Imagine having someone more experienced and wiser than you, someone who’s an expert in the very areas you feel out of depth, personally guiding you to success. Child of God, you have Him! In this practical message by Joseph Prince, discover how you have the Holy Spirit living in you and how you can learn to follow His promptings in every area of your life. Learn how you can:
Folks, this is what the Bible says.
Walk in the Spirit!
“Walk in the Spirit and you
shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”
Many of us have this in our minds:
We actually read it
the other way around.
“Do your best, not to
fulfill the lust of your flesh.”
“And then, you’ll walk in the Spirit.”
This is not what the Scriptures teach.
The Scriptures teach it
in the positive way:
“Walk in the Spirit and you will
not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”
You don’t have to worry
about the lust of the flesh.
Just walk in the Spirit and you will
not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Amen. Very clear!
So our focus has got to be
walking in the Spirit.
Not trying to avoid
fulfilling the lust of the flesh.
For the more you try to do that,
you are under the law.
And the more you try to do that,
the more you will fall into sin.
As many of you know that
in your own experience.
So to follow the Spirit is not hard.
You see, once you’re born again,
you have life, eternal life
on the inside of you and the
Holy Spirit comes and dwells in you.
And He will prompt you.
It is not so much a voice.
People are looking for
the voice of God.
“I want to hear the voice of God.”
I remember when I was much younger,
I always look for conferences or books,
or anything that teaches me on
how to hear the voice of God,
only to find that the
ways of God are simple.
Go back to the basics!
When God says: “For as many
as are led by the Spirit of God,”
“these are the sons of God.”
It should not be hard!
Even a child knows the
voice of the mother.
So even as a baby Christian,
if you are a young Christian,
you should not be going for courses,
trying to learn to hear the voice of God.
Jesus said it like this.
It is a statement of fact!
“My sheep hear My voice
and they follow Me.”
He didn’t say: “My sheep need
to learn to hear My voice.”
To learn speaks of abnormality.
So just believe God!
Have a good opinion of God
and know that when He says:
“My sheep hear My voice,”
we hear His voice.
And the voice of a stranger,
we will not follow.
Amen. Praise the Lord.
So we follow the Lord.
Walk in the Spirit!
And you don’t have to worry about
all your fleshly addictions,
all the sinful habits of the flesh.
They will all fall off!
Walk in the Spirit.
And this is very interesting because
it goes against the grain of the flesh.
Let’s say a person is trying to
break his addiction to smoking.
Okay?
And he tries to focus on it.
He tries to put patches on to
try to purge himself off smoking.
And it may or may not work.
But that’s the way of the flesh.
And it takes a long time.
It takes human effort.
But the way of the Lord
may be like this.
When you ask the Lord to lead you
to break this bondage,
whether it’s a bondage to addiction
or a bondage to pornography,
or a bondage to being critical
or having a complaining spirit
and you want the Lord
to purge you from that.
Just ask the Lord to help you
to walk in the Spirit,
being led by Him.
And many a times, for example,
for that smoking addiction,
the Lord may lead that person
to prioritize his life.
“What? My problem is smoking.
My problem is I’m addicted.”
“I got to smoke this
number of cigarettes a day”
“or else I won’t be calm,
I cannot be happy.”
But the Lord might lead him to focus
on other areas where it’s causing stress
that he doesn’t even know of.
And that is what’s causing him
to be dependent on that cigarette
or that number of cups of coffee
that he cannot do without
because he’s trying to overcome
the stress but he’s dealing with
the branches and not the root.
So when the Lord leads you,
He goes right to the root. Amen.
He will lead you,
maybe to sleep early.
Or maybe he will lead you to
spend time with your family.
He will lead you in such
a way—but you might say:
“What has spending time with my family
got to do with my addiction?”
“What has playing with my children
have got to do with my”
“breaking free from this
habit of pornography?”
But you’d be surprised how many
times when the Lord leads you,
and you walk in the Spirit,
you follow the Spirit,
He breaks that bondage in your life.
Who to marry, what career to choose,
even the nitty-gritty of life,
in the daily grind of life, the Holy Spirit
will lead you one step at a time.
If you will follow Him,
if you expect Him to!
And it’s not hard!
Obey the slightest
prompting of the Spirit.
The slightest prompting.
Learn to obey!
Have you looked at some Christians
and you feel like: “Wow!”
“They really flow with the Spirit.
How did that come about?”
No, all of them grow!
Someone went to an English village
and said: “Are there any
great man of God born here?”
He was following a track of all the
Christian pilgrims of the past years.
And the answer from one of the leaders
was: “No, only babies were born here.”
So we were all born as babies,
but we all grow.
How do we grow?
We obey the least prompting of the Spirit.
The smallest inclination.
We just follow.
And the more you follow God,
the more you obey those promptings,
you will find that it increases.
It gets stronger.
So as we take one step,
then the Holy Spirit bears witness.
If we don’t take any step,
there’s nothing to bear witness to!
God does not guide a parked car.
If a car is parked and
even if you’ve got a GPS,
what can the GPS say?
“You’re in the same location.”
After an hour.
“You are still in the same location.”
Is that how it bears witness?
No! As you move, then it says:
“Turn right. At the next turn, turn left.”
“And at the next turn, go straight.”
Right? It tells you as you move along.
So your internal GPS, the Holy Spirit,
bears witness with you
based on an action.
Remember when God told Samuel, the
prophet, to go to the house of Jesse?
Because God said: “I have provided
me a king among his sons.”
Now, why didn’t God just say:
“Samuel, his name is David. And he lives
in a house of a man called Jesse.”
God could have said that!
But that’s not God’s way.
God always leads us
one step at a time.
Like He told Abraham: “Go to
a land that I will show you.”
God could have said:
“Go to the land of Canaan”
“that flows with milk and honey.”
But God didn’t say that.
God says: “Go to
a land that I will show you.”
So as Abraham took 1 step,
he saw farther.
As he took another step,
the Spirit bore witness with him.
As he took another step,
God will bear witness.
Whether it’s through visions
or dreams during Abraham’s time,
He would do it! In our case,
it is bearing witness in our spirit.
A most intimate way!
Better than visions
or angels on the outside.
We have something so intimate
on the inside. Praise God.
So as you take the action
and that’s what Samuel did.
He went to the house of Jesse.
He knew it was one of the sons, right?
And he had all the 7 sons
pass by him, except for David.
He was out in the field,
tending the flock.
And the Bible says as the first born
or the oldest son came
in front of Prophet Samuel—
even a prophet like Samuel,
who is an amazing prophet,
the prophet of the land of Israel
at that time, he looked at
the first born and said:
“This must be the Lord’s anointed.”
“He must be the one
God has selected to be king.”
But was he the one?
No, he wasn’t the one.
So even a prophet can make mistakes.
But notice he had to face
all the sons one by one.
“This is not the one.
This is not the one.”
And the Lord said to him:
“This is not the one.”
That’s when God said to the prophet:
“Man looketh on the outward appearance,
but God looketh on the heart.”
God said: “This is not the one.
This is not the one.”
Finally, there was no
witness of any sons.
And he asked Jesse: “Are these
all the sons that you have?”
Imagine you’re David
and your father says this:
“Oh yeah, I have one more son.”
Imagine if you were David
and you heard that.
So for some reason,
he wasn’t really favored.
And we find that he was
out there in the field
when the prophet
was in the house.
So the prophet says:
“You know what, I’ll not sit down
until David comes in.”
So they brought David in.
And the moment David came
before him, the Lord says:
“Arise, this is he. Anoint him.”
So even a prophet like Samuel
had to go through the procedure
one by one and sometimes,
you have to apply and
go for the job interview.
Don’t be lazy, amen.
Don’t just sit down there and say:
“I believe God and trust God.”
“I got the favor of God and
it will just come on me.”
No, you have to try it out.
You have to go for this interview.
Go for that interview
and you will sense it in your Spirit.
Amen. And you will sense it.
Just take that step.
Even in the gifts of the Spirit,
you have to take the first step,
even if it is a small leading.
Obey that leading. Amen.
Like I shared before about this man—
as I was driving down the road
one night, it was pitch dark
and it was very early in the morning
at about 2 to 3AM.
And I saw an elderly man by the
side of the road whom I fetched later on.
I don’t know him.
He was a bit incoherent
and I didn’t know that he was
looking for a place to go to eat.
And apparently his son left him
at home and he was hungry.
And I asked the Lord:
“What should I do?”
The Lord led me to pick him up.
I knew that.
And because I obeyed
the first prompting,
the Bible says: “Follow after love
and desire spiritual gifts.”
So the next step is,
I want the gifts to manifest
but you must follow after love.
The best way to have the gifts manifest
is to follow after love.
Follow the flow of love.
Following after love has the idea
that love is like a stream,
a refreshing life-giving stream,
and you follow after the stream.
As you follow the stream and desire
spiritual gifts, they will manifest.
And then God gave me
a word of knowledge.
God showed me a food center.
We call it ABC over here.
And when I went there, true enough,
the man recognized the elderly man.
One of the hawker man
who was there.
And he said: “I pity this old man.”
He told me: “His son leaves him
alone quite often.”
“And we are always here to feed him.”
“And when his son brings him here,
we feed him. He knows us.”
Imagine! I mean there are
so many food centers,
Hawker centers in Singapore.
How would I know that’s the one?
Except for the word of knowledge
that came up after
I obeyed the first prompting.
God will never lead you more
until you obey the first prompting.
When you have not obeyed
the first prompting,
don’t ask for the ending.
Don’t ask for what to see
when you’ve not even
obeyed the first prompting.
Amen.
I pray friend, that you will
follow the Spirit.
Walk in the Spirit.
You don’t have to worry
about your bondage.
“I’m afraid of this lust of the flesh,
sometimes it comes real fast.”
“And I find that before I can
resist it, I’m swallowed up in it.”
No friend, you’re focused on the sin.
You’re focused on the bondage.
You’re focused on darkness.
God’s way is to focus on
the light, focus on Jesus.
“Walk in the Spirit and you shall not
fulfill the lust of the flesh.”
That’s going to happen supernaturally.
Amen.
As you walk in the Spirit,
you’ll find that all these
dry leaves will just fall away
without you focusing on them.
As you allow the life stream,
the life sap and the life of God
to flow through you.
Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus.