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I will ask the Father, and He will give you another consultant, that He may be with you forever. John 14:16 OGV
Yesterday (#326), I wrote a blog entitled The Coming Irrelevancy of Consultants. I have good friends who are consultants, members of my family are consultants, and consulting is a multi-billion-dollar business in America.
Confession: I consult with churches around the world about discipleship. The Gospel of John calls the Spirit a consultant at least four times (John 14 and 16; 15:26 and 16:7).
I’m in big trouble.
Those in power have people and press secretaries who “walk it back.” The art of obfuscation is huge in politics today and by the time the press secretary finishes, nothing seems to be what it once seemed to be.
Let me repeat what I said yesterday… consultants have an irrelevancy today because they don’t understand past best practices. Because of 2020, there are no established best practices. What is needed is the Spirit of God as consultant, helper, and comforter.
To what I wrote yesterday, I’m adding – all of us can be filled with God’s Spirit.
What the Spirit does, we can do, because the Spirit of the Lord dwells within us. Only God knows tomorrow. The Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 5:25, “If we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
The solution is not consultants but keeping in step with the Spirit. How?
If you are walking along a treacherous mountain path with a guide, you want to stay a few steps behind. Not side-by-side, certainly not in front, and if you lag too far behind you might get lost. Keep in step with the Spirit of God by walking two steps behind Him.
Very simple formula! Two steps behind.
At two steps, the Spirit goes before you giving instructions on your next step; you are close enough to hear His voice, and if you slip, He can quickly turn and catch you. The catching of the Spirit is important today.
During the past year, I have memorized Psalm 20. Verse 8 has intrigued me: Nations will stumble and fall down, but we will rise and stand upright! No question that you will stumble, make a mistake, be enveloped in fear, but when you stumble walking only two steps behind the Spirit…
…He will turn and catch you. You will not fall.
Consider a group of friends hiking a narrow path in a difficult section of the mountains. For assurance of living through the hike, they hire a guide. The guide gives the instruction for everyone to walk single file behind him at two steps.
Coming to a difficult section he turns and says, “Follow my steps exactly.”
No one has been on the path before. The guide, who has been on the path many times, says, “Exactly!” Danger with a single misstep, but also comfort that the guide knows the right steps.
From now until Jesus returns, we have a guide who knows the exact steps.