THE GUIDANCE OF THE SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH

THE GUIDANCE OF THE SPIRIT  IN THE CHURCH

Christ is the Head of the body.He is personally present in every true gathering of members of His Body.It is His Church and He is present to build it.He governs and His will must be known and done

Christ does His work through the Church and the Church particiapate voluntarily and intelligently in that work,but it is never authorized to make decisions in His Name or to carry out in His Name a programme of its own making.It must find out what His will is and act in obedience to it.By His Spirit He reveals His will to those who are gathered in His Name,enabling them to go unanimously to Him in the prayer of faith that is acconrding to His will and that,therefore,is assured of an answer.All this,as we have seen,is clearly reveald in the Lord’s teaching concerning the church given in the sixteenth and eighteenth chapters of Mathew and in what is taught in the Acts and in the Epistles.

The practice of the New testament church conformed to it.

The principles of guidance are as follows:

1.      God reveal His will;in the first place,through His word.Therefore,a thorough knowledge and searching of  God’s word is necessary.Part of the Holy Spirit’s is to bring to our minds  what the lord has said

2.      While God’s will is made known clearly in His word,ther are details of time and place that must be revealed from day to day by the Holy Spirit.For instance,God’s word states that it is His purpose that there be elders in His church,but the church must wait upon God in prayer until the Holy Spirit  revaled who have been chosen by God to engange in that ministry among them.Paul and his fellow-workers,as they went forward in obedience to God’s command to preach the Gospel to every creature,were guided by the Holy Spirit as to where to go and when.

3.      The Holy Spirit will never give guidance that is contrary to,or differs from,the guidance given in God’s word.He will never lead to the doing of anything that will mean adding to,or taking away from,that which is required to God’s  Word.Any leading that results in modifying the order given in the word for the Church’s structure and ministry does not come from the Holy Spirit.His guidance is always for the carrying out of God’s Word.