The Holy Spirit's guidance, when he guides you, its always going to be in harmony with His nature, which is very gentle.
Matthew 11:29 - "Take my yoke on you (my teaching, my lifestyle), and let me teach you. Learn from me, for, I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls".
The Holy Spirit has the same nature as Jesus. If you're going to follow the Holy Spirit, you have to let him teach you, and his nature is gentle and humble. Gentle means, He doesn't boss people around, and push people around. Very gentle. In fact, so gentle, sometimes you may not recognize that's Him, because you're used to being bullied all the time by other things.
Demonic forces, in the flesh, bully us; but the Holy Spirit gently leads us. It's very, very gentle. Jesus said: take my yoke on me. That means literally, submit to my teaching and instruction how to do your life, because I am very gentle, and very humble.
He said: if you do this, you'll find rest for your souls. That means, you won't be living anxious, uptight, having to take medications all the time. You won't be living a stressed out life. A common thing that people complain about is they're stressed out. Well, what happened to taking the yoke of Jesus on you? You're stressed out by something; find out what it is, and exchange it for surrender to the Holy Spirit, and being led by the spirit. You will find rest for yourself. You'll experience it, after you've surrendered to his leading.
The scripture is really clear, isn't it? It tells you what to do, tells you why to do it, and then it tells you the result. Don't come all uptight and all anxious, and bring your tensions and anxieties and stuff into the home, and everywhere else; bring them to the Lord, and let them go. Learn how to drop into a place where you're surrendered, and at peace with the Holy Spirit. A lot of guys come home from work, and they're carrying all the junk from work into the home. Why would you do that? Everyone's been waiting for you all day to see you, and then you turn up, and you're stressed out, and not there. That's not loving, or being led by the spirit.
I want to show you where he will lead us, because he will lead us somewhere. He's not unintentional. God is very intentional in how he does everything. You should really get a hold of that. He's quite intentional, but he uses all sorts of things to get there. Being led by the spirit, there's many examples of it, but I'll just give you two...
I want to take the example of Israel, in the Old Testament; and then Jesus, in the New Testament; because there's a big difference between them, yet there's something they have in common.
Exodus 4:22 - "...“Israel is My son, My firstborn"
God calls Israel, which is a picture of the church, my son. He calls His people "my son". It's not a gendered term so much as a relational function between a father and his child; and a father's need, desire and responsibility to provide guidance, protection and provision. When he calls us a son, and he leads us, it's because he's a father. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of our father, wanting to father us in life. Maybe you never had a father, but you've still got the Holy Spirit, so learn how to let him father you.
Now how did they do it in the old Testament? A lot of people look back and say: man, I wish it was like that today; I'd love this!
Numbers 9:15 - "Now the day the Tabernacle was raised up, the cloud of glory covered the Tabernacle from evening to morning. It was above the Tabernacle like the appearance of fire".
Isn't that something? The cloud always covered it by day, and it had the appearance of fire by night. Whoa! They camped on a journey. They've got a destination God is leading them to, and He needs to lead them there. How does he lead them? He literally manifests himself in the form of a cloud. That was the cloud of glory. It was a cloud of God's presence; within the cloud, and was the spirit of God. It was shimmering, glistening, full of gold. It was something spectacular, and it came up over them, and protected them from the heat of the sun; and then at night time, when it was cold, it changed from being a cloud, and became a column of fire. Can you imagine watching it, as it changes from cloud, as the sun goes down, now it's becoming a fire that can be seen everywhere. Wherever you were in the camp, you looked up and right there in the center of the camp, there's this column of fire. How awesome is that?