John 16 clearly shows us that we are to depend on the Holy Spirit for our responses to the issues of life.
Often I encounter people who tell me "we have to be careful how we respond to others." My answer to that is that if I am being careful, then I am relying on myself rather than the Holy Spirit who lives in me.
Most judgments now by those in the church are based on psychology and worldly thinking, rather than on the principles of Christ. We need to stop being careful in the flesh and submit moment by moment to the Holy Spirit, who said, "I will give you what to say when you need it" He told us not to prepare our own words, but to trust Him for His Words.
When we are careful we are relying on worldly wisdom and gauging our success on the response of others rather than on the Holy Word of God. Let us stop being careful and begin submitting to Christ who lives in us. He can do it, if we have faith to believe He can, then we aren't careful just obedient.
This is the hardest message to get through to a culture that seems to have an answer for everything, with innumerable self help books and psychological methods for every situation, and often they differ from each other.
The truth is hard to discern in our "worldly wisdom" because no two answers are the same. God never changes, His ways are perfect, we cannot know all the ways He has for dealing with different situations, but He knows and it is from Him that we must draw from, His Word and His leading as we trust the Holy Spirit that lives in us.
We must pray, read His Word, and obey when prompted, no matter what the response. Remember Noah preached many years before the flood and no one would listen, they mocked him and his family was his only companionship. The response does not always determine the correctness of the delivery. Our delivery can not be based on our culture, but on the Holy Spirit and the principles of God.
Christ said, “you will be hated for My sake.” I am sure that Christ was criticized for wielding a whip at the temple, today He would have been arrested for assault. I am sure that He would have been judged by onlookers as mean and judgmental.
Our Christian culture is so out of whack when it comes to right and wrong, that no situation can be judged based on the reaction of the hearer. We have many believers who are embracing the wicked and bludgeoning the righteous for their disapproval of sin.
God’s ways work and mans ways do not, our cultural condition proves this. When the church embraces the methods of the ungodly to employ them with believers, we have moved into the realm of apostasy. We as believers must stop seeking the worlds methods for solutions and salvation and begin returning to the Word of God for our direction, in full obedience to what He tells us no matter the consequences, only then can we hope that God can use us to enlighten another believer, moving them back onto the path of righteousness that honors and blesses God.
Stop being careful in the flesh and become so close to the Holy Spirit that what comes out of our mouth and our actions will be Him and not us.
