Another scripture God opened my eyes to see, is II Thessalonians 2.
The apostle Paul says:
II Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first,
I saw the "falling away" was that the church group would "fall away" from scripture, allowing strange doctrines to take the place of the Bible, opening the door for antichrist, the man of lawlessness, to move into the church.
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God showed me many things about how HE leads us today as HIS people in the NT church.
Jesus said:
John 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.
John 16:13 Howbeit when HE, the Spirit of truth, is come, HE will guide you into all truth: for HE shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever HE shall hear (from God), that shall HE speak: and HE will shew you things to come.
We see by these two scriptures, the Holy Spirit, who lives in each believer, does the following for the child of God.
- HE teaches us all things
- HE reminds us of the WORD
- HE guides us into all truth
- HE shows us things to come
The Holy Spirit does all this by bringing thoughts to our minds. These thoughts show us the way to go and show us the will of God for us in that exact issue with which we are currently dealing.
The thoughts HE brings can be concepts, both secular and spiritual ... or HE reminds us of scripture which we need to consider at the moment.
God watches over each of us constantly. God leads us in the way of righteousness and leads us into positions which cause us to prosper and have good success in everything we do.
God does this through HIS Spirit, by showing us what to do by bringing thoughts into our minds to show us.
When we go forward in that shown us by the Spirit, following the concept or scripture given by the Spirit, we go in the will of God for the Spirit of God knows the heart of God and shows us what God thinks about our current situation and what we should do. I Corinthians 2
There is a problem however. Sometimes our own desire can overrule the concept shown us by the Spirit and in such cases we end up following what we want and resisting that which is shown us by the Spirit.
Other times the devil enters in by bringing us a way that would end up destroying us.
So we must know how to tell if the thought is from God, or if the thought is from our own desire, or if the thought is from devil.
Then we deliberately choose that shown us by God.
It sounds like we would always choose that shown us by God, but sometimes God will show us to go in a way we do not want to go. Then we have to make a decision whether or not we will follow that way which is shown us by God.
I've been tested a great many times. Here is an example.
The Holy Spirit called to my attention the following scripture:
Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
I thought on the instruction given in this scripture and began trying to do what it said. I kept this scripture before me day and night to allow the scripture to grow in me and cause me to do what it says.
During this time, I was visiting with my neighbors at their house. It was during the USA presidential elections. I am non political but two candidates that year were of interest to me and apparently this interest had grown in my heart for I very much wanted to say, "And what do you think of the election?"
But the Holy Spirit brought to my mind the scripture in Ephesians 4:29 ... Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
- If I speak about the election, will people be edified in the ways of God?
- Will my words stir up good or evil?
But amazingly I wanted so very much to speak of this election.
I chose not to speak of this and instead I chose to follow that which the Holy Spirit brought to my mind and I left my neighbor's house without speaking of the election.
But I was really surprised in how strongly my flesh was trying to get me to do what it wanted.
If we feed our flesh it will get stronger. I suspect I had been watching news reports more than usual and it fed my flesh on this matter.
It is also amazing how little this election affected us in USA. This happened about 20 years ago and I can't see that my life was affected at all by the outcome of that election.
But my life is very much affected by whether I choose that which the Holy Spirit shows me.
If we are going to move into righteousness, prosperity, and good success ... we are going to have to choose to follow that brought to our minds by the Holy Spirit.
Often that way causes us to "suffer in the flesh" for our flesh wants to go according to its desire and when we choose to go the way shown us by Holy Spirit, our flesh cannot rule over us and it suffers as a result.
It is easy to see this when we recall how much we wanted to go in ways of the flesh, ways of fornication or adultery or drunkenness or hatred when we were younger.
Did we follow the flesh and do those things or did we follow the Spirit and refuse to do those things?
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