The Lord Jesus was the first Person on the earth to live totally in the Spirit of God.

After Him will march the firstfruits of the Bride, and then the fullness of the Bride.

Finally every saved person on the earth will be taught of God until all residents of the new world have learned to live, move, and have their being in the Spirit of God.

It is God's will that every human being be directed by the Spirit of God in every area and action of living. There is to be no more "sea" of people who are driven here and there by the passions and ideas of the flesh and soul.

In this brief paper we will be speaking of how we are to follow the Spirit of God in three areas of endeavor:

In personal victory over sin.

In ministry and the exercise of the gifts of the Spirit.

In governing the creation when the Lord returns.

Let us think for a moment about how the Lord God directed the Israelites in victory over the sin of their own personality, in ministry, and in subduing the land of Canaan.

In victory over the sin of their own personality.

In ministry.

In subduing the land of Canaan.

How the Lord Directed the Israelites

When we begin to consider how the Lord directed the descendants of Jacob we see that no area of life was left untouched. No aspect of moral behavior, of the priestly service (ministry), or of the conquest of the Canaanites was left to the ability, ingenuity, creativity, or other ideas or impulses of the human mind and soul. All was prescribed in statute or by the direct revelation of the Lord.

What does this reveal to us about the license taken by the would-be ministers of the Christian Church of the two thousand years of the Christian Era as they are driven by every conceivable motive to use their ingenuity in constructing what they believe to be God's Kingdom?

Directed in victory over the sin of their own personality. The Israelites did not have the Holy Spirit, as we do, to help them with their moral behavior. But they did have the Law of Moses. Every aspect of their life was covered in the Ten Commandments and in the laws governing leprosy, crime, diet, the treatment of a slave, lending money and so forth. All was set forth in writing.

The Israelite was to carefully observe every point of the Levitical Law. There were several kinds of sacrifices designed to enable the worshiper to be reconciled to God when he or she had sinned in some manner.

The personal conduct of the Hebrew was more important to God than was true of any priestly ordinance, sacrifice, or the conquest of Canaan.

And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. (1 Samuel 15:22)

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:8)

To be continued.