A Study of Romans 8:14
Welcome back, everyone! I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee and Western North Carolina and I’ve spent a lot of time hiking, especially across the mountain behind our family home. It’s hundreds of acres of rugged land, and I know what it’s like to become lost and disoriented. One day I became so turned around I ended up, to my exasperation, miles from where I wanted to be. That’s sometimes the way our lives feel, isn’t it?
I recently read about a group of firefights who were trapped in a burning forest with no way out. A helicopter hovered overhead, and someone dropped a note out of the chopper. It said, “Follow me.” They trapped firefighters followed the pilot as he steered his helicopter along the one and only safe route. From his higher vantage point, the pilot could see the pathway out of the inferno.
Most of the people of this planet are wandering around in confusion and trapped in the smoke. But a few of us have found an infallible Guide, one from above with an eternal vantage point—the Holy Spirit. One of His functions is to guide us as we hike through the mountains of life and navigate the dangers, while we journey toward our heavenly destination. Today, let’s talk about the guidance of the Spirit from Romans 8:14: For those who are led by the Spirit are the children of God.
But first, we’ve just announced the dates and itinerary for our 2027 trip to Israel. We’re planning to go next September, which, of course, is contingent on the political situation settling down in the Middle East. We’ll fly into Tel Aviv, spend the first night on the Mediterranean coast, right on the beach, then we’ll travel on to Galilee and eventually to the golden city of Jerusalem. Along the way, I’ll be teaching at all the major biblical sites. You can find more information at my website, robertjmorgan.com, and while you’re there take a moment to sign up for my monthly newsletter.
Now today, I want to tell you that I’ve always wanted to expound my way through Romans 8 without rushing or skipping over verses. This is one of the richest chapters in the whole Bible, and so we’re going through it slowly. The overarching theme has to do with our security in Christ, our eternal confidence. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, and no separation from His love. We can be absolutely certain of that. But that theme is bound up with the operations of the Holy Spirit within us.
So far, we’ve discovered nine things the Holy Spirit does for us and within us.
1. He Awakens Your Dead Soul
2. He Unshackles You from Sin and Death
3. He Changes Your Lifestyle
4. He Infuses a New Set of Desires into Your Personality
5. He Is Able to Govern Your Mind
6. He Represents the Presence of Christ Within Your Life.
7. He keeps giving you life and strength and enthusiasm as you follow Him (verse 10)
8. He Will Raise Your Body Imperishable in the Last Day
9. He Enables You To Put to Death the Misdeeds of the Body
And now we come to the tenth operation of the Holy Spirit. He leads us. Verse 14 says: For those who are led by the Spirit are the children of God.
What the apostle Paul has in mind here is guidance for your soul and mine in terms of assurance and sanctification. The opening word of verse 14 is for, which is a connecting word, linking what comes next to what has preceded it. Connecting words like for and therefore occur more than 90 times in Romans, as Paul is unfolding a logical train of thought that builds its case, one idea at a time.
Beginning in verse 12, he said, Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
Then we have the connecting word for, which means here is the explanation for it. The Holy Spirit is within you, and He is enabling you to put to death the misdeeds of the body and to grow in holiness and in the gradual duplication of the personality of Christ in your life. The reason this is happening is because you are being led by the Spirit. He is doing this within you because you are a child of God, you are now, through Christ, a member of His family. The verses that immediately follow verse 14 talk about how the Holy Spirit leads us to assurance and to the sure and certain awareness that we are God’s special children and heirs.
And so Paul says: For those who are led by the Spirit are the children of God.
But the reason the Holy Spirit can lead us through the process of assurance and sanctification is because He is the agent of guidance for the Christian in all the parts of our lives. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the wisdom to know which way to go. It is the Holy Spirit who enlightens our minds to enable us to make good decisions. It is the Holy Spirit who takes the Word of God and uses it to shape our pathways. It is the Holy Spirit who applies the providential work of God in orchestrating the circumstances we face for our good, as we’ll see later in this chapter.
This is in keeping with the way we understand the Trinity to operate. God the Father has a plan, and God the Son has provided all that is needed for that plan to be implemented. It is the role of the Holy Spirit to come into our lives with the plan of the Father and the provision of Son and to serve as our personal guide in fulfilling the plan decreed by the Father and provided by the Son. Theologians have observed that in many areas—creation, salvation, prayer, and providence—God the Father decrees the outcome; God the Son provides it; and God the Spirit activates it down here below.
The Guidance of God
I had never before realized how the Bible teaches this in terms of divine guidance. All my life, from childhood, I’ve been aware of the truth of divine guidance. I grew up singing hymns in church about it, like, “Savior, Like a Shepherd, Lead Me.” And “He Leadeth Me, O Precious Thought.” I memorized Proverbs 3:5-6 at an early age: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.”
The Bible has a rich reservoir of verses about this.
- Proverbs 10:24 says, “A person’s steps are directed by the Lord.”
- Psalm 23 says, “He leads me in paths of righteousness.”
- Exodus 13:21 says about the Children of Israel: “By day the Lor went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way….”
- Psalm 25:5 is prayer, saying, “Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.”
- Psalm 48:14 says, “For this is our God forever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end.”
- In the book of Isaiah, the Lord promised, “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them” (Isaiah 42:16).
- The Psalmist testified in his prayer in Psalm 73:24, saying, “You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you take me to glory.”
I knew many of those verses as a teenager and as a young adult, and I diligently prayed for the Lord to guide me in the great decisions that would determine the direction of my life. Looking back, I can offer a personal testimony in the words of Fanny Crosby’s Gospel song: “All the way my Savior leads me.”
I’ve preached many sermons and written many articles and books about God’s guidance over our lives. I’ve collected hymns on the subject. One of my favorite—I wish we still sang it—is a beautiful German hymn by Georg Neumark:
If you will trust the Lord to guide you
And hope in Him through all your ways,
He’ll give you strength whate’re betide you,
And bear you through the evil days.
Who trusts in God’s unchanging love
Builds on a Rock that naught can move.
The subject is of huge importance. I think it is especially important to teenagers and young adults because, in a relatively short period of time, they have to make decisions that will determine what their lives are going to be like for decades to come. Should I go to college? What should I become in terms of my profession and my career? Am I going to meet someone and marry them? Am I going to live at home or move away? Am I going to have a family? Am I going to place Christ at the very center of my life or am I going to put my faith on hold for a while? Am I going to follow Christ or the crowd? Am I going to live by Scripture or by culture?
Those kinds of decisions shape who we are and what we become. Sometimes we don’t think about them until we come to the day of our high school graduation, and then all of these decisions race towards us with accelerating speed.
But decision-making isn’t limited to our teenage and young adult years. Even in these autumn years of my life, I have needed God’s guidance in specific ways as much as I ever have. So the subject of divine guidance and what the Bible says about the Lord’s leadership has always been a treasured subject for me in the Bible and in the hymn book.
I deeply believe the Lord has a specific plan for your life—for the life of every person—that is pre-arranged from eternity. The Lord has something for you to do, somewhere for you to go, some work for you to undertake. He has your life already planned. He told the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5).
Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
So I have always possessed some awareness of the wonderful truth of God’s guidance. But until now, I’ve underestimated the role of the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:14 was eye-opening as I traced this theme through the Bible. I believe the Holy Spirit has a greater role in guiding our lives than we realize. That has come to me as something of a new realization from this one verse, Romans 8:14. But it is not the only verse in the Bible that talks about being led by the Spirit.
The Guidance of the Holy Spirit
I want to take you on a little tour of this topic in Scripture.
Nehemiah 9:19-20
Let’s begin in Nehemiah 9. In this chapter, the people of Israel are back in the land of Judah after their exile and they have been building up and fortifying the walls of Jerusalem. In chapter 8, they paused to celebrate the Word of God. Everyone gathered in the big square and the scribe, Ezra, stood on a platform and read from the Torah. He read from the book of the Law and he gave the sense and caused the people to understand the reading. Then for the first time in a long time the Israelites celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles.
Nehemiah 8 is a very pivotal chapter in the Bible because it represents the Word of God coming to the center of attention among the Jewish people. And as they heard the Word of God taught, they recognized their sinfulness and the level of their disobedience, and they confessed their sins. Nehemiah, who was the governor, led them in a powerful prayer. In his prayer, Nehemiah reviewed the history of Israel and how God had led His people through the desert, from Egypt to the Promised Land. Notice verses 19 and 20:
Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst.
It was the Holy Spirit—God’s good Spirit—who was there on the ground leading and instructing them and showing them the way they were to take.
Psalm 143:10
King David said something similar in one of his psalms. This is one of the times when David was in trouble and he cried out to God for mercy and for relief. In verses 8 – 10, he wrote,
Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life. Rescue me from my enemies, Lord for I hide myself in you. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.
Notice that in both Nehemiah and Psalm 143 the Holy Spirit is called “Your Good Spirit.” And He is the one, here, on the ground as it were, leading us. What does David mean by “level ground”? The Hebrew term here can mean “level land” or “smooth terrain.” but the word can also mean “a straight course.” It can also be translated as “upright.”
Some of the older translations say: Thy Spirit is good; lead me in the land of uprightness.
The Contemporary English Version puts it in a way I can understand: Let your gentle Spirit lead me in the right path.
Another translation (The Voice) says, Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God. Allow Your good Spirit to guide me on level ground, to guide me along Your path.
This is a prayer we can cut and paste into our own prayer books, into our own lives.
Isaiah 48:16-17
Now, let’s turn to Isaiah 48:16-17. If you’ve never spent much time in the last 27 chapters of Isaiah, you’re in for a rich experience. These chapters are messages of comfort and encouragement, which Isaiah wrote for the Israelites who had been carried off to Babylon and who were returning home.
Look at what he said in this text: And now the Sovereign Lord has sent me, endowed with his Spirit. This is what the Lord says—your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.”
Isaiah said the Holy Spirit had come upon him and told him to remind the people of Israel that Yahweh is the God who teaches them what is best for them and who directs them in the way they should go.
A few chapters later, Isaiah circles back to the subject. Look at Isaiah 63.
Isaiah 63:11-14
He said in verse 7: I will tell of the kindness of the Lord, the deeds for which He is to be praised—according to all the Lord has done for us—yes, the many good things he has done for Israel….
He went on to talk about how God became their Savior and led them through the wilderness in the days of the Exodus, even though they tried His patience. Look at verse 10: Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit.
That’s an unusual verse for two reasons. First, it is one of the few times in the Old Testament in which the Spirit of God is referred to as the “Holy Spirit.” We find that phrase quite often in the New Testament, and we have references to the Spirit of God throughout the Old Testament. But I can find only three times in the Old Testament when the Spirit of God is called the “Holy Spirit.” And two of them are right here in this passage. The other is in Psalm 51 when David prays, “Do not take your Holy Spirit from me.”
Second, we’re told that the complaining, griping, obnoxious unbelief of the Children of Israel grieved the Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul borrowed this phrase from Isaiah to warn us against doing the same thing, as he wrote in Ephesians 4:30: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”
Third, though the Holy Spirit was grieved, He did not give up on the Israelites or stop guiding them. He brought them to repentance and rededication. Let’s continue reading with verse 11:
Then his people recalled the days of old,
the days of Moses and his people—
where is he who brought them through the sea,
with the shepherd of his flock?
Where is he who set
his Holy Spirit among them,
12 who sent his glorious arm of power
to be at Moses’ right hand,
who divided the waters before them,
to gain for himself everlasting renown,
13 who led them through the depths?
Like a horse in open country,
they did not stumble;
14 like cattle that go down to the plain,
they were given rest by the Spirit of the Lord.
This is how you guided your people
to make for yourself a glorious name.
God guided them and gave them rest by His Holy Spirit.
Matthew 4:1 (also see Luke 4:1)
This theme shows up very early in the New Testament. Matthew 4 and Luke 4 both begin with the words: Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness….
John 16:12-13
At the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus told His disciples, I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.
Acts 8
In the book of Acts, the guidance of the Holy Spirit shows up in three passages. The first concerns the evangelist named Philip. He was traveling the road between Jerusalem and Gaza, and he saw a chariot headed toward him. Acts 8:29 says, “The Spirit told Philip, ‘Go to that chariot and stay near to it.”
The Ethiopian official was reading Isaiah 53 as he traveled, and he invited Philip into his chariot. Philip began at Isaiah 53 and led the man to Christ. They came to a pool of water, and Philip baptized the man. And verse 39 says, “When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.”
I do not know how the Holy Spirit spoke to Philip or how the Spirit snatched him away. The book of Acts gives us the facts but not the explanations. But the Holy Spirit was involved in guiding Philip in the work assigned to him.
Acts 10:19-20
Two chapters later, we see something similar. The Holy Spirit tells Peter to go down from the roof, welcome the visitors who were looking for him, and go with them to Caesarea.
Acts 13
In Acts 13, the church in Antioch was thriving, and while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said to them, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” The Holy Spirit somehow guided the church to send out the first organized congregationally-commissioned missionary team.
Acts 16
In Acts 16, on his second missionary journey, Paul and Silas and Timothy were traveling east-to-west across Asia Minor (modern Turkey), wanting to preach the Gospel. But we read these remarkable verses: “Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.”
Somehow the Holy Spirit closed doors or prevented them from ministering for hundreds of miles until He had led them to the harbor city of Troas, which became the launching pad for their mission to Europe.
Galatians 5:18
One last passage. Galatians 5 is one of the most Holy Spirit-intense chapters in Paul’s writings. He tells us to await the future in the power of the Holy Spirit (verse 5); to walk by the Spirit (verse 16); to produce the fruit of the Spirit (verse 22); to live by the Spirit (verse 25); and to keep in step with the Spirit (verse 25). And in the middle of it all, Paul tells us to be led by the Spirit in verse 18.
And that brings us back to our key text—Romans 8:14: For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.
The Guidance of the Spirit for Us Today
So throughout the Bible in both the Old and New testaments we have an indication that the Holy Spirit plays a role in guiding the followers of Jesus Christ to fulfill the exact plan that God the Father designed for them. All of that is my premise. But how do we actually do this in practice? How do we follow the Spirit’s guidance today? Let me give you four takeaways.
1. Walk in the Fullness of the Holy Spirit
First, we must learn to walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. When we give our lives to Jesus Christ and receive him by faith and through grace, the Holy Spirit comes to indwell us. He makes His home within us. He brings Christ to us and makes Him real inside of our lives, so that we can truly say that Christ lives in us.
To walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, then, is to daily be filled with the Holy Spirit. That is the emphasis of Ephesians 5. We read in verse 18: “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit….”
Notice how this is worded. We are told to be filled with the Holy Spirit. That is a passive tense of the verb. It doesn’t say that we are to fill ourselves with the Holy Spirit. We are to do something passively, so that something may in fact happen actively.
Let me explain it like this. I talked earlier about growing up in the East Tennessee mountains, and I still have a home there. Our parents built a log cabin in the 1940s and later they enlarged it as their permanent home. When they passed away, my sister and I kept it in the family. Sometimes the house is closed up. The doors and windows are shut and locked. When I go to spend a few days and I walk into the house, I can tell at once that the air is stale and musty.
The first thing I do is to go around to every room and open the windows as high as they will open so the air can blow into the house from outside, filling the house with fresh air. I may call my sister and say, “I’m airing out the house.”
Now, I cannot fill the house with fresh air. The wind has to do that. The mountain breezes have to do that. I cannot stand outside the windows and huff and puff, or wave a funeral home fan toward the house. I cannot even go outside and aim electric fans toward the windows. I simply open the windows and let the mountain breezes fill the house with fresh air.
That is akin to what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Every morning as we start the day we should pause to say, “Lord, I am Your house, Your building, Your home. I cannot fill myself with enthusiasm or wisdom or divine power. But I can open all of the windows of my life to You. Blow like a fresh breeze into my life and fill me with the fresh air of Your Holy Spirit today. May I be filled with Your Spirit.”
And as we learn to do this day by day, then we are walking in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, which allows the Spirit of God (in ways we may not even understand) to give us guidance and to lead our lives step by step and moment by moment.
2. Study the Spirit-inspired Scriptures
Second, we need to have a regular way for studying the Spirit-inspired Scripture, The Bible is the only book in any library anywhere on earth that has a dual human-and-divine authorship. It is extraordinary. The writers of the Bible were borne along by the Holy Spirit, and that’s why the Bible is fully trustworthy. It doesn’t typically give us direct guidance. You will not find a sentence in the Bible that tells you to move to Texas or to buy a Toyota or to marry John Smith.
But as you spend time in the Bible—reading it, studying it, memorizing it, meditating on it, and letting it dwell in you richly—it develops your mind. We are transformed by the renewing of our mind. The study of the God and the study of the Word of God imparts wisdom, and that allows us to make better decisions.
Very often, it is during our daily Quiet Time, as we pour over the Scripture when we begin go see what we should do.
3. Discern the Spirit-arranged Circumstances
Not only must we walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit and immerse ourselves in the Spirit-inspired Scriptures, but we must also learn to discern the Spirit-arranged circumstances of life.
There is an interesting word that appears only once in the Bible, at least in the New International Version. It is the word providence. Job said to the Lord: “You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit” (Job 10:12).
Theologians define providence as God’s sovereign rule over His creation, accomplishing His purposes through both ordinary and extraordinary means. I like to think of God’s providence operating on three levels.
First, there is galactic providence. God has ordained the pathways of the stars, the orbits of the planets, and the movements of the galaxies. He governs the entire universe, both the visible and the invisible realms.
Second, there is global providence. The Most High rules over the affairs of nations, directing the course of history toward the fulfillment of His eternal purposes.
But there is also granular providence. God works in the smallest details of our personal lives. He often guides us, not by spectacular signs, but by quietly arranging the circumstances we encounter and opening doors we could never have opened ourselves.
For several decades, one of the greatest privileges of my ministry was working with Child Evangelism Fellowship. It is one of the world’s largest evangelistic ministries, reaching millions of children in nearly every nation on this planet. I’ve been privileged to know many of its leaders and to speak to CEF workers throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Although my schedule no longer allows me to serve as extensively as I once did, my admiration for this ministry has only grown.
As I prepared this message, I found myself asking, How did I ever become involved with Child Evangelism Fellowship in the first place?
The answer goes back many years. When Katrina and I built our home, we chose a sloping lot that allowed us to include a walk-in basement. We finished part of it as a small apartment and rented it to help with our finances.
One day a young man named Aaron Baker contacted us about renting the apartment. I don’t even remember how he found us. We welcomed him into our home, and before long he became a dear friend. His father, Buzz Baker, was one of the key leaders in Child Evangelism Fellowship. Through that relationship I became acquainted with the ministry, received an invitation to speak at one of its gatherings, and that invitation grew into a partnership that lasted for decades.
I never could have orchestrated those connections myself. They came because we happened to buy a sloping piece of property, happened to build an apartment, and happened to rent it to a young man we had never met. Looking back, I don’t think those were accidents at all. They were specific expressions of God’s providence.
The story doesn’t end there. Years later I introduced my associate pastor, Jeff Nichols, to the ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship. Today he serves as its Director of North American Ministries. Under his leadership, CEF reported more than 3,200 Good News Clubs across North America last year, reaching over 110,000 children and recording approximately 14,000 professions of faith.
But the story doesn’t end there. I want to tell you about a man named Scott. About a year ago, he was trying to decide about whether to leave his job at a bank or go work fulltime for CEF. He knew the Chattanooga chapter had an opening, but he just didn’t know if this was something he should do. He struggled with the decision and he finally told the Lord, “This Sunday in church I want you to let me know what to do.”
During the week leading up to that Sunday, a member of his family was sprayed by a skunk and the smell invaded the entire house. They had to de-skunk the premises that weekend and weren’t able to go to their church. His family loves listening to my pastor, Allen Jackson, so they decided to listen to the World Outreach Church livestream. But instead of Pastor Allen, I was speaking that day!
At the beginning of my sermon, I introduced Jeff Nichols who had come with me and was sitting on the front row. I told the church that he was with U.S. Ministries for CEF.
Scott, watching on the screen, said to himself, “OK, that may be a sign.” About ten minutes I said something like this: “There might be someone out there today who is considering leaving their job to go into ministry. You might even work at a bank, but whatever God tells you to do, do it!”
I don’t know what made me say that. It was unplanned and extemporaneous. But the words struck Scott like a hammer and he knew he had his answer! Today he is fully involved in the ministry of bringing boys and girls to Christ.
No one could have arranged or planned or manipulated those circumstances. I don’t even understand them. But God was in everything. He was in the chain reaction that started when God led Katrina and me to buy a sloping piece of property, to put an apartment in the basement, and to rent it to a young man we had never before met. God even caused a skunk to make his stink, and for me to utter the word “bank.” If you, as a child of God, look back over your life—especially as you get older—you’ll see the same pattern over and over. That’s how the providence of God often works. We simply have to discern the Spirit-arranged circumstances that unfold in God’s timing.
4. Be Sensitive to the Spirit’s Promptings – Isaiah 30:21
Not only must we walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, immerse ourselves in the Spirit-inspired Scriptures, and discern the Spirit-arranged circumstances of life, but we must also learn to recognize the Spirit’s gentle promptings.
I want to be careful here. We should never trust our inner impressions apart from the guidance of Scripture. I’m always cautious when people casually say, “God told me to do this,” or “God told me to do that.” I do not believe God is giving new inspired revelation today. He completed His written revelation in the Scriptures with the concluding book of Revelation. Our authority is the Bible, not our feelings.
Sometimes people sincerely believe God has spoken to them when, in reality, they’ve simply acted on an emotional impulse, a strong desire, wishful thinking—or perhaps even a bad case of indigestion.
At the same time, I do believe the Holy Spirit often gives His children quiet promptings, settled convictions, or an abiding sense of peace about a decision that is fully consistent with His Word. He doesn’t add to Scripture, but He does apply Scripture as He directs our lives.
I remember one of those occasions during my freshman year of college.
To be honest, I wasn’t a very happy camper. I was living with my Aunt Louise, who was seriously ill and no longer aware of her surroundings because of dementia or perhaps a brain tumor. My father had hired two ladies to care for her, and I occupied one bedroom in the house while commuting each day to King College. I wasn’t living in the dormitory, I hardly knew anyone on campus, and I honestly had no clear idea what the Lord wanted me to do with my life.
One day a friend mentioned that his wife had attended a school in South Carolina called Columbia Bible College. This was long before the internet, but somehow I found the address and wrote asking for information. A few weeks later an academic catalog arrived in the mail.
One evening I was lying in bed, slowly turning its pages, when an overwhelming conviction settled over me, as if God said, “This is where I want you to be.” It wasn’t an audible voice. It wasn’t a vision. But the impression was so unmistakable that from that moment I had no doubt the Lord was directing me to attend that school.
I mailed in my application with a twenty-five-dollar application fee. Soon afterward I received my acceptance letter, and on September 2, 1971, I got into my car and drove to a campus I had never visited before, where I didn’t know a single person.
Looking back, I have never doubted that the Holy Spirit gently prompted me to make that decision. During my three years there, my life was transformed. The Lord deepened my walk with Him, confirmed His call on my life, and prepared me for a lifetime of ministry. It was one of those quiet promptings of the Holy Spirit that changed the entire course of my life.
Three years later I graduated from Columbia Bible College, still uncertain about the specific direction the Lord had for my life. I knew He was calling me into full-time ministry, but I didn’t know in what capacity. Should I become an evangelist, a Bible teacher, a pastor, or serve with a parachurch ministry?
That summer I traveled throughout New England with a team from the college. We preached in churches, ministered in Christian camps, and shared the gospel wherever the Lord opened doors. One week we were serving at a camp—I believe it was in either Vermont or New Hampshire—and I found myself wrestling once again with the question of my future.
One clear evening, with the moon shining brightly over the lake, I walked down to the dock, climbed into a canoe, and paddled out into the stillness. Alone on the water, I poured out my heart to the Lord, asking Him to direct my steps.
I can’t fully explain what happened next. There was no audible voice, no vision, and no dramatic experience. But as I paddled back to the dock and tied up the canoe, a deep and settled conviction filled my heart. I knew—with complete confidence—that the Lord was calling me to be a pastor.
From that evening until this one, I have never doubted that calling.
Isaiah 30:21 says, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’”
The Holy Spirit doesn’t whisper new revelation to us. But He sometimes impresses our hearts or instincts in a way consistent with God’s Word and His providence, “This is the way; walk in it.” I’ve discovered over the years that He often guides His children in just that quiet, steady way.
I remember hearing Ruth Bell Graham once say, “God has never spoken to me audibly but when He does speak there is no mistaking it.”
Mable Francis, the far-famed American missionary to Japan, said, “Now it may sound very strange to some folks in our modern day and age to say that we heard the voice of God, that we knew by His Word and by His Spirit what He wanted us to do. I am not at all embarrassed to tell you that from childhood I have earnestly sought the guidance of the living God by His Spirit and by His Word day by day.”
Conclusion
And so I come back to Romans 8:14: For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. Outside of a relationship with Christ, you can never tap into the guidance of the Holy Spirit. You can never discover the footsteps that God has ordained from eternity for you. You’re like a firefighter in the inferno that has no guidance from above. You’re like a traveler lost in the woods that doesn’t have anyone to lead him along the right path.
Jesus Christ came down from heaven to clothe himself a human body, lived a righteous life and died an excruciating death. He rose from the dead on the third day and ascended to heaven having provided for us all we need to experience and to enjoy a well-guided life in this world and an eternal life and that which is to come.
He will lead you as you learn to walk in the fullness off His Spirit, study His Spirit-inspired Scriptures, discern His Spirit-arranged circumstances, and become sensitive to the promptings of His Holy Spirit.
I appeal to you with all my heart, do not let another day pass without turning your life over to Jesus Christ as your Savior and your Lord.