Jesus said according to the classic amplified translation of the Bible:
“And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby), that He may remain with you forever– The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive (welcome, take to its heart), because it does not see Him or know and recognize Him. But you know and recognize Him, for He lives with you [constantly] and will be in you.”
John 14:16-17 AMPC
The Holy Spirit has been given to us as the Counselor, who lives in us. But unfortunately I have often observed a very dangerous trend among many Christians these days, who are used to seeking answers and counseling for every problems of their lives from everywhere else, that they can get it from apart from the Bible.
They are often too busy running around, desperately trying to find someone to pray for them. They will cry on their counselor’s shoulder; who is basically trying to empathize with them. But of course empathy can’t change anything for them. That’s when they’ll move on to another believer, who knows them better, to shed their “crocodile tears”. While shedding tears they will quote all the scriptures that they’d learnt in Church, including the new ones that their Christian counselor had just given them.
They’ve forgotten that the Holy Spirit is their true Helper, who has been sent by God to “Standby” on the inside of them in helping them. And when they are alone, they realize that their situation has not changed. Or in some cases, it has gotten even worse.
Oftentimes they are being deceived in their minds into believing that, the Bible does not offer practical solutions to their problems. This deception has driven them into believing that, Bible scriptures are not practical and realistic to solving their problems.
But the Apostle John said to us about the Holy Spirit:
“But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ.”
1 John 2:27 NLT
The Holy Spirit is not only our Counselor, He is the One who teaches us all things, and reveals to us the mysteries of God that we do not know or understand. When we come to realize that, He lives in us for these very purposes, we will never be ignorant about what to do in difficulties. He is the great Counselor who lives in us, to give us the counsel of God. He is also the One who teaches us how to follow through in obedience to those counsels, especially when we don’t know how to do what we needed to do in obeying God.
The bottomline about these issues concerning such believers, is actually what John stated in the above scripture texts – they don’t want to remain in fellowship with Christ. They are seeking a worldly way out their predicament. They are running out of patience with Christ and the Holy Spirit.
But we must acknowledge here that the lack of fellowship with Christ, is the absence of it also with the Holy Spirit. Fellowshipping with Christ is what tightens our relationship with the Holy Spirit. A Christian who doesn’t have fellowship with both of them, cannot receive anything from God.
And that’s why the counsel of God, is absent to those Christians. So that instead of building on their relationship with Christ and with the Holy Spirit, their flesh is leading and guiding them to follow the ways of the ungodly. And that’s exactly what the ungodly does in their difficult times. They will seek the counsel of men, since they have no relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Yield to the Holy Spirit
But these Christians are the ones who are approaching scriptures from such a perspective. God’s word never changes. Neither has God ever changed His stance concerning His word. God’s word will work for whosoever will believe in it.
I am referring specifically here to the believers in Christ, who have forgotten that they do have the Counselor, Helper and Teacher living inside them. They don’t really need human help. They do need the help of their God, who lives inside of them. Their problem is that they have disconnected themselves from God, through their over reliance on the help of men.
We must acknowledge however that these believers are just empty vessels, that God is longing to fill up. But they are struggling with the reality of who they are in Christ Jesus. They do not know who they are in Christ Jesus anymore. They have forgotten that the Greater One lives in them.
Jesus said:
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.”
John 16:13 NLT
The Holy Spirit guides us into every truth, so that we can be able to make sound decisions in life. But He can’t guide you if you are still struggling to trust Him enough, as you commit your life into His hands.
This lack of commitment to continually yield to the Holy Spirit, is a very common trend with the Christians, who as an example are struggling in their marriages. Many of them are used to asking other Christians to pray for them, when they have in fact made up their minds to disobey God. They’ve made up their minds to divorce, instead of sticking on with Christ to salvage their relationships.
The dictates of their flesh is leading them into divorcing their spouses. And instead of resisting the enemy’s pressures in the flesh, which they can’t sustain, they will ask you for prayers. They are in fact asking you to pray about something, that they’ve already made up their minds about. They have made up their minds about the situation, before asking you to pray for them.
Amazingly enough they don’t pray for anyone themselves. Their spiritual lives is so dependent on others around them like their pastors, the visiting or guest Preachers and other believers in the Church. What they really need to be doing is to empty themselves of their self righteousness, so that they can be able to put on the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus; because that’s who they really are. That’s how God sees and accepts them, irrespective of their predicaments.
Paul told the Romans:
“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”
Romans 8:14 NKJV
They’ve been trying to figure out how the counsel of the Lord, is able to deliver them from their troubles. If you are trying to figure it all out, you are not being led by the Spirit of God. They need to empty themselves of their self righteousness and self justifications, so that the Spirit of Truth can lead them out. They are surely being held captives to themselves.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t lead them actually, when they tell you that they are being led. But they are relying on their minds to lead them. The truth is that the Holy Spirit will not lead anyone to act contrary to God’s word. Period!
It’s absolutely useless to ask the Lord to lead you, or give you directions in life, if you won’t let Him guide you. These people do know what He is guiding them to do or say, but their minds are resisting Him. They do know within themselves that they are deceiving themselves. They are just seeking a way and an excuse to disobey God.
And that’s why we have so many Christians in the spiritual wilderness of life today. They are not following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in leading them to make sound decisions for their lives. The Holy Spirit will lead anyone, who is ready to commit him/herself into His hands.
Oftentimes they don’t even come to Church until trouble knocks on their doors. Many of them don’t read the Bible either, to discover the counsel of God that will set them free. Yet they are so full of every other things, through their passions for the things of the world. They will go to Church in order to seek a way for justifying, what they had decided to do outside of God’s will.
And in most cases when they finally do yield to the Lord in guiding them, they will start wondering why they never even thought about doing the right things, when in fact they knew what to do.
They knew the right things to do. It has always been on their inner man. But their unrenewed mind keeps fighting against them. The devil of course knows how to dig in on this to defeat them. They would have saved themselves a lot of troubles, if they had learnt to listen to the voice of their inner man from the beginning.
Stop trying to figure it all out
Marriage is a mystery that no one can ever explain, until we finally get joined together with Christ in Heaven. But that’s no excuse for disobeying God’s standard for it here on the earth. Paul once told the Ephesians who were struggling with issues like this in their marriages:
“This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”
Ephesians 5:32 NIV
The complete and incomprehensible mystery of how, all Christians will ever be united together with Christ, will be revealed to us all later in Heaven. What we can not understand now, will be clearly understood then. And in the same way marriage on the earth is a profound mystery of God also. You can’t figure out the counsel and the mysteries of God with your mind. It’s unfathomable. And in most cases His wise counsel will always come directly to your heart as you pray in the spirit.
But before you start praying in the spirit, get yourself engulfed in the scriptures first. This is because spiritual things can easily be searched out in the scriptures first for the solutions. God will never interrupt your life with His wisdom, when you have not made any effort on your own to search the scriptures.
You have to search out the scriptures for your solution first. And when you accept His word as the truth in your situation, He will then start guiding you to obey what it says. But you can’t do it without Him helping you.
