As we continue along the path of wholly following Christ through living a submitted life, we yield our lives daily, moment-by-moment, to God’s examining Word. This examination comes through the promptings of his Holy Spirit who indwells each and every follower. God cultivates an awareness of our soul to these promptings of the Spirit. Just as God is the one who grants and develops within us faith as our attitude of heart, he is the one who we can trust to cause us to become more and more sensitive in our souls to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Such an awareness of soul is essential for our living a submitted life.
Paul connects faith and the promptings of the Holy Spirit when he speaks to believers about the reality of walking with God each day. In his letter to the Colossian believers, he taught that “as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him” (Colossians 2:6). We receive Christ and his gift of salvation by faith (Ephesians 5:8-10), so it is by faith that we are enabled to walk each day in the newness of life he grants to us. We must depend entirely upon God to enable us to obey him. In a parallel passage, Paul exhorted the Galatians that “if we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). Thus, walking by faith and walking by the Spirit are two sides of the same coin.
It is God’s Holy Spirit who leads and guides us day-by-day through his Word. The Spirit enlightens us, teaches us, and convicts us by exposing our own willful disobedience by the light of God’s Word. If we acknowledge our sins by confession (that is, by saying the same thing about our sins that God’s Word says about them), then we trust the promise of God to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness step-by-step along our walk by the Spirit each day (1 John 1:8-9). He strengthens and restores to us the joy of our salvation and continues to renew us with a willing spirit yielded to His will (Psalm 51:10-12).
When we fail to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures tells us that we can actually sadden God. Paul warns the young believers in the church at Ephesus about this very possibility. “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30). Paul’s admonition against grieving God is given in the midst of very practical instruction about living in the newness of life that Christ grants to us. For example, instead of speaking lies in an effort to protect or promote our own selfish pride or ambition, we are to speak the truth to one another in love. When we live for ourselves, we grieve the Spirit, but when we respond to the Spirit’s promptings and live our lives according to Christ’s Word, God graciously enables us to glorify him.
“As the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness.” (Hebrews 3:7-8). Our daily prayer should be, “Lord, grant me ears to hear your words and a will to obey your commands.” As we do, we will be living, more and more, a submitted life.
