The Secret to Knowing What God Wants You to Do Next
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Hey everybody, welcome back. Glad to have you here. I was having a conversation with an old friend of mine and we got into practical ways of being led by the spirit. You know, we read the scriptures that say we should or will be guided by Holy Spirit and we nod along in agreement. We say amen or whatever. But how does living by the spirit actually look in practice? That's what I want to cover today.
You ready? Then picture this scene with me. There's a man walking along a dusty road between Jerusalem and Gaza. It's hot. The sun beats down mercilessly. And this road stretches through desert wilderness. But this isn't just any traveler.
This is Philillip, one of the early followers of Jesus. And he's not on this road by accident. An angel of the Lord had appeared to him with specific instructions. Arise and go toward the south to the way that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert. That's all Philip knew. No explanation, no 5-year plan.
Just go to this desert road over there. As Philip walks, he sees something unusual off in the distance. It's a chariot, clearly expensive, with guards and servants. And inside sits a man reading from a scroll. This man, we learn from Acts chapter 8, is an Ethiopian unic. He's a court official of great importance who manages the entire treasury of Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians. He's returning from Jerusalem where he'd gone to worship, and he's reading from the prophet Isaiah.
Now, here's where it gets really interesting. The spirit speaks to Philillip, not an angel this time, but the spirit himself. Go near and join yourself to this chariot. That's it. No explanation about what to say. No guarantee of how it'll be received. Just go near.
Philip could have thought of a dozen reasons why this was a bad idea. This is obviously a powerful man with armed guards. Philip's just some random guy from nowhere special. But he obeys and he runs to the chariot. He doesn't walk, he runs. So he doesn't hesitate to follow the spirit's leading. That's important.
Well, as he gets close, Philip hears the man reading aloud from Isaiah 53. The passage he's reading says, "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, as a lamb before his sheerer is silent, so he doesn't open his mouth. In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away. Who will declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth." The Ethiopian looks up at Philip and asks about whom does the prophet say this about himself or about someone else? Now notice there notice the Ethiopian unic he's not upset that Philip has joined himself to his chariot even though Philip is a nobody.
So even though the passage doesn't say it, it seems pretty clear that the unic is also being led by the spirit here. And Philip sees this. He recognizes his moment. Starting from that very scripture, he tells the Ethiopian about Jesus. As they travel along that desert road, they come upon some water and the Ethiopian says, "Look, here's water. What prevents me from getting baptized?" They stop the chariot.
Both men go down into the water and Philip baptizes him. The moment they come up from the water, the spirit of the Lord catches Philillip away. Just like that, he's gone. transported to another city called Azotus. The Ethiopian never sees him again, but continues on his way rejoicing.
This account from Acts 8 shows us something profound about how God's spirit leads his people. Philip didn't have the full picture. He didn't know why he was going to a desert road. He didn't know about the Ethiopian at all. He didn't know about the divine appointment that would change the trajectory of Christianity in Africa. He just knew the next step and he took it. Now, we live in a world that is obsessed with having everything figured out.
We want the 5-year plan, the 10year vision, the complete road map from where we are to where we're going. We're taught to be strategic, to analyze every angle to minimize risk and maximize return. And don't get me wrong, there is wisdom in planning for sure. Proverbs 16:9 tells us, "A man's heart plans his course, but the Lord directs his steps." Notice, it doesn't say we shouldn't plan, but it says that even with our plans, God directs our actual steps. That's important. But here's what I've come to understand about being led by the Spirit.
It really very often feels less like following a GPS with turnbyturn guidance and much more like walking with a trusted friend who says, "Hey, come over here for a second. I want to show you something." You don't always know where you're going, but you know who you're with. And that makes all the difference because you trust him. Isaiah 30:21 says, "And when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, "This is the way. Walk in it." That voice behind you, isn't that interesting?
It's not a voice ahead of you showing you the whole journey. It's a voice behind you, correcting your course as you go, keeping you on the path one step at a time. I wanted to take a moment to tell you about my book, The Broken Mirror: Rediscovering Our True Nature in Christ. Readers call it a fantastic book where you will feel yourself discovering your identity in Christ. One reviewer praised it as five-star material for the spiritual mystic or group Bible study. It's time to escape legalism and shame. Discover you're already God's beloved child with divine nature flowing through you with what reviewers describe as excellent writing style and elegant pros like a campfire discussion with a knowledgeable and gifted recon tour journey from Genesis to Revelation uncovering your true identity.
This book shows how to access God's peace, wisdom, and strength from within. Your struggles become opportunities for divine light to shine through. available in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audiobook. The link to the book is in the video description. May God bless your journey along his path for you. Now, think about what this means for how we make decisions. We're often paralyzed because we're trying to see too far ahead.
We want guarantees. We want to know that if we take this job, it'll lead to that promotion, which will lead to that salary, which will lead to this lifestyle. But what if God's leading is more immediate than that? What if it's simply take this job, I've got something for you there, but you won't understand it until you're in it. There's this phenomenon that many believers experience that I like to call being in flow with the spirit. It's when you know deep in your bones that something is the right decision. Not because you've analyzed it to death, not because it makes perfect sense on paper, but because there's this settling, this feeling in your spirit, this peace that passes understanding, as Philippians 4:7 describes it.
It's like when you're trying to tune an old radio and you're turning the dial through all the static and suddenly you hit that sweet spot where the signal comes through clear. That's what it feels like when you're aligned with what the spirit is doing. But here's the thing about this flow, this leading of the spirit. It requires us to be in a certain state of mind and heart. Jesus said in John 10:27, "My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me." The sheep have to hear the shepherd's voice. What if they're making too much noise themselves?
What if they're so focused on their own bleeding, their own problems, their own agendas that they can't hear the shepherd calling? Well, then they're not going to be able to follow them, are they? And that brings us to something crucial about spiritual receptivity. You could say that there are two primary states of being we operate from. There's what one might call the higher order state, a state of peace, trust, openness, spiritual awareness. When we're in that state, we're receptive to God's leading. We can hear that still small voice that Elijah heard in First Kings 19:12.
We're aware of the divine appointments around us. We notice the prompings of the spirit. We're tuned for it as it were. But then there's the lower order state where we're consumed by anxiety, fear, anger, bitterness, or just self-focus. In that state, we're so wrapped up in our own drama that we can't hear God. We couldn't hear him if he was shouting at us. We're looking in all the wrong directions, trying to force solutions, manipulate outcomes, and control everything around us.
It's like trying to hear someone whisper when you're screaming at the top of your lungs. It's just not going to get through. Think about Peter walking on water in Matthew 14. When Peter kept his eyes focused on Jesus, he walked on water. He was able to share in that miracle. He was in that higher order state, faithfilled, focused, receptive. But the moment he looked at the wind and the waves, he began to sink.
He shifted to that lower order state filled with fear, focused on problems, close off to the miraculous possibility that was right in front of him with Jesus right in front of him. Now, this isn't about being perfect or never having problems. Even Paul talked about his thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12 7-9. Three times he pleaded with the Lord to take it away. And God said, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Sometimes being led by the spirit means accepting that certain struggles are just going to remain, but God's grace will be sufficient in them. The question becomes this.
How do we cultivate that higher order state when we can hear and respond to the spirit's leading? Well, first it requires what I call spiritual hygiene. Just like we brush our teeth and we take a shower every day, we need daily practices that cleanse our spiritual perception. That includes time in God's word. Not just reading it like a textbook, but meditating on it, letting it wash over us. Psalm 119 verse 105 says, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." Notice it's a lamp to our feet.
It shows us the next step, not a flood light showing the whole journey. The next step is enough. That's where faith comes in. You trust that God is giving you that next step to get you where you need to go. And one more thing about your day daily Bible reading. There's nothing wrong with setting a goal for how much you want to read. But if while you're reading you run into a passage that really intrigues you or hits your spirit, like touches your soul, focus on that.
Pray about that. Do some research about that. Really dig into it. There's a reason why that's calling to you in that moment.
And speaking of prayer, of course, prayer is crucial. But not just talking at God with our lists of requests. It's learning to be quiet before him to listen. Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still and know that I am God." That stillness isn't just physical. It's an inner stillness where we quiet our own agenda enough to sense his. This has happened to me countless times.
I'll say a prayer and then I just stop. I quiet my mind. I'm not thinking. I'm just focused on being present. and I hear a voice in my head or I get the sense that I need to do something and then I do it and lo and behold the prayer is answered. Now sometimes the doing of the thing might take a long time. It's not instantaneous.
It might take days, it might take weeks. It might take months but if I start moving in that path you see the answer to that prayer come. Now, we also need to deal with the things that create static in our spiritual reception. Just like that old radio. I know I'm giving my age away here, but I'm based on the statistics that YouTube gives me. I think most of you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, in the old school radios, when you would turn the knob, you would get static until you got to the right frequency and then the radio station came in clearly.
Well, we also can have spiritual static and we need to be aware of that. unconfessed sin, unresolved bitterness, lack of forgiveness. Those things create a kind of spiritual white noise that's going to make it hard for us to hear God's voice. Psalm 66:18 says, "If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord wouldn't have listened." It works both ways. If we're harboring things that grieve the spirit, it affects our ability to hear him clearly.
But here's what's beautiful about being led by the spirit. It's not about perfection. It's about position. It's about positioning ourselves to hear and respond. Look at the apostles in Acts chapter 2. These weren't perfect people. Peter had denied Jesus three times just weeks earlier.
But they positioned themselves in obedience, waiting in Jerusalem as Jesus had instructed. And when the day of Pentecost came, they were ready to receive what God wanted to pour out. Being led by the spirit, that also means being willing to look foolish by human standards. That's hard. That's hard for us because our nature as human beings is we want to fit in. We want to blend in. We don't want to rock the boat.
We don't want to look silly. It's embarrassing. It's shameful. We think it's going to hurt our standing with the people around us. Think about Philillip again running up to a chariot in the desert. That probably looked ridiculous, especially because he had no idea what the reception would be. Think about Noah building an ark on the ground when it had never rained.
He looked insane to the people around him. Then there's Abraham leaving everything, a comfortable, wealthy life to go into a land he had never seen before. That must have seemed ridiculously irresponsible to all the people he left behind. But 1 Corinthians 1 27 says, "God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise." Sometimes the spirit's leading is going to take you in directions that don't seem to make sense. Not to you and definitely not to other people. You might feel prompted to take a job that pays less but positions you for kingdom impact.
You might feel led to reach out to someone you haven't talked to in years. You might sense God calling you to let go of something you've been gripping tightly, a relationship, a grudge, a dream that's become an idol. The key is learning to recognize the spirit's voice and to distinguish it to distinguish it from all the other voices clamoring for your attention because we got a lot of those, right? We have our desires, other people's expectations, the enemy's deception. A lot of things are fighting for our attention. Jesus said in John 10:es 4 and 5, "When he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them and the sheep follow him for they know his voice. They will by no means follow a stranger but will flee from him for they don't know the voice of strangers.
How do we learn to recognize his voice and his voice alone? Well, the same way we learn to recognize anybody's voice by spending time with them. The more time you spend in God's presence in his word, in prayer, in worship, the more familiar his voice is going to become to you. You'll start to recognize that tone, the character, the fruit of his leading. God's voice will never contradict his written word. So, you have to be familiar with his word. It's always going to lead you toward love, toward peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
All the fruits of the spirit listed in Galatians chapter 5. And there's also something to be said about the timing of God's revelations. Again, in Philip's story, notice that he didn't get all the information at once. First, he was just told to go to that road. Then, when he got there, he was told to approach the chariot. Then, as he approached, he heard what the Ethiopian was reading. Each piece of information came exactly when Philip needed it, not before.
Remember back to Psalms, right? Your word is a light to my step, right? It's a footstep, one step at a time. You're not going to get the whole story up front. If you got that, what good would faith be? You wouldn't need it. We want God to show us the whole picture before we take the first step.
That's our natural inclination. But faith doesn't work that way. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen. If we could see the whole journey, we wouldn't need faith. God reveals what we need to know when we need to know it and not a moment before. This principle of that progressive revelation, it keeps us dependent on God. If he showed us everything at once, we'd probably be overwhelmed.
Let's be real. we would be overwhelmed or worse, we'd think we couldn't handle it on our own. But when he reveals things step by step, we have to keep coming back to him. Keep listening. Keep depending on his guidance. Now, let me illustrate this for you. I didn't write this.
I just thought of this. Uh Beth had me build a piece of furniture for her the other day. She bought it on Amazon and it was pretty complicated. And they always tell you to read the whole manual before you actually attempt to build it. And I get why they do that because they want you to not miss any steps or do something wrong on one of the steps on the way. But I'm not going to lie, I never do that. Step by step, I put one little piece together and then the next little piece and then the next and then the next and then the next.
And slowly you start to see that piece of furniture come together. It goes from being just a bunch of separated pieces as tying into an actual functional object and then you put the backing on it, you put the finishing nails on it, and on and on and lo and behold, after what was hours of work, you have this nice piece of fully completed furniture. If you saw all the pieces and you didn't think about building that piece of furniture one step at a time, it would probably be overwhelming and you might not even try to do it at all. Now, that's just a piece of furniture. Think about your whole life. If God told you everything you were going to do, it would just be too overwhelming. You'd be paralyzed.
But one step, we can handle that as humans. Next step, we got that. Next step, we got that. And next thing you know, you've built a life of faith in Christ.
Think about the Israelites in the wilderness following the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. They never knew how long they were going to stay in one place. Numbers 9:17-23 describes how sometimes a cloud would stay for days, sometimes for a month, and sometimes it was just overnight. that had to be ready to move when it moved and ready to stay when it stayed. That's a picture of being led by the spirit. Constant readiness, constant attention, constant willingness to either move or remain still according to his leading.
Living this way requires releasing our death grip on control. You know what I'm talking about. We love to be in charge, to know what's happening, to have contingency plans for our contingency plans. But Proverbs 3:es 5 and 6 tells us to trust in the Lord with all your heart and don't lean on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight. Don't lean on your own understanding. That's hard for us. I know it is.
It's hard for me. We've been taught to trust our gut, follow our heart, be true to ourselves. But Jeremiah 17:9 warns us that the heart is deceitful above all things, and is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it? Now, that's not to say that the heart should never be listened to. What Jeremiah is talking about is our own understanding, our own heart, our own wisdom. It's not always trustworthy.
But when you combine God's leading with a good heart that's been trained by his word, see now that leading is always trustworthy, even if we don't understand it. And that doesn't mean we turn our brains off or we become passive. Being led by the spirit is an active participation. Philip ran to the chariot. He actively engaged with the Ethiopian unic. He used his knowledge of scripture to explain about Jesus. The spirit's leading doesn't bypass our humanity.
It works through it. Romans 8:14 says, "For as many as are led by the spirit of God, these are the children of God." Being led by the spirit, that's part of our identity as God's children. Just like a child takes their parents' hand to cross a busy street, we take the hand of the spirit to navigate this life. The child doesn't need to understand traffic patterns or calculate the speed of oncoming cars. They just need to hold tight to the hand that's holding them and they need to take the next step. That's the point, right?
We're led, but we have to walk. It's our steps. We got to take them. You ever have a a child, cuz I got two kids, and I know what this like, and they don't want to go somewhere, and so they won't walk and you basically have to drag them to where you're going or pick them up because they're just not listening. Don't be like that with the spirit. Don't be a fussy child. Hold your father's hand and take that next step trusting that he's leading you to the right place.
But what about when we miss it? What about when we don't hear correctly or we resist the spirit's leading? Now, here's the beautiful thing about God's grace. He's incredibly patient with us. Jonah ran in the opposite direction from where God told him to go. And God still used him, though. Granted, he had to live in the belly of a fish for 3 days, which I'm sure was not very pleasant.
So, there was a side effect, but God had mercy and grace and brought him back to the plan and to the job that he was supposed to do, which he did. Peter made mistakes, too, even after Pentecost, like when he withdrew from the Gentiles in Galatians chapter 2. But God still used him. The key is to keep coming back, keep listening, keep positioning ourselves to hear and respond. Don't get down when you miss it a time or two, cuz you will. We all do. Just get back up.
Take that next step. Stop making dad drag you where you need to go. Now, sometimes we're in that lower order state, not because of sin, but because of our circumstances. Maybe you've experienced a terrible loss or some disappointment or trauma that's left you feeling disconnected from God's voice. I see this a lot from people who leave false religion or the cult that I came out of. They are traumatized. They don't know God's voice.
They thought they did and now they don't trust themselves. That can bring anxiety. It can bring depression. It can create that internal spiritual noise so you can't sense his leading. God understands this. Psalm 34:18 says, "The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and saves those who have a crushed spirit." In these seasons, being led by the Spirit might look different.
It might be quieter, subtler. It might come through other believers, through circumstances, through his word jumping off the page in a way it never had before. God knows how to reach us wherever we are. He's not limited by our limitations. The goal isn't to achieve some super spiritual state where we never struggle or question. The goal is to cultivate a lifestyle of spiritual attentiveness where we're generally oriented toward God's voice, generally available for his leading, generally willing to follow even when we don't understand.
That kind of life is both challenging and extremely liberating. It's challenging because it requires us to let go of control, to trust beyond our understanding, to sometimes look foolish by worldly standards. It's uncomfortable, but it's liberating because we're not carrying the full weight of figuring everything out. That's hard. That talk about producing anxiety. Try to figure out your entire life until the day you die. We don't need all the answers.
We just need to know the one who does take his hand and take the steps that he's telling us to take when he's telling us to take them. When you're truly being led by the spirit, there's a flow to life that's hard to describe, but unmistakable when you experience it. Doors open that shouldn't open. Connections happen that couldn't have been orchestrated. Provisions come from unexpected places. You find yourself in the right place at the right time, not because you planned it, but because you're following the prompings of the spirit.
This doesn't mean life becomes easy or problemf free. Paul was led by the spirit straight into shipwrecks, imprisonments, and beatings and prison and eventually death. But through it all, he could say in Philippians 4:12 and 13, "I know how to be humble. I know also how to abound in everything and in all things. I have learned the seeker both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. The spirit-led life is an adventurous life.
It's unpredictable, sometimes uncomfortable, but always purposeful. It requires us to hold our plans loosely, to be interruptible, to stay sensitive to divine appointments and kingdom opportunities. It means being willing to have our agenda disrupted by God's agenda.
As we close, remember that being led by spirit isn't reserved for super saints or professional ministers. It's the birthright of every believer. Jesus promised in John 16:13, "However, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth." All truth. That promise that's for you. The same spirit who led Philip to the Ethiopian, who led Paul to Macedonia, who led countless believers through history into their divine purpose, even when it didn't seem to make a lot of sense at the time. That same spirit lives in you when you belong to Christ.
The question isn't whether God wants to lead you. He does. The question is whether you're positioned to hear and willing to follow. Are you cultivating that higher order state where revelation can break through? Are you dealing with the things that create static in your spiritual reception? Are you willing to take the next step even if you can't see the whole staircase?
God has divine appointments waiting for you. There are people you're supposed to meet, conversations you're supposed to have, impacts you're supposed to make. But like Philillip, you probably won't see them coming from a distance. You'll discover them as you walk in obedience, one step at a time, led by the spirit. Heaven isn't just a future destination. It's a present reality we can tap into. When we're operating from that higher order state, connected to God's spirit, responsive to his leading, we're experiencing a foretaste of heaven right now, right here.
We're participating in the kingdom of God breaking through into this world. Don't let the noise of your circumstances, your fears, your need for control drown out the voice of the spirit. He's speaking. He's leading. He's working all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. As Romans 8:28 promises, trust the process, trust the leading, and by all means, trust the one who leads.
Let this be our prayer. Aba, Father, we thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth. Forgive us for the times we've been so focused on our own understanding that we've missed your prompings. Help us to cultivate that higher order state where we can hear your voice clearly. Give us courage to follow where you lead even when we can't see the whole path. Teach us to recognize your voice above all the other voices competing for our attention. Help us to trust that you reveal what we need to know exactly when we need to know it.
May we walk in the flow of your spirit, available for divine appointments, sensitive to kingdom opportunities, willing to be led even into unexpected places. Thank you that you don't require perfection, just position. Thank you that your grace is sufficient for our weakness. Lead us, Lord, and give us hearts willing to follow in Jesus name. Amen.
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