How does God lead? Part 1

God's leading is an important subject for His people, but it is often confusing with Christians having a difficult time expressing exactly how God accomplishes this action.

Survey regarding God’s leading in adolescents and millennials

Teleios conducted a survey about God’s leadership on two Instagram accounts frequented by Christian adolescents and millennials. There were 437 responses. The majority of responders were: < 35 years (80%), and primarily from the United States (55%) or Europe (9%). The respondents identified themselves primarily as evangelical (71%) or social Christians (23%).

A plurality of participants noted that the extent of God’s leading, minute to minute, in their lives was continuous (46%) whereas slightly fewer (28%) indicated He provided direction in life by the Holy Spirit who uses knowledge of His word as a believer acts in faith. Another 18% were unsure.
Further, 53% said God holds a distinct plan for their life which He would implement; while another 20% said God’s plan would only occur if they were obedient. In contrast, 12% expressed that there was no distinct plan, but a Christian acts in faith and obedience, having freedom to decide their own path in life.

Most believers indicated God leads them by His word (58%) and the Holy Spirit (51%) while slightly fewer (25%) stated He directs them by their emotions.

When asked the basis of their belief in how God leads is actually correct, 30% said they felt it was right, 25% knew from their experience and 20% from a Bible reference.

All the findings of the survey can be found here as well as other findings from Teleios Research are on our website.

How does God lead Christians in the church age?
It's important that we base beliefs and how we live our Christian lives on scripture. Therefore, we should ask “what does the Bible say about how God leads?” The Bible identifies several important sources for God's leadership in our lives:

• The Bible – God’s leadership for Christians is through two agents, the Holy Spirit and Christ, through one medium, God’s word, the Bible. Let us examine these.
  • Christ – The Bible says in this age God speaks through his Son (Hebrews 1:2). Otherwise, all the previous means to provide revelation, for example angels, dreams, direct messaging, visions, and prophets, are no longer used. Further, God speaks through Christ by His word, revealed in the scripture, which we discuss below.
  • The Holy Spirit – The Spirit guides us by teaching us truth, in other words, what Christ said, (John 14:6, 16:13) and using His word as a sword to enable us (Ephesians 6:17).

 Why is God’s word a basis for His leadership?
The Bible is truth to us from God. Therefore, the Bible provides a basis of leadership by the Spirit and Christ. The process of how God gave this truth is important in providing a basis of biblical authority:

• God gave truth to Christ (John 8:40-45; John 14:6).
• Christ taught the apostles this truth (John 17:7-8) and especially through the apostle Paul, through the Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16) to complete the knowledge associated with Christ’s first coming (Colossians 1:25; Ephesians 3:5).
• The apostles, and especially Paul, then taught the truth to the second-generation of Christians under apostolic authority (Titus 1:3; 1 Timothy 6:14; 2 Peter 3:2).
• During the second generation of the church, this truth was written down to provide our canon of scriptures which is the basis of God speaking to us today

Wow, what great resources we have through scripture to help us with our lives!
Join us next week as we discuss how the Bible tells us God leads in practice a very important lesson. Don't miss it.

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