His perfection radiates like a gleaming diamond. From even the smallest of His teaching gems, each one shines like the brilliant sun. He was and always will be the perfect spiritual guide. As a result, He led thousands through arid deserts. So their ears could eventually capture the wisest words ever spoken like a drop of water on a parched tongue.
Like the consummate spiritual guide, Jesus led His disciples and the people of Israel with righteousness and holiness. He masterfully led them with perfect gentleness and limited but powerful words.
The seventy-two disciples returned rejoicing and said to Jesus, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name.” Jesus said, “I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky. Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:17-20)
He Is The Perfect Spiritual Guide
Imagine living as an apostle of Jesus in His time. You’ve been given this unimaginable power, only by the grace of God, to defeat the evil that existed around them.
There are many things that may raise our level of excitement to a height that we rarely experience. None as great as the gift given to these followers of Christ. Like the innocence of children they find themselves in a euphoric state of excitement as they rejoice about this new gift.
We find Jesus quietly standing among them gazing upon their exhilaration. Just so He could listen to all they say until the perfect moment occurs. In His infinite wisdom and perfection He makes a slight course correction in their jubilation.
Through the influence of their human affliction, the apostles glance past the true blessing that’s cloaked them. Only to find their focus on the worldly desires of the heart-but not for long.
Jesus refreshes their memory of the great power they possess and adds one small and important adjustment. A simple and beautiful truth He shares with them to keep their focus on what truly matters so as not to be consumed by what they’ve been given.
Like a good Spiritual Guide, He uses a few simple words with a powerful heavenly truth.
“Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:20)
Time For A Course Correction
While He quietly shared in their excitement He remained steadfastly on the watch to help keep their eyes on what mattered most. His apostles put their lives in His hands and He in return, kept their course steady and pointed toward their ultimate destination.
He is the consummate Father and the perfect spiritual guide. Through His perfect love He continually guided, nudged, and prodded His children toward the way, the truth and the life. He constantly protected them from themselves and from falling into the trap of the evil one.
These actions were necessary steps in the apostle’s training; training that was designed to prepare them for their work as envoys of the gospel. Absent of these small course corrections, they would’ve been left vulnerable to the planting of weeds by the evil one. This would’ve had the potential to choke off the word of God.
On another story, we see this same gentle and loving reminder to place our focus on Him and Him only. This time, the teaching is directed outside Jesus’ circle of disciples.
“While Jesus was speaking, a woman from the crowd called out and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” He replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” (Luke 11:27-28)
This is another perfect course correction from our heavenly spiritual guide pointing our hearts toward our one true God.
No one can take us on a tour of our hearts as deeply as Jesus does. He directs our attention to the core of our human existence. It’s the place where a daily battle for good and evil rages.
He Guides Our Path To Salvation Through Repentance
He purposely wants us to see the war that’s raging inside our hearts. The great spiritual guide takes us on an intimate tour of the place where evil lurks. A place we ourselves are reluctant to look in fear of what we’ll find. How wicked the human heart can be.
It’s this look into our hearts that brings us to the doorstep of repentance. Only then are we prepared to open the door to our journey with our perfect spiritual guide. While many have longed to be present during the time of Christ’s journey on earth, it doesn’t mean we never experienced a similar love.
As children, some of us watched our own parents use similar actions to guide us as Jesus did with His apostles.
Even as a spiritual guide to our own children we often attempted to emulate the actions of Christ. This has always been our responsibility as stewards of God’s most precious. For this reason, evangelization often begins in the family with our children.
Iron Sharpens Iron
We see this spiritual guidance play out again sometime after the ascension of Christ. In this instance, we see the Holy Spirit take the role of the guide with Priscilla and Aquila in the book of Acts. Through a strong marriage bond, the two establish a ministry that supports the Apostle Paul’s teachings.
Priscilla and Aquila through the grace of the Holy Spirit find themselves guiding and enhancing the spiritual knowledge of Apollos. Through love and gentleness, they teach and make slight course adjustments to bring Apollos to a higher level of spiritual understanding. Apollos then becomes a fervent defender of Christ from his new found knowledge of the scriptures.
This short story offers a perfect lesson for all Christians. We should always remain mindful to keep intact the meaning of Gods’ message through scripture. With this mind, we must be vigilant to hold ourselves accountable to one another as we guide each other to the one truth found only in the one true God.
In a world where the sin of pride has resulted in too many religions, too many interpretations, and too many opinions, there is still only one true God.
Our journey through this world is but a small space in time and it’s a series of constant course corrections. In order to reach our destination as Christians, we should be able to rely on one another to be trustworthy spiritual guides. We should keep in mind that we’re only to plant the seeds while we leave the harvesting to the Holy Spirit.
Prayer
Dear Father, guide us as we journey through our daily lives in search of your truth. Strengthen our resolve to remain vigilant and sensitive to the presence of your Holy Spirit. Help to keep our minds and our hearts open to your spiritual guidance and encouragement, even in the most subtle moments. Help us to remain receptive to the one truth in your Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen!
