The Holy Spirit is moving leaving evidence of His presence in His wake, but ahead of us not behind.
We must become sensitive to the the Lord’s voice through the Spirit within. There are a multitude of distractions which can crowd out His voice or make us dull to Spirit language. We should be practicing listening in worship among Believer’s where His presence is promised, as well as in our solitary prayer times. Even so, competing distractions can interfere like advertisements in TV programs. Nevertheless, God is faithful and He will teach us as we seek and listen for Him. Scripture gives us motivation and insight. Heaven rejoices when one sinner repents. (Luke 15:3-10) The typical interpretation of these parables is that we should try to get sinners to repent. Why would the Lord tell us about what the heavenly host appreciate and rejoice over? Is it because we experience similar emotions that lead us to rejoice? The emotion of finding some thing we lost, a member of our herd or a valuable coin, produces a particular rejoicing.
I lost my tractor key, I looked everywhere I could think and eventually gave up. Weeks later, I bumped into a stack of wood, it fell over on the floor and underneath was my tractor key. Joy broke out from within my soul, as it was God’s grace to find it. I spent time thanking and praising Him, no longer for the key, but for His lovingkindness. This is how the Spirit communicates sometimes in whispers of reflection, remembrance, visions, insight, and or just knowing with faith and the joy of restoration. Our response must be in like-kind, without reason, analysis or deliberation – just obedient response. The only way we could do anything to cause a sinner to repent would require us to hear, obey and act in accordance with the Spirit’s particular leading. No scripture suggests we are capable of fulfilling the ministry of Yeshua in our own ability as we decide best. Such thinking spawned the Crusades, doctrines of indulgences, practices of flailing and everything wrong in the “Church” up until today. Yeshua said, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10)
The last parable in Luke 15 is the Prodigal Son. It is about repentance, redemption, Father God’s enduring love and the necessity of rejoicing in finding that which was lost. You my disagree that these parables illustrate our response to the Spirit’s leading, but I’m certain that discerning His voice and responding appropriately thereto is essential to every Believers journey in this life and beyond.
Direction in Truth 