuted relentlessly by the Jews, this verse says they went preaching the Gospel everywhere that they traveled.  If someone is preaching Jesus, is this not God working through them to get others saved?  If they were running away from Jerusalem to hide, this would indicate “fear” based actions, but since they are going and preaching this demonstrates “faith” based actions.   Sometimes Satan is just not that entirely smart in what he does and how he does it.  He never should have killed Jesus on the cross and now Satan should have never persecuted the church and helped them to spread the Gospel to the rest of the world.  Probably the church would have been led by God to go to the rest of the world eventually, but this attack by Satan certainly sped up the process tremendously.  I believe Satan is making the same mistake today in persecuting the church.  I believe this persecution will help motivate the people of God to get the message out before it is too late for all of the other people that have not heard about Jesus.

Act 8:6  And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.

Here we again see the church in unity.  It would definitely appear to me that being led by the Spirit of God will promote the spirit of oneness and agreement.  This is the seventh time in the first 8 chapters of the book of Acts that the church is described to be in unity.  I believe that this is a coming sign of maturity for the body of Christ to go out on.  We must begin to unify and become one harmonious group of believers as the Spirit of God continues to teach us and to guide us.   Expect this to happen or do not expect it to happen, but it will happen either way and you might be left on the outside looking in like the natural Jews.  It is better to be in agreement than to be left out, being offended or not in agreement with God.  I just cannot see the church being raptured as a divided body of believers, if we are not ONE BODY in complete harmony then Satan has won.  You see in the Bible Jesus said a HOUSE DIVIDED will not stand (Mk 3:25).  If we are God’s house and we are divided we will also not stand and that only leaves us defeated.  Do you think the church ends this age defeated?  If not, then you better start praying with me for unity and harmony.  Of course what I am saying is that we should pray what Jesus prayed to get in agreement with His prayer.  Go and read it in John 17 and see what Jesus prayed and then see if you can agree and pray with Him.

Act 8:8  And there was great joy in that city.

If you notice this verse says that the church is filled with joy even in the face of all of the persecution that has recently occurred.  This has to be the work of the Holy Spirit!  Joy must be a sign that God is doing great things, like healing the sick, casting out devils, setting the captives free through His saving grace and doing many other miraculous signs and wonders.  Joy is said to be one of the fruits of the spirit (Gal 5:22).  So Joy should be a fruit present in those being led by the Spirit of God today.  I believe that God will lead His people to help others to spread this same joy.  These are the benefits of being led by the Spirit of God.  If you are in despair and in gloom, downcast, looking down at the circumstances around you, then you are not being led by the Spirit of the Almighty God.  Do you understand that?  There are many other examples of men and women being led by the Spirit of God in this chapter but I’ll end the chapter 8 discussion with one more example of the repeated involvement of angels:

Act 8:26  And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.

An angel again appears to Phillip and gives him exact directions from God.  This is clearly an external manifestation of the Spirit of God helping to guide the early church.  This is at least the third time that angels were directly used by God in just the first 8 chapters of Acts.  Always expect the involvement of angels and God will use them today as needed.  Let’s move on quickly to chapter 9 and I’ll end this lesson with what we find in this chapter.

ACTS CHAPTER 9

Act 9:3  And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:

In chapter 9 of Acts we can see the manifestation of spiritual guidance through God’s use of visions that were first mentioned by Peter in Acts chapter 2.   You may recall that Stephen while being stoned had a vision so this is not God’s first usage of visions in the book of Acts, but we are about to see a new emphasis placed on this subject as a very direct selected method of God to communicate with men on the earth.  Take note of this fact as this chapter begins; Saul is an unsaved man on the road to Damascus. Saul is not born again when this vision occurs and he doesn’t even believe in Jesus yet.  Saul is traveling on the road to Damascus to persecute the church and then Jesus suddenly appears to him in a vision as a bright shining light from heaven.  Spiritual visions are a very legal communication method recorded in the Bible for Christians and non-Christians and these will continue to occur as the Lord desires to get a message to those as He wills.  There are different categories of visions, but this vision was an open type of vision.  Meaning Saul was wide awake and his eyes were wide open while it was happening.  Jesus basically tells Saul in this vision to go into the city and wait there for further directions.  This is clearly an example of Saul being led by God directly using certain limited instructions for guidance.  This is a very important part of learning to be led by the Spirit of God.  God will rarely tell you everything that you need to know and He will normally lead you using a step by step instruction methodology or process.  This method insures your faithfulness and your obedience and forces you to walk by faith and not by your sight (2 Cor 5:7).  This was not a pun that I intended to make but, since Saul was struck blind during this encounter it does apply.  Saul is learning some things from God the hard way because of his past actions.  As you read down in this chapter you will see Jesus also appearing to a disciple in Damascus named Ananias and Jesus tells him what to do and where to go to see Saul.  This proves that God can give a vision to even a lowly disciple as well as a future apostle.  This informs me that even I am qualified to be have a vision if God chooses to do that.   Let’s read about the vision of Ananias:

Act 9:11  And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth,

Act 9:12  And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.

Jesus appears to Ananias in another open vision and tells him where to go, what to do, who he is going to see and what to say to Saul.  Jesus also reveals that Saul is praying and has seen another vision.  We can conclude from this information that visions can occur many times while you are praying in private since Ananias and Saul are both said to have had visions this way.  This is now God’s display of three different visions in this one chapter.  So visions must still be a significant way of leading people even in the modern church based upon the frequency of the usage in this chapter alone.  I knew one modern day preacher that gave his testimony of how God had given him several visions and in these he was also praying when they occurred.  Therefore, praying and seeing visions is a potential connecting manifestations of God.  But, I want to reemphasize that none of these men asked to see a vision in this chapter; this was clearly God’s choice and not theirs.  I’m just teaching that you should not be surprised if God still selects this method.  Ananias obeyed Jesus’ instructions and goes to the house where Saul is waiting and tells him the Lord has sent me to lay hands on you so that you might receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.   God is obviously working and leading the church to establish the greater purpose and plan of God and these are all examples of what God should be doing today in the church.  Can you see how God is leading every church member in this book?  I know some examples are only implied while others like Saul and Ananias are more plainly laid out.  But, surely you can see how God is working to help guide and grow the church.  Let’s move on to another manifestation of the Spirit of God at work in this chapter:

Act 9:24  But their laying await was known of Saul. And they watched the gates day and night to kill him.

Here is another indirect New Testament spiritual concept of the background work of the Holy Spirit.  The Jews were conspiring to kill Saul and Saul knew it.  How did Saul know this?  You could assume many possible explanations of the origination of this knowledge.  For example, Saul could have based this knowledge upon his past experience with the Jews using him to kill the new members in the church.  So this knowledge could have been based upon personal experience of the past.  Now that Saul was a new member of the same body, he may have concluded that he was next on the list to be killed.  However, this is still a mental thought process of reasoning and this could have still been God leading him.  I personally believe that Saul heard from God, but that this hearing from God could have been his intuition at work.  What is intuition?  Females are often attributed with this feature, but it really is more a God quality or a spiritual quality than it is a female only quality.  I really believe that females just normally have a greater sensitivity to listening to their intuition and this helps them more than males that ignore it and fall easily into troubles that God tried to get them out of.  An intuition is like an internal knowing about something that has not yet happened.  Of course an intuition does not mean that what you know will happen, it only means if you do nothing different then it will happen.  In other words I believe that an intuition is a spiritual warning of what might occur if you continue to do nothing to change it.  I have seen examples of this with mothers and their children many times.  Perhaps you have also.  I have seen this occur when one mother just has a sense that something is wrong and she goes and checks on a child and they needed her help.   What do the disciples do with this knowledge of potential danger given to them by the leading of the Holy Spirit?

Act 9:25  Then the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket.

You can clearly see they were led to avoid the danger and not to confront it.  This is actually a great lesson to learn from.  Danger and evil exists in the world.  It is often better to avoid these rather than to try to fight against them or to overcome them.   To be led by the Spirit of God to be in the right places at the right times is a very relevant method of avoiding danger, harm or even death as in this verse in Acts.  Learn to listen to your internal intuitions and this could potentially save your life.  Intuition is just an inner state of knowing or consciousness that occurs without any explanation and it could be very easily ignored.  There will usually be no voices heard by you, you just will know something and this is normally the Spirit of God giving you guidance and protection.  What occurred in this chapter based upon this knowing?  The disciples lowered Saul from the city in a basket in the middle of the night and Saul departs to go back to Jerusalem avoiding the eminent danger.  Clearly this was spiritual guidance to me, but yet it is not directly called that so it is easily explained away. 

You are going to have to lern how to read the Bible with your spiritual eyes open wide to see what is being stated at times.  Just learn what I am trying to teach you, that this method of guidance that I am calling intuition from God can be an internal knowing, awareness, consciousness or perception of a coming event in the world that you can avoid if you choose to listen and obey.  This is really not that strange if you think about it.  It happens in the wild animal kingdom every day.   Back before the giant tsunami hit the coasts of Asia and Africa in 2004 killing literally many thousands of people, the majority of the wild animals had already fled to higher ground.  How many people do you think had the same intuition as the wild animals and ignored it and died that day because they were too busy, distracted or occupied with other worldly things?  I think that is a very good question.

That might have been one of my most important points of the entire lesson today about intuition.  This method of spiritual guidance from God is used extensively in the lives of every believer.  It is only when believers ignore this spiritual knowledge that they find themselves regretting that they should have done something different.  Here is another example of this intuitive action of God and it occurs in the same chapter:

Act 9:30  Which when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus.

Here are the disciples in the church being led by the Spirit of God again by an internal knowledge.  This is not well described and I understand that there are many ways to interpret this information as it is given.  But, that is just the way God wrote the Bible to give every man a choice in what they believe.  Seeing the spiritual things in the Bible is probably the most difficult part of understanding what God has written.  This Greek word in this verse translated as “knew” is an internal perception and awareness that I believe occurred by the work of the Spirit of God even thought this is not directly stated.  We are not clearly informed that this information came from God, nor are we taught directly that this was God leading His church in this verse alone.  That is why we use the Bible to help us interpret the Bible.  These are implied meanings that were hidden within the text.  After all if God would have written everything about every subject in every verse you would have nothing to search to find in the Bible.  Perhaps the next verse will help us to establish the context and the direct association of God’s leading to what is happening in this chapter:

Act 9:31  Then had the churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.

There is great deal of information in this single verse about my subject of being led by the Spirit of God.  It introduces you to two new radical concepts that I have not directly discussed.  It also shows the purpose or the reason for the leading of the Holy Spirit in this verse and I’ll talk more about that in a minute.  First, the Greek word translated “rest” means to be quiet and at peace.  Wow, that is an important part of my subject to grasp.  If you are not at peace then you are not being led by the God of peace (Col 3:15).  Being in peace and at peace is a major factor for hearing from God.  Remember what has happened to the church in the previous chapters.  The Jews in the synagogues are plotting to kill the disciples, beat them and put them all into prison.  Stephen was stoned to death by the Jews and Saul in chapter 7.  Then in one recent Acts 5 church service a man and his wife both fell down dead because they lied to the Holy Ghost.  How can anyone be “at rest” when these types of events are happening all around them?  I hope that you are getting the concepts that are being taught by God in these verses.  According to God it should not matter what is happening around you if you believe that God is guiding you.  According to God there should exist an atmosphere of being in peace regardless of the external circumstances.  Do you understand this concept of being in peace and its role in being led by the Spirit of God?  If not I may try to get into that in more depth in a future lesson or even later in this lesson.  Just don’t let the concept of “peace” get away from you.  You should be able to judge your heart and see if you are in peace right now.  This will help you to know if you are being led by the Spirit of God.  The other word in this verse that I want to focus in on is the Greek word translated as “comfort”.  Because this act of comforting is the stated work of the Spirit of God by direct association.  Do you recall what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit’s coming?

Joh 14:16  And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

The Holy Spirit is said to be another Comforter.  That implies Jesus was the first Comforter for the human race because Jesus brought a light into the world that would help alleviate darkness’s dominion over man.   So Jesus was a physical comfort to those that accepted Him while He was present upon the earth.  But, Jesus also left this earth physically and He told us that it was better for Him to go than to stay (John 16:7).  Why was that?  Clearly Jesus leaving us physically left a void or a vacuum that needed to be filled for the church to continue.  Jesus said that His departure was better for us because we would now have an even greater internal ever present comforter that was given called the indwelling Holy Spirit.  You see the problem with a physical Jesus was that He was only one man in a world of millions and now billions of people.  It would have been impossible for a physical Jesus to visit everyone personally and to listen to what each needed.  However, in a Spiritual form He is ever present within every believer and able to listen to and to speak to everyone simultaneously.  This was the wisdom of God being displayed:

Joh 14:26  But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

Can you read these verses and see the intimate working of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts?  This verse describes some of the behind the scene and seldom mentioned works of God in Acts.  The Spirit of God was poured out on the church in Acts 2 and this activity of God permits the words of Jesus in this verse to be fulfilled in every believer that participates.  The Holy Spirit will teach us all things and then the Holy Spirit will bring to our remembrance what Jesus has taught us.  Right here we have a major clue to how God led the early church in Acts and how He will lead us even today.  Do you remember that the very day the Holy Spirit was poured out in Jerusalem in Acts 2?  Peter stood up and spoke without being prepared to teach or preach anything?  Peter had no notes, no prepared script, no Bible in front of him and yet he declared the precise right things for the moment to get many saved.  How did Peter do this?  This was clearly the Holy Spirit giving Peter thoughts on verses and words to preach to those that were standing around observing.  This is clearly an example of the words of Jesus in John 14:26 being fulfilled.  You can observe this occurring throughout the book of Acts several times.  No one has any prepared notes; they just stand up and speak some very profound truths that came from within them.  I do this all of the time in my Bible lessons.  I start typing a lesson without a plan by faith and some of the lessons that I read after I have finished even I am amazed at what God has done and said.  This is the Holy Spirit bringing to our remembrance what we have learned from the Bible.  It is a mental process or a thought process, but yet it originates from the Spirit of God.  It is very difficult to describe if you have never experienced it, you are either going to have to take my word for it or you are going to have to learn to listen for Him inside of you to learn how it works.  Please note why this is so difficult to understand.  Where do thoughts originate?  They come from the soul realm which is also called your mind.  But, there are three possible originations for every thought that you have.  One possibility is you!  You can have a thought.  Two is God and God can give you a thought.  But, three is Satan and he can also give you many evil and contrary thoughts.  This is where discernment comes into play.  If you have a thought about God, the Bible, Jesus, or things that are good, it probably originated from God.  If you have a thought of lust, sin, or evil doing, then it probably came from the devil.  God teaches us in John 14:26 that He will cause us to remember Him and His Words and therefore any other type of thoughts are probably something you should ignore especially if they are evil.  I could talk a lot about thoughts but I do not want to get into that level of detail in this lesson today.

Let’s discuss briefly the term a “Comforter” or a “Counselor” and find the meaning of this word.  If you research it, you will find that it means “intercessor” or “advocate”.  Both of these are spoken word types of works.  Someone who intercedes will speak words of intercession for someone.  An advocate is a term many times associated with a lawyer.  This is an occupation that is performed by an individual with a specialized education and ability to speak for you.  Therefore, a comforter is always the spoken word based action of an individual to bring help to someone who is in need.  Is that you?  I know it is me; I would clearly have nothing to say without God’s help.  Let’s go back to Act 9:31 again and review the “comfort of the Holy Ghost”.  This Greek word is actually a different Greek word than what we found in John 14 when Jesus was describing the Holy Spirit to be our Comforter.  However it is merely the difference between a noun in one place and a verb in another place.  Let’s look at the definition of this word G3874 in Acts 9:31 found in the Strong’s:

G3874

From G3870; imploration, hortation, solace: – comfort, consolation, exhortation, intreaty.

Here is a word that is an awesome display of the divine character and nature of God.  God gets accused of orchestrating everything because of His sovereignty, but why would a sovereign God have to “implore” anyone if God was causing everything to occur?  Do you know what “imploration” means?  It is the extended effort of an individual to plead to someone, to beseech someone and to appeal to them to do something.   It is a calling out to come.  How did I teach you that the Spirit of God leads His people?  I tried to teach you that the Spirit of God uses the Shepherd and sheep method.  God calls His sheep to follow Him, and He does this, using His kind and loving soft words of imploration, beseeching them to come and for them to follow where He wants to lead them.  However, God does not ever force anyone to follow Him as I have already stated.  Neither does God yell and demand that you follow Him.  Both of those would violate the character and the definition of what the Bible says about God.  This Greek word as you can see comes from another root Greek word and it has the following meaning:

G3870

From G3844 and G2564; to call near, that is, invite, invoke (by imploration, hortation or consolation): – beseech, call for, (be of good) comfort, desire, (give) exhort (-ation), intreat, pray.

This word means “to call to be near”.  Wow, is that God or what?   These are clearly the words and the works of a loving Holy Spirit and not a forceful God.  These are clearly words of a spoken invitation, meaning people who hear the invitation have the choice to do what they want with it.  Anyone can ignore it to do their own thing.  But, by following the invitation, you can see that you will remain close to the one that you need to follow and this is the Spirit of God.  Finally why did God do all of this for the church in Acts 9:31?  I told you that this verse gave us the reason, but I did not tell you what that reason was yet.  The verse has another Greek word that was translated as “edified”.  Edified is a past tense declarative that teaches of a completed action.   Let’s review the Strong’s definition of this word for clarification:

G3618

From the same as G3619; to be a house builder, that is, construct or (figuratively) confirm: – (be in) build (-er, -ing, up), edify, embolden.

Do you see what this word means?  Is God building a house?  If you do not understand this, then you have not read all of my other Bible lessons on God’s Spiritual Family.  There is a new House of God being built in the spiritual realm and God is doing this with us His people.  We are the individual building blocks in this spiritual house of Jesus (1 Peter 2:5) and collectively we are called the New Jerusalem in Revelation.  I do not have time to explain all of that to you, so you will have to go and read and study the other Bible lessons on this subject in order to fully comprehend what I just said.  Just take note that edification is a building work of God.  God is building us up and growing the church and this is His purpose and His plan being fulfilled.  Therefore I have concluded that everything we have observed so far in the Book of Acts is our God doing things to help us, to grow us and to build us up together in unity.  I think I have gone long enough in this lesson so I’ll end it here.

I have been going through the book of Acts to find out how God lead the early church in order to see how God might lead us today.  I have covered a lot of information given to us in only 9 chapters out of 28.  So far we have only briefly looked at one fourth of the book and I’m not sure if I should continue going through every chapter yet.  If you feel this is beneficial let me know and this might help determine how I continue with this series.  Let’s review some of the key points from today so that you do not let them slip away.

God has used at least 7 different direct methods to guide the church in the first 9 chapters of Acts.

1. Angels
2. The Written Word of God
3. Prayer
4. Dreams and Visions
5. Inward Witness (Intuition, thoughts)
6. Still small voice of the Holy Spirit
7. Preachers with a message from God

There were also five key related subjects that I either reviewed or introduced you to today about the subject of being led by the Spirit of God:

1. The Church will be in united harmony when they are all led by the Spirit of God.
2. The Church will be in a state of Joy if they are being led by the Spirit of God.
3. The Peace of God/Rest will rule the church in order to hear from God.
4. The Spirit of God is our eternal Comforter and
5. God will bring to our remembrance what Jesus has taught us.

From these works of God, I said it was the peace that allowed us to hear God speak and direct us.  What I meant by that was if you are in a state of busy, fear, turmoil, or internal confusion, your mind is incapable of hearing anything that God says clearly.  There is a verse that is very applicable to my subject of you having peace and hearing from God and it says “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps 46:10).  This verse infers that it matters how and even when you can hear from God.  To be still is the opposite of being very busy.  To be still is a form of quietness that crosses into multiple realms of dimension.  There is the physical realm, the emotional realm, the mental realm and the spiritual realm and you can be busy moving around in each of these and miss out on God’s leading.   God is a perfect Gentleman.  Meaning God is not going to interrupt your thoughts to give you His.  That would be the ultimate sign of rudeness and disrespect and God is not that way.   If you want to hear from God you are going to have to be quiet and listen.  This is not always easy, I know.  But, you will be glad if you will try to develop it.  I’m not talking about Yoga, meditation or any other metaphysical type of demonic activity.   That is not what I am teaching you to do.  These are evil acts of Satan designed to attempt to get you off into another direction of spiritual evil guidance.  I guess I better stop here for now because I could talk a lot about the counterfeit that is intended to distract you from the real.  In conclusion I wanted to re-emphasize why the Holy Spirits guides anyone.  We learned today that it was for our edification.  To be edified is to be built up in the Lord.  It is a building process or a spiritual construction process that only God can accomplish.  This is why it is essential to hear from the Spirit of God before you do anything.  I’ll end with this scripture:

Psa 127:1  A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

Did you see what God said in this verse about what He is doing?  God is building a house and He even associates it to a city and this is not a physical house or city but it is rather a new spiritual house and city.  He also says if we try to build it independently from Him, then we are laboring, working, extending effort, exerting or struggling in vain.  This means that He must be directly involved in what we do or it is a worthless effort on our part.  Now are you beginning to make the connection to what is happening in the Book of Acts?  God is just doing a spiritual construction process and giving you some of the details to how it works in this lesson, but not every detail is clearly provided.  However, this is why we are studying this subject today.  Thanks for taking the time to read and to study the Bible with me and I pray that you were blessed with new spiritual insight and understanding.  Leave me a comment or press like on this post if you understood the lesson.  It will help me know that I am doing more than just casting God’s pearls before swine if someone actually acknowledges God’s work.  God Bless you until next time.

If you would like to continue reading in this series you may go now to “Part 11“.