Walking Around with the Holy Spirit

I want God to be pleased with my life in Christ, don't you?  In 1 Thess 2:12 we read "live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory."  Continuing on our series on the Holy Spirit's work
in our lives, let's look at our day-to-day lives, and how the Holy Spirit can lead us, bearing fruit through us to make our lives "worthy of our calling."  Since, as Jesus said, the Holy Spirit is living within us (John 14:17), we should be able to hear his voice and obey.

Let's see what we can learn about paying attention to the Holy Spirit, by using prayer as a parallel idea.  In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Paul instructs us to "never stop praying."  As we've heard recently, the word for "never stop" ("without ceasing," in some translations) is used in Greek literature to describe a hacking cough; not that you're always coughing, but the tickle in your throat is always there.  So this command instructs us to "have a heart of prayer" as one translation puts it, rather than to react to life's trials in ways that are less "worthy of our calling."   

So, how would we "pay attention to the Holy Spirit without ceasing"?  First of all, since we are "in Christ" we should expect God to speak to us and we should ask him for direction.  Each of us, according to our own spiritual giftedness and individual makeup, will hear him in a slightly different way, but we will hear the same message because God is not divided.  One way to hear him is to soak ourselves in Scripture, as the Holy Spirit speaks through the words of the Bible (Hebrews 3:7-11) not only "in Bible times" but today too.  Bible students hear from God as they study the Scripture, and often the Spirit brings a verse to our minds when we need it.  Someone with the gift of compassion may hear the Spirit better through the prayers of another person, or through hearing of that person's need.  Another may sense the Spirit speaking through the words of a worship song, or in a group discussion, and some may see a picture depicting something they should do, like Paul saw the Macedonian man in a vision in Acts 16:9-10.  Specifically taking time to turn off all the distractions and seek God's voice is also very helpful.  

There are cautions, of course.  God the Holy Spirit will never speak contrary to the Scripture that he himself inspired.  He will never tell us to do something for selfish reasons, and he rarely tells us that someone else should be doing something.  He expects us to use wisdom as we decide how to obey him, and often we need the discernment of the church he has put us into, to choose the wisest course.   

If we want to hear, we need to listen, and listen with the desire to follow what we're told.  But we should expect to hear the Holy Spirit more and more as we mature in Christ.  There are lots of other resources available if you want to study this topic more, so don't hesitate to ask.