Being Led By Man Instead of The Holy Spirit

If we try to take the place of the Holy Spirit in our lives with all sorts of man-made doctrines, then we potentially block a move of God. We can think “Oh, pastor says we should not do that”. When in fact, God wants us to do that, but we pay no heed to the inner witness. This grieves the Holy Spirit. It creates dependence on the pastor and on man-made doctrines, instead of God.

So many people are so used to being spoon-fed rules and regulations that they do not think that they can be guided by God themselves. The pastor perceives that the people do not know what to do. Perhaps they don’t seem to achieve much, no-one seems to be witnessing effectively, there is no church growth, and people in the church are still sinning. The pastor takes it upon himself to take the place of the Holy Spirit for others - he becomes their light instead of God.

We look to the pastor as being almost perfect and a chosen vessel for God – so we do not ever consider that he might be wrong sometimes or that he might not know what is best for us in a given situation.

It seems that when we are struggling in life, going through a hard time and generally trying to find where we fit in with life as a whole – we can be rather vulnerable, frightened, cautious, confused and tentative about making decisions. But it is important that we learn to find our composure, develop maturity, sharpen our intuition and just get on with our own lives. We can never give the responsibility for living our lives to someone else. This means that we are likely to make more mistakes and we will get hurt along the way – but it is better than allowing someone else to take control of our lives for us.

There is an increased danger in that the pastor will usually veer towards caution, which is wise when someone He is not sensitive enough to the guidance of the Spirit, and when ministering to others - this has the effect of limiting God. It sets parameters on how we are willing to allow God to move in our lives. A good example could be in the office, some work colleagues ask you if you want to go to the pub after work. Straight away, your religious teaching says “No”. I agree that pubs are not the most ideal environments for Christians to spend their time. But if you were sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit, then you might feel led by Him to go. You might struggle with this and stand by your “No”.

But the Holy Spirit might insist and therefore you might then say “Yes”. As you are in the pub sipping your soft drink, one of the guys might bring up the topic of Christianity. You might find that words come to you to say to him, and before you know it, you have witnessed successfully. You did not plan to talk about Jesus, but because He is in you, it came naturally for you to be His witness.

The more yielded we are to God, the more He can do through us. But if we set up rules and guidelines – we can end up missing out on what God has for us and wants us to do.