Ran into a fellow believer recently who has been struggling with some of the church issues here in the congregation. She's still not sure what to think about our leaving the ELCA and affiliating with LCMC. I know folks have a great variety of thought about these past months of crisis, conflict, and decision. It's complex. But when I asked her how she planned to make up her mind about what to do in response to the congregation's decision and direction, she said, "I will just let the Holy Spirit guide me. The Spirit will guide me." It's a common response that many make to decision making in general: the Spirit will lead me. I've said it myself, I'm sure. Yet there is a subtle danger in such a process of deciding, thinking the Spirit alone will guide. The danger is that such thought tends to separate the Word of God from the Spirit of God. That biblical fact is, the Holy Spirit is the shyest member of the Holy Trinity and seeks never to draw attention to Himself but only to Christ. (Paul makes this point throughout the eighth chapter of Romans, remembering too that the inspired word through Paul says that only by the Holy Spirit can anyone say "Jesus is Lord.") The Holy Spirit then guides according to the what has already been declared as truth in God's Word. He never goes beyond the Word or contrary to the Word. So if we say, "the Spirit will guide us," let us understand this to mean that the Holy Spirit will bring us back to and deeper into the Word of God, as we read and hear it in the Holy Scriptures. With this understanding of the Spirit's leading, we will always be led to make the right decisions.

Pastor Mark