Living By God’s Guidance

In this practical message, Dr. Stanley explains that we, too, should be following God as our guide every day. We don’t have a pillar of cloud for a signpost, but as believers, we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. He’s our leader, and He’s committed to showing us the correct path in every circumstance. Find out what you can do to gain discernment, recognize His voice, and follow Him in holiness through every challenge and uncertainty. For more messages from Charles Stanley, including this week’s broadcast, go to www.intouch.org/watch

God’s Messages

Dear Lord,
Today…….I am asking all my prayer warriors to say a prayer that may help others. So many people are hurting right now. Many are struggling with finances and need jobs. Some are facing foreclosure and don’t even know how they are going to make it from week to week..

Many are lonely. . Many are heartbroken. . Many are facing sickness and health is fading. . Some are dealing with difficult family members. Many have lost HOPE.. Tonight, let us put our prayers and faith together decree and declare breakthrough over our families. Financial miracles WILL take place. Jobs WILL be found. Our Bodies WILL be made whole & sickness WILL flee. Marriages and relationships WILL be restored. Family members WILL find Jesus. Heartbreaks WILL be healed. JOY WILL be restored and HOPE WILL be found. In Jesus Name. Amen!!!!!! Keep God First…….

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Who are what is in your life?
Think for just a moment when you think about a given day in your life, who’s really guiding your thinking, your attitude, your wishes, your desires, how you operate, how you work, whatever it might be.
Are you guided by someone by some philosophy or attitude that you have in life?
Are you guided by your feelings and your emotions?
Some people live by their feelings, their emotions up today and down tomorrow in and out.
And so they have no real stability in life because they’re living by feelings and God does not intend for us to live by feelings.
He intends for us to live by a relationship that we have with him, who gives us stability and strength and clarity and guidance in every area of our life.
Well, we’ve been in the book of Exodus and uh the Hebrew Children are out of Egyptian bondage and they’re on their way across the desert and to the promised land.
It should take them a few weeks, but it took them 40 years because of their unbelief.
If they had obeyed God.
Then exactly what he had said that it reached the promised land a whole lot easier and a whole lot earlier.
But like many other people, they took their eyes of God start thinking about something else, looked at, uh, where they were going and who was there.
And so their fear overtook them and they, as you and I would say backs and missed it and spent 40 years wandering around in the wilderness, dying off when they could have been living in the promised land.
So I wanna talk about this whole issue of being guided by God.
If you name the name of Jesus as your savior, you should be guided by the word of God.
And um when I think about that, I think about the fact that God has given us a compass, really, that compass is really the Holy Spirit who lives inside of us to give us guidance and direction every day of our life.
So I want to think for just a moment about the fact that uh these uh Hebrews were walking and living in a strange country.
Now, they’re out of captivity and they have the scripture says a cloud by day and a fire by night.
And more than likely if you’ll think about it, they cloud by day also kept a little bit of the sun off of them, but it also acted like a compass as a guide.
They also had fire in the evening, which probably kept them a little warm from a desert breeze.
And so God is leading them out of Egyptian bondage and he’s leading him to a whole different perspective.
If they will follow him, they will be in canon shortly, the place that God has preserved for him.
And yet that’s not what happens.
And so what I want us to think about for just a moment is this whole idea of who guides us.
We have this as our guide.
So we don’t have to wonder about how God thinks about certain things and or how He feels about certain things.
We have the word of God to give us guidance and direction and we thank God for that.
So if we want to be guided by God, there’s certain things we need to remember.
And some people don’t think about having a guide. They just think about it in the morning.
They wake up and face life and they deal with life today.
They’ll deal with life tomorrow and the next day and so forth. God doesn’t want us living that way.
That’s why He gave us the Holy Spirit when we were saved to end dwell us.
And one of his responsibilities is to guide us in every circumstance of life.
Every area of our life is within the scope of His vision of His power and of his will.
And so what we have to ask is this, am I willing to live by his guidance and direction in my life.
Am I willing to be guided by God or am I just gonna have it my way?
And so the Children of Israel, once out of a bondage could have had a fantastic life soon, but they chose not to do it.
Many people today have heard the gospel. They’ve heard it clearly.
They heard it from their parents or they heard it from a preacher from an evangelist or whatever it might be.
They’ve heard the truth. They’ve made a decision just like you, you’ve made a decision, you made a decision to trust Christ as your savior.
You made a decision to listen to the Holy Spirit who indwells you, you made a decision to be careful to be obedient to God because you know, in your heart, that obedience always brings blessing and disobedience brings something entirely different.
So the issue is this when I think about what they had a pillow of cloud and fire to guide them, keep them warm, keep them cool, lead them to the promised land.
What do we have? And that’s this book.
There’s not any direction of your life that’s not covered here, whatever you’re looking for, whatever you’re seeking, whatever guidance you desire in life, you open the word of God and He will give you that living in this world, reading the Bible every now and then is not sufficient.
We live in a wicked vile world. That’s very evident.
From what we see happening and we live in a world that is against God, against the Lord Jesus Christ and opposed to so many things that you and I believe.
So, we have to decide, am I going to live by my emotions?
Am I gonna live by what other people are doing or am I gonna live by?
The one thing that I know will absolutely give me clear, true, true, true guidance every single day of my life.
That’s the word of God. So I want us to think about that.
And when I think about what guides us, number one, meditating upon the word of God.
Now, those Hebrews didn’t have this, we have something they didn’t have.
And if you will look at the uh 119th psalm for a moment.
And uh I want you to notice a verse here and the scripture says in this 119th psalm and verse one oh five.
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path and look at that.
Do you believe that the word of God is a lamp to your feet?
Which means He will always show you the right path to take and a light to my path.
That is what the cloud and the fire were to Israel in those days of desert times.
The word of God is to us. What is it a light to my path?
And a lamp to my feet?
That is if you want to go and you want to be in the right place at the right time, you get in the word of God, you said, well, the word of God doesn’t know anything about me.
Listen, the God who pinned these words knows exactly where you are, what you’re facing in life.
And the listen, there is a passage of scripture here somewhere in this book that applies to who you are, where you are today, no matter who you are.
And it is an adequate word to give you guidance and direction.
The problem is not that we don’t have direction.
The problem is we’ve closed the book and if the nation of Israel had said, forget the cloud and forget uh the fire, let’s just go where we want to go.
That’s exactly the way people are living and many people only open the word of God when they’re in trouble, a lamp to my feet, a light to your path.
Listen, you and I should always be walking in the path of righteousness and what’s good we have.
We, we know which way to walk.
And God has told us that secondly, we need to be sensitive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
And one of the things that uh Jesus made very, very clear to his apostles, he said, I’m not gonna leave you alone.
He says, I will come to you and he was speaking of uh of the Holy spirit and, and uh the scriptures, he makes it very, very clear.
The 16th chapter. And uh in this uh 13th verse, he says, when, when he, the spirit of truth comes and all of us have the Holy Spirit living within us, he will guide you, listen to this.
He will guide you into all the truth.
So that if you own a copy of the word of God, you don’t have an excuse for not being able to discern what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is untrue?
What’s good, what’s evil? We live in a world with all kinds of philosophies and telling us that, well, you know Jesus, that’s the ancient times.
No, Jesus is alive living within us today.
And he says, when he, the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth for he will not speak on his own initiative, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will disclose it to you.
That is what’s to come. That is why think about this.
When you wake up every morning, as a follower of Jesus, you have a body within you, living within you and all of his eternal power and being the very person of the Holy Spirit, they give you guidance, direction, strength, energy, discernment, and all the rest all day long.
We have everything we need to live a Godly life.
And so when somebody says, well, I got saved way back there and somewhere I just felt like God left me.
No, he didn’t leave you. And you may be seated here today and you’re just absolutely a backsliding Christian.
You’re living in sin, disobedient to God. Looking back and thinking about what your mother taught you years ago.
It’s brought back to you some things that you learned right after you got saved and when you were surrendered to Jesus and you look back and you ask yourself this question, how did I get her?
I am. I’ll tell you how you got where you are. Because you close this book.
You stop listening to the Holy Spirit who’s living within you, you decide to make some choices apart from God.
Now you’re in a mess. You cannot blame it on your parents, on your Children, who you work for your friends or whatever it might be.
God gave us. The book is a guide book. Think about this.
Every one of us is responsible to Almighty God to be good stewards of the knowledge and the experience that the word of God tells us about about every single circumstance of our life.
We’re to be, we’re to be guided by the spirit.
Then one of the things we have to wait for, if we’re gonna follow the Lord is to wait for his timing.
And one of my favorite verses is uh Isaiah 64.
And uh when I think about um this verse and how many times I’ve read it and I said, yes, Lord, uh please give me wisdom enough to do exactly what it says.
And so here’s what it says in the 64th chapter.
Listen to this for from days of all they have not heard or perceived by ear.
Nor has the eye seen a God besides you or like you listen, a God who acts in behalf of the one who waits for him.
So ask yourself the question. When let’s say, when you get up in the morning, you, you’re gonna start the day off of prayer, you get up and you get on your knees or you read the scripture and then you just take off.
What does the Bible say about waiting up on God?
If you’re gonna read the word of God, listen carefully.
Let’s just say you’re gonna read the 23rd psalm which you are to know by heart.
You know what makes the scripture stick in your life?
What makes it registered in your mind in your brain?
What causes you to be able to remember it is when you read it, you think about it, you forget everything else for the moment and you ask yourself this question and you talk to God about it.
Lord help me to remember what you’re saying. Don’t let me forget this simple verse.
You act on behalf of those who wait upon you.
How much time do we spend waiting up on it?
We say Well, I read my scripture this morning and I had to hurry off.
Think about this every single day of your life and my life is totally uncertain.
And what’s happening about us is very evident of that.
We need to begin every day in the word.
Even if it’s one verse or a whole chapter or whatever, it might be remembering that the spirit of God who lives within us takes that word, drives it to our mind, to our heart, to our spirit and does what and tends to use it to guide us throughout the day.
God has given you the most treasured thing you own.
You can stack up all of your stocks and bonds and money over here and cars and houses and farms and whatever it might be over here.
None of that, all of it together can equal this because none of that can get you to heaven.
Only the word of God can get you in heaven and only the word of God.
God can give you clear instruction for your life.
So likewise, if I’m following Him, I’m gonna be able to walk sometimes where it’s not clear.
I want you to turn to one of my favorite passages. Proverbs three, speaking of guidance and direction.
Verse five, trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not lean on your own understanding in all your ways.
Not some of them acknowledge him. Look to him, listen to him.
Wait for him and he will make your paths straight instead of crooked and listen to this.
Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
And he says, here’s what you can expect. It’ll be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones.
Where what, what can promise you that?
And if you just had one passage of scripture that you want to memorize and say you can, you can say you can say that passage to yourself every morning and praise God.
Listen, when you put the key in your ignition and you turn it, what do you expect to happen?
Is that all you expect to happen? You expect the engine to start right?
When you read this passage of scripture daily, I’ll quote it to yourself and you’ll find yourself quoting it to yourself often.
What happens? Something turns on inside of you and you know what that is?
That is your awareness of the spirit of the living God who will guide you, enable you empower.
You give you understanding how to face every circumstance of life today.
Listen, God has given us this because He knows we can’t live a successful life from his perspective or even from our own unless we are doing what we have.
Uh they had their eyes on the cloud by day and the fire by night to be sure they walked in the right direction.
We have the word of God to do what to give us clarity, understanding and insight.
So we can walk in a holy way every day of our life.
The Word of God, we’re talking about being guided by it.
Here’s some verses that I just want you to remember. So I want you to turn to Joshua for example.
And um uh let’s, let’s look at uh the first chapter, Joshua, another one of my favorite passages because um I had to turn to this many times.
I remember when I preached my first sermon, I can still see my mom. She called me.
Uh she came into my bedroom and she says, I want you to read this uh before you preach your, your first tonight because she knew I was a little bit frightened.
But uh here’s what my mother gave me. She says, I want you to read this verse.
Have I not commanded you to be strong and courageous?
Do not tremble or be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
So I read that about two or three times.
I wrote it down when I got, I, I walked out about two blocks from my church when I got, I remember I was standing on the street a light there.
And so I pulled up my little note and uh then I turned to the Bible and just stood there for a moment and read that verse.
And uh the first sermon I preach, uh you thought I’ve been preaching a long time, but it had nothing to do with me.
Because in my mind, the Bible says, have not, I commanded you to be strong and have a good courage, fear, not need to be that as me.
For the Lord, thy God is with you. Wherever you go, watch this carefully.
If you walk in the spirit of God, you’ll have to be strong and courageous because God’s gonna tell you don’t go here and you have to decide whether you’re strong enough to be obedient to God or you yield the pressure from somebody else or whatever.
Be strong and courageous. Do not need to be that this but the Lord, your God is with you.
How blessed we are to have the word of God and it’s our light and our fire and our direction and our help and our hope and our strength and our energy.
And there’s something about reading the word of God that does energize us because what happens is this, we are reminded of the presence of the Holy Spirit within us.
We are reminded, he’s the one who empowers us, strengthens us, guides us, helps us, keeps us, protects us.
We’re reminded of we have within us, the living God in the person of the Holy Spirit.
We should be able to start every day with confidence and boldness and assurance.
And when you look around to see what’s happening, not a single person knows whether they’ll be able to get home tonight or not.
We live by faith, we live by hope.
And many people live by a faith that they don’t even realize what that faith is all about.
The truth is that those of us who have a copy of the Word of God and live by the word of God, know the source of our hope and of our strength and we know the source of our protection and our watch care.
You and I have the written living perfect word of God to give us direction about every single solitary aspect of our life.
With no exception, you can’t think of anything. The word of God doesn’t have an answer for.
And some people would say, well, I’ve asked God about some things. He didn’t answer.
Well, you probably weren’t listening very carefully or probably you didn’t like his answer.
But everywhere in the word of God, he’s got a word for us.
So I, I think about we’re going to find ourselves facing conflict.
And so somebody says, well, you don’t know where I work.
And I go to work every single day and I go to work in a situation that’s not very helpful, not very encouraging.
And so uh I wanna give you this passion scripture acts chapter five.
And uh verse uh 29 listen to what he says, Peter and the apostles answer to those who are persecuting Him.
We must obey God rather than men the God of our fathers raised them Jesus whom you have put to death behind him on the cross.
He is the one whom God exalted to his right hand as a prince and a savior to grant repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
We are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those of us who obey Him.
Listen, you have the treasure of God deposited in your life to do what for God in the direction?
Think about this. Would God ask you to do something? He wouldn’t help you do? No.
But if you don’t know about the Holy Spirit, you would end up doing it in your own strength and energy.
And this is why often times people just they say, well, I’ve tried to live a Christian life but some, I’m not doing too well.
The spirit of God who end dwells one of us is the spirit of God who ends every single one of us and He has equipped us and enabled us to face difficult and hardship and opposition.
So if I should ask you this morning, how many of you have been through a tough time in your life?
And the only thing you had was God, was he there all of you to raise your hand.
You if you, if you know that He’s been there, you know that there have been times when all you had was God the bottom dropped out, the sides, fell off, the top disappeared and there you are helpless and hopeless.
And the only thing you have is almighty God.
When people say to me once in a while, one of these days, I’m gonna think about becoming a Christian.
Uh But uh I think to myself, think about this, who said you have one of these days, the only day you and I have for sure is right now.
And the spirit of God, the spirit of God came to live in our life to do it, to give us assurance so that we don’t have to worry about today.
We just live in his presence knowing that He’s within us.
He is our God and our God and our help and our strength and everything we need.
So we can live happily. We can live with a discerning spirit to know some things that are not wise for us to do.
And if for example, if God, let’s say you headed into some store or something or whatever it might be, and you have a reservation in your spirit don’t do that.
And you said, well, why not?
Let me just say this to you when the spirit of God tells you something, do exactly what he says.
He said, if He tells you, if He tells you don’t do that, don’t argue with him and ask him to tell you why He is under no obligation to answer your, why His obligation is to give you direction, guidance and protection.
If I disobey him, I suffer the consequence.
God speaks to all of his Children.
Once you trusted Him as your personal savior, the spirit came into your life to do what to give you direction and all these other things we had talked about.
So therefore, you have, you have living within you holy God in the person of the Holy Spirit.
And one of his primary responsibilities is to give direction to your life and to show us what to do, not to do where to go, and not to go who to meet and what not to meet, what to buy and not to buy where to live.
And not, in other words, he has the answers. You.
So I can’t just go around asking God what to do, why not you have within you, the voice of the living God who will urge you not to do something.
And I, I can just tell you something this very week I was working on and I thought I had this all planned out and so forth.
And it’s like, it’s the last minute God just gave me a check in my spirit.
So I had to realize Lord, that was my choice. We can do what we believe is right.
And it wasn’t a matter of right or wrong.
It was a matter of wise or unwise or the proper thing to do.
And so God is just as willing to speak to you.
And I wish I knew how to get this into your mind and you listen and say, amen.
God will speak to you personally. It won’t be loud.
You won’t hear it with your ears, you will hear it with your spirit. Now, listen carefully.
If you’re living in sin, here’s what that does put something between you and the spirit.
You don’t, you don’t quite hear it.
If you’re not hearing God, it’s because you’re not listening because God wants to protect you and give you guidance and wisdom and direction.
It’s so clear to me when all of a sudden it’s a chick that, that, that, that’s not the right direction.
That that’s not, that’s not what I want you to do.
That words crystal clear and He will do the same thing for you.
If you listen, if you say to him, Lord, I’m committed to being obedient, watch this.
I’m committed to being obedient. God’s committed to showing you what obedience is.
But if you say Lord, I want you to show me your will.
And so you think, well, that’s not exactly what I wanna do.
You do something else next time you ask God and the next time, the next time after a while, you don’t even ask him, many of God’s people are living oblivious to the very presence of Holy God who lives within them.
And so they wonder why they get in trouble, do things.
They shouldn’t do, go where they shouldn’t go see, you name it.
It’s not because God doesn’t care and it’s not because God’s not speaking. It’s because we’re not listening, listening carefully.
It’s dangerous. Absolutely dangerous in this day and time to live close to God.
We all need him and he’s just that clear that you may be, you may be thinking, well, I don’t think that’s absolutely necessary and, and, uh, I don’t think, uh I, I just don’t think God would speak to me that way.
Yes. He will asking, listen to this asking that should be given you seeking.
You should find knocking, that you’ll be open unto you.
Everyone who asks receives seeks finds knocks opens as a promise. So do you believe the word of God?
If you believe the word of God, you must believe, then when you come to Him and ask whatever the situation is, he will answer your petition, I believe one of the most important lessons we learn as a believer is.
How do you listen to God?
Now, you heard me say this many, many times obey God and do, what is that?
What you’re doing? Are you being, being all the consequences to Him?
What that says is obey God and trust Him with everything.
Would you say that God is trustworthy that He can handle your everything? Absolutely.
For the Hebrews, it was a cloud by day, fire by night and trusting Moses for us.
It’s the living word of God that we have with us every day of our life, we can find out whatever we need to find out.
We can find clear direction for every single issue in life.
You said, you mean to tell me you, you believe that God will give you direction for every single thing in your life.
Yes. Like what, what would he not give me direction for God?
Listen, God doesn’t act like we do. God is true to His word.
And in these days, this book is the most important possession you have because here’s the source of all the promises of Almighty God and so many of us here are grandparents.
What have you ever said to your grandchildren about the Bible?
Have you ever made that an issue with Him?
Who do you talk to about the word of God?
Or do you just take it for granted?
This to us is like a cloud by day, fire by night.
And Moses was their leader. The Holy Spirit is our leader.
So look how precious we look how good God is to us.
He let us be born at a time when we got it right here.
And the Holy Spirit to God is.
And if you’ve never trusted Jesus as your savior, you should do so immediately.
So how do I do that?
You ask God to forgive you of your sins, you acknowledge to Him that you believe that his death on the cross paid your sin debt in full.
And that if you can touch your sins and surrender your life to him and accept him as your savior by faith that he forgives your sins.
Writes your name in the lamb’s book of Life and your Forever Child of God and dwelt by the Holy Spirit.
He will help you interpret his word the rest of your life. That’s who you are. Father.
We bless you and praise you, worship you and adore you.
Treasure, dear God, you a precious word and pray that you will lead every person who hears or watches this message to know the truth and to walk in your ways.
But we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.