Being Led By The Holy Spirit

When you talk about being led by the Holy Spirit, there are a lot of factors that we have to consider. For starters, you have to learn how to distinguish thoughts coming from your heart vs. your head. You'll need to know if the Holy Spirit is speaking or satan. The devil will try to direct you through your thinking and throw different suggestions at you to see what you'll bite on. He will even talk in the first person to get you to think you are thinking his stupid thoughts yourself! You could be having a wonderful day and this thought comes to you, "I'm depressed, I don't want to live anymore." After that, you go off and kill yourself not realizing the enemy gave you that thought!

The enemy will even try to sound like God. The devil may even say "Daughter, I love you. Go ahead into the modeling industry. I will bless you and make you a powerful witness for "Me"! After hearing that, you decide to do it and quickly forget the Lord. You end up lost and in hell! Just because it sounds like God doesn't mean it is! So how do you know? By the Spirit of course! I've had that suggestion.

As a teenager and in my early 20s, I wanted to pursue an acting, and modeling career. I remember when I was about 12 or 14 years old, the devil came to me with this suggestion "I'll give you riches and fame if you will sell out to me!" I wasn't saved at the time, but I still knew this was the devil! I ignored that thought!

When I got older, I started seriously considering the idea of modeling and was preparing to get headshots. My head told me YES!!!!!!!!!!!, but my heart told me NO!!!!!!!!!! I felt a very strong urging in my spirit. if I could put into words what He said, it was "DAUGHTER!!! DON'T DO IT!!!!! DON'T DO IT!!!!!! YOU WILL BE LOST FROM THE GOSPEL!!!! DAUGTHER YOU WILL BE LOST FOREVER!!! PLEASE DON'T, PLEASE DON'T!!! STAY FARRRRR AWAY FROM THAT!!!! DON'T EVEN ENTERTAIN THAT THOUGHT FOR A MOMENT!!!!" It wasn't literal words I heard, but just a word of wisdom by a STRONG inward perception. Do you remember Paul when he had an inward perception that the voyage on their way to Rome would cost them their lives?

Acts 27:10

and said to them, “Men, I perceive that the voyage will certainly be with damage and great loss, not only of the cargo and the ship but also of our lives.”

Paul had a word of wisdom from an inward perception. He didn't hear words but perceived these things on the inside of him by the Holy Spirit!

Well when I heard that, I immediately obeyed the voice of my spirit, praise the Lord! Thank Lord for the Holy Ghost! Well sometime later, I had another suggestion from the enemy. I had a supernatural dream about a movie script idea! Growing up, I would watch old-time Hollywood movies of the golden age. I had a desire to write movie scripts and wanted to move to California after high school.

I won't say too much about this "supernatural" dream except that it was a scene for a 3D animated movie. I knew the message of the dream was for me to write the script. This was not a pizza dream. I woke up thinking "Lord is that you?" I was hoping it was! I was thinking, wow God has given me a spectacular idea for a movie! I'm going to write this script and hit it big for the glory of God and make a lot of money! After praying and checking my heart, I knew this was not of God! This time I got a red light in my heart, not a strong urging, but just a check. I ended up rejecting that dream.

I want to say something here, just because you have natural talents, abilities, charm, and skills, does not mean you are to pursue those opportunities that may come your way apart from His leading and approval. If He doesn't say anything about it, then proceed with caution. I'm a big stickler on this because you'll hear people say to use "your gifts for God!" Now if your serving your local church, being a blessing, and using your gifting that's fine, but what I'm talking about is directional moves that will affect the plan of God for our life. You may be naturally good at being a businessman, or have great communication skills and become a lawyer, but is that what He called you to do? Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD do something.

There's so much to say on this subject of being led by the Spirit. Your desires, your level of humility, having an open honest heart, and avoiding worldly influences, will also affect your ability to hear the Lord.

In anything you do in life, you have to ask yourself the question: "Is this what God wants me to do, or is this my idea?" Some people will say, "I just saw there was a need and decided to go into the ministry!" Guys, that's not being led by the Spirit. It's well-meaning sure, but extremely stupid. It's dangerous to step into something He hasn't called and equipped you to do!

It's the reason why some people die early. The Holy Spirit was trying to warn them not to do something or go to a certain place, and they did it anyway! We must keep a tender heart if we want to accurately be led by the Holy Spirit. The more you override that "check", the harder it will be to hear from Him. I think many times people don't RECOGNIZE THE WITNESS. The Lord is answering a situation, but because they have ignored hearts and have not trained their spirits, they think it's just them thinking that when it's the Lord.

We have to learn to take time to slow down and get quiet. We live in a busy world that always trying to get our attention. Social media is so engrossed in our culture and can be helpful for the advancement of the gospel, but really it's a tool of distraction from the enemy. You have people being diagnosed with ADHD when all they needed to do was stop checking their social feed for 8 hours a day! While I don't prefer to use social media anymore, I would say if you going to use it, make sure you're balanced with your usage. Don't be on there for 4 hours a day! That's ridiculous! Never be mastered by anything. We must careful not to be so busy that we aren't attuned to the voice of God. It's more important that we are sensitive to Him in these last days! Get rid of the doors in your life that allow satan to come through.

I'm so glad I got rid of the tv 14 years ago. I don't have to let them feed me it's demonic agenda! And yes, satan has an agenda with television. You have to remember the devil is the prince of the power of the airwaves, he is the ruler of this world and if you don't see the garbage he's trying to stuff down our throats then you are naive! And don't call me "hyper-spiritual" as a way of deflecting the truth! Why give satan any access to you unnecessarily?

I remember talking on the phone with a Pastor years ago about what was going on in the world. She was saying how negative the news was, and not letting it affect you. She was going on and on when I simply told her, "all we need to do is turn the tv off." As soon as I said that, she stopped dead in her tracks, and said "yeah, I think you're right!" Many problems we have are self-inflicted, we permit them.

Let us Learn to be Led by the Holy Spirit!