When the Holy Spirit Prompts You to Act, Act!

In yesterday’s post I discussed four indicators when it’s time to act. A friend commented he would add one more. When the Holy Spirit prompts us to act, we need to obey. He’s absolutely correct. His point is so important I am going to devote this post to that topic.

In general I lean towards objectivity. I trust you have seen in my posts that I seek a biblical basis for everything I teach. Listening to the Spirit is subjective. That makes this a tricky subject. We have all heard people say, “The Spirit (or God or Jesus) told me to do this.” That phrase has been used to justify all kinds of actions. Even if you think a person is flat out wrong in what they’re saying, how can you respond when someone says that? You can’t disagree with what they say they heard.

There are abuses or mis-uses of the principle that the Spirit of God communicates with us. Does that mean we should ignore this topic? By no means! The scriptures are clear that the Spirit of God communicates with us. Here is a list of 50 different things the Spirit does in our lives . We need to grow in learning how to discern the Spirit’s work in our lives. We don’t have the space to talk about everything the Spirit does, so I’m going to highlight five ways the Spirit prompts us to act.

5 Ways the Holy Spirit Prompts Us to Act

1. The Spirit leads us to be godly Galatians 5:18, 16-25; Romans 8:14. In both of these passages the Spirit’s leading is related to Spirit-filled living. He tugs at our hearts, leading us to make the right choices. He prompts us to say no to the flesh and yes to Him to manifest the fruit of the Spirit.
2. The Spirit convicts people to change John 16:7-11. In this context He convicts the world, not Christians of sin, righteousness and judgment. A person only comes to faith when they receive the truth from the Holy Spirit of their need for Jesus.
3. The Spirit compels us to worship. Ephesians 5:18, 16-21. We can choose to worship, but there are times when our hearts overflow with worship, praise and thanksgiving because the Holy Spirit is filling us.
4. The Spirit prompts us to change our behavior Ephesians 4:29-31. When our words or attitude doesn’t honor God the Spirit lets us know by sharing His grief in our hearts.
5. The Spirit guides us to use our spiritual gift 1 Corinthians 12:4-7. There is a special grace and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit unique to each gift. When we follow the prompting of the Spirit we’re supernaturally effective in the area of our gift.

The communication from the Holy Spirit, who doesn’t have a body, is with our spirit. So we don’t actually hear a voice, we sense His prompting. Some say they hear a voice. No one can debate what people say they experience. Let’s all agree on this; today let’s be sure to do what the Spirit prompts us to do.

I’d love to hear from you on this. Please leave a comment or question below.