Week Three, Days 4-5

Sorry I've been away from this! I skipped it on Friday and Saturday and FINALLY got caught back up today.

Day 4: A Spirit-Controlled Thought Closet: Snapshots of the Spirit

- When we receive Christ, we receive His Spirit
- The Holy Spirit is Advocate, Defender, Helper, Comforter, and Counselor, a representative of Christ, a Teacher, and the One who reminds us of truth.
- He is safe, wise, objective, and absolutely committed to your ultimate good. You can trust Him never to lead you off course.
- God's Spirit challenges us to hear, admit, and embrace truth.
- The Holy Spirit will not shout down the noise of our busy world to counsel you. He won't try to silence all the racket in your thought closet to be heard. To hear His counsel, we have to quiet ourselves and truly listen.
- When we are walking with Christ, though, I believe God's Spirit speaks to us more than we realize. He counsels us through the words of Scripture and the remarks of others.
- I need to become a better listener. How about you?
- If you aren't aware of His counsel, ask God to reveal the Holy Spirit's work in your life, and commit to listening for His voice.
- The Holy Spirit is God's representative. He mirrors God's truth because He is the third Person of the triune of God. If you sense the Spirit leading your thoughts or guiding your actions, His guidance always lines up with the truth of God's word.
- The Spirit is the truth and never leads us in ways that oppose Scripture. He won't; He can't, because Scripture is truth. He represents and lifts up the person of Jesus. He gives illumination to the character and ways of God.
- So when you sense the Spirit is guiding you, use this test: Does this match up to the truth of the Bible?
- If your thoughts don't concur with Scripture, they're not from the Spirit - and they don't belong in your thought closet.

Day 5: Two More Snapshots of the Spirit
- We've seen that God's Spirit counsels us and represents Christ and the truth.
- He also teaches and reminds us of truth.
- God's Spirit enlightens and instructs; He replaces ignorance with knowledge.
- The Holy Spirit is a mentor who teaches us to know truth, God, and His ways. That means if you are relying on faulty assumptions, He will reveal the roots to you. He exposes wrong thinking and enlightens us to the truth.
- We need a Teacher who stamps out the ignorance that pervades our thoughts and assumptions. We need a mentor who can offer wisdom that reaches beyond our own.
- Phillippians 4:8 - Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.
- His role is to lead us into all truth. When we guide our own thoughts, we head for a train wreck. We quickly derail and lead ourselves down a path that would further complicate our issues. We need a better guide than our thoughts and emotions. We need God's Spirit to lead us to truth.
- If we follow the leadership of God's Spirit, we trade our destructive and untruthful thoughts for those that are constructive and truthful. He is the One who leads and teaches us to know what is worthy of our thought closet and what should be sent to the Island of Misfit Thoughts.