BEING LED BY GOD

“If the Spirit of God dwells in you…” Rom.8:9 

To be led by God somewhere or about something by direct inner causes or inclinations, or to be commanded by Him personally, requires a fellowship with Him which enables us to fulfil and to obey Him alone and to distinguish between Him and our heart (which He uses, by the way). None should dare to think God will be able to lead unless one has a constant, eternal and continuous flowing fellowship with God, and that with Him alone, so we may be made perfect and able to carry things out His way. God told Abraham “walk thou before Me and be perfect” and not “be perfect and walk thou with Me”. There is a sequence in His words we should not miss upon. Perfection, obedience and walking upright is a mere consequence from a kind of walking with and through God. “If you will fear Jehovah, and serve Him, and listen to His voice, and not rebel against the command of Jehovah, then both you and also the king who reigns over you shall continue following Jehovah your God”, 1Sam.12:14. And if not, they shall not be able to continue following the Lord at all.

There are conditions, however, which one should take the greatest concern about. God won’t lead unless we are made able to fulfil. The leadings of God mean, secure and require that we will do to the end.  Hear what God has said about Moses: "If there is a prophet among you, I Jehovah will make Myself known to him in a vision, and will speak to him in a dream. Not so, My servant Moses. He is faithful in all My house. I will speak with him mouth to mouth", Num.12:6-8 God won’t lead unless we are of the kind that will fulfil and to be able to fulfil we need to have much more than faith and willingness. We need to have that fellowship in doing as the only thing that matters above all else, especially when doing, and when we have faith and are willing, once free (since people finding themselves in freedom may be compelled to do differently). We need to do with and through God to bless and increment that kind of fellowship with Him, if that fellowship is of the right kind. We don’t do work through God to bless work, but to be with God and learn how to be with Him continuously. Working with God enables us to become acquainted with Him and His ways. God is not there for the work, but work is there for God and for God's sake. There are many secrets involved in such an intimate fellowship we should never undervalue or miss upon.

People pray to God for many reasons and one of them is that they are found in a need to know what course they should take about something important to them. And what really matters to God is what they fellowship with or through while busy in doing the right things. If things are more important than the genuine indwelling God, God won’t lead. I hear many people complain about not knowing what God wants them to do. I believe that, if God does not tell what or when to do, none should tell them - it is so either because things are too obvious or people have not the heart, nor the consent or the means, to fulfil to the end. God cannot lead unless people will fulfil it His way right through and along with Him. Help them rather become fully able to fulfil by being fully acquainted with Him and they will soon be made aware what God wishes for them.

To be able to fulfil, one has to have a solid communion with God through God’s Spirit – and only that kind of communion. The approval of God upon the kind of spontaneous heart in all kinds of holiness must be set from deep inside before God is able to lead in a conscious way. Nevertheless, one should always be reminded that God leads to know, to do, and to share a glimpse which we will live with on and on till it becomes useless or of no applicable use if usable still, or until we commune with God through any of it. To work with God means that we will eventually be made fit to keep up with God to the end once there is no work to do anymore. Such a heart one gains by continual fellowship with God and by the refusal to have another, or another thing, occupy God’s time in us. Time for God is the only thing which should never be ransomed or shared with something else. One can work and be with God in our work – not for the sake of work alone, but for the sake of the company. One should work through God to learn to keep up with the fellowship with Him and not to have work blessed. Work with God should be instrumental and dischargeable so the Lord is maintained within us all. Working through God teaches us to be able to deal with and through God alone. Many people believe that, to work with God or through God is important for work. I believe work should become important for God, to have God and to get fully acquainted with Him while doing. Let’s earn and learn more how to use our circumstances, work and jobs to be with God by being there through Him alone. Let’s gather with Him, through Him alone. There is chaff and wheat in the fellowship with God we should become aware of and distinguish.

To be taught how to do is more than to do. To become able and fit to do rightly in freedom and spontaneously is what is at stake here on earth, and that all the time. God taught us to pray to become fully able to do things as they are done in heaven above doing those heavenly things. The primary objective is to be able to carry out those things the way they are done in heaven – above doing them. The way is what counts, especially for now, and we cannot have the way without doing. Just like school is to teach how to write above being able to write the right thing from the start. Writers do not go to school – they have been to school. And when they are at school they are not writers. One starts to know how to write an article before being able to write it. Jesus commanded the Disciples to “teach them to do whatever I commanded you” and not “teach them what I commanded” as if they knew how to do it and by what strength and power. There is a way to go about things we should be able to catch in the air and keep to the end to be able to fulfil. If not learning that, one has little chance to be led by God into something. Whoever does not fulfil, God won’t lead and if such a person is ever led, surely he is not led by God. As soon as one is able to fulfil the right way, God will lead spontaneously and simultaneously.

Let’s expose our hearts to God, let’s expose the way, the motives we are exposing our heart for and let’s match up with God in all. That alone is the only safe guarantee God will be able to lead instead of  our best minds. Sheep will hear God, but not goats - the main problem is never with the voice, but rather with whether we are sheep or not. Sheep simply hear. Instead of trying to diagnose the voice of God, one should become more concerned about becoming sheep and nor merely sheep-like. And to be exposed to God’s ways of doing, God’s simplicity and power in doing is what takes for God to be able to lead us, ever. We need not force Him to lead us if we have that sheep spirit already settled in us being natural as sheep. Amen.

José Mateus