Who's Leading You?

As Believers, we are one body, guided by the Spirit of Truth. We must ask ourselves, "Who is leading me?" Is the world leading me? Friends? Past hurts and trauma wounds?

Where the Holy Spirit is, freedom, peace, and joy follow. Confusion is not of Christ. Are you being convicted in your spirit while walking on the path you are currently on? Do you know how to find your way to the Light? 

Follow Me in this episode, and you will be shown freedom: freedom from food addiction, alcohol addiction, and more. Trust in the Light to set you free today from depression, anger, condemnation, and doubt. 

Walk with Us in this episode of Reflective Hour with Tammy Toney-Butler. 

He is waiting.

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Transcript

 Hello,  I'm Tammy Toney-Butler of Reflective Hour. 

Welcome to today's program.  I'm your host,  but we all know who the real host of this show is,  and that's Christ.

[pause to breathe in the Holy Spirit]

Let's stop, pause, and breathe in the Holy Spirit.  Let's be mindful in the moment and breathe in His peace, joy, and the Fruits of the Spirit, as it says in His Word so that we can reflect today and move past the lies of the past, the hindrances of the past, and step into who God has called us to be, for we're fearfully, beautifully, and wonderfully made—daughters and sons of the King.  Chosen,  set apart for Kingdom use, sent here for a purpose. 

How many of us know what that purpose is?  How many of us are being led by the Holy Spirit and only the Holy Spirit,  for that's what it says in His Word?

That's what it says in His Word. When we look at 1 Corinthians 12:13, the New International Version (NIV) is what I will be reading from:

13: For we were all baptized by[a] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

Even when we look at Luke 4:1-2:

Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness
1: Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,

2: where for forty days he was tempted[a] by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

Who's leading you?  Who's leading you?  We are one body,  a collective whole of individuals,  drinking from one well of Living Water that flows down from heaven,  from God our Father, Abba Father. 

Are we drinking wells that are contaminated?  Are we letting the world pour into us?  Through social media,  through television? Through our friends and relationships?

There are going to be seasons that are going to be difficult.  You're going to have to make a choice.

Do you follow God, or do you follow the world? 

Who's leading you?

Is the Holy Spirit?  His conviction? His Whisper?

Always invite Him in to lead you, to guide you. 

Holy Spirit, I invite You into this Reflective Hour.  This is Your time that We have together.  This is Your show.  What do You want Your people to know? Your children,  Your beloved sheep.  What Word do You have for them today?

In my own journey, boy, it's been a journey in which I've rebelled.  I've refused to surrender, control,  trying to exert my own way,  my own path,  without the Spirit always guiding me. 

Then, once the Holy Spirit came into my life and changed me, my heart,  my mind, my soul, everything, I was a new person, a new individual. 

I don't even recognize who I am.  He took it all from me; "The icky," the shame, the fear, the regret, the self-loathing, the condemnation, and the weight of it all. 

He shed my food addiction.  Everything's gone. 

I no longer drink wine.  I no longer take Ambien to get to sleep and wash it down. 

I don't comfort by eating.  I don't comfort through seeking love in all the wrong places.
All those failed relationships. 

I've lost over 70 pounds.  You would think it would have been difficult. It wasn't because He healed me and got to the root of why I was eating. I was eating to soothe a raw wound that had been inside of me since I was a little girl.  Something I didn't even recognize.  A negative word that was spoken over me.  An act that I was forced to participate in.  The anger, the bitterness I kept inside of me after that encounter, from someone who was supposed to protect me, my mother, but she didn't. But she, too, was not protected by her mother.

We have free will, and our choices matter.  And as I reflect,  flesh was leading me. Flesh was leading me.  Addictions were leading me.  So many things were leading me, but not the truth—that True Vine. 

I was drinking from contaminated wells.  I was letting people who were not believers pour into me, who were not the ones that at that time should have been pouring into me.

And now I only let His Light pour into, guide, and direct me.  I focus on Him,  His truth,  and then I do not go astray,  for He is my Shepherd; My sheep know My Voice. 

What voices are you listening to?  Who's guiding you?

It says in Ephesians that we don't wrestle against flesh but powers and principalities.

There's strongholds in our lives, in our lives, that can impact everything we do.  We must break free of those strongholds to become who God has called us to be.  One body.  He's the Head.  We all have our place where we perfectly fit like a puzzle together.  All to serve His Kingdom.  To be bearers of the Light to a dark world.

To be set free by His Truth.  His steadfast Truth.  I was set free.  I was set free. 

You know, I have refused to bloom where I was planted.  I've refused to do that.

Years ago, my friend even gave me this cup—Bloom where you're planted.

But that's complicated for somebody like me because I was planted in a corrupt field. I was cultivated in a field of abuse,  a womb trauma.  So even though God knew me before He formed me in the womb and knitted me together.  I was placed in my mother's womb, and her choices affected me, and trauma affected her choice.

I forgave her. There's no bitterness there. I loved my mom.  She's passed on.  I lost my dad to suicide. I  had a tough go of things.

I'd say the devil tried to take me out, but I refused to go because I know my purpose.  I know my path.  I'm blooming where I'm planted.  For the first time in my life,  I've said no to speaking engagements and things that individuals would not say no to,  but that's not where I was led because you have to go where you're led, where the Spirit is leading, the Spirit of Truth.

You have to stay in your territory where He is taking you or that He's given to you.  He's anointed you for.  That's where you have the power, and you bear much fruit for the Kingdom of  God. And isn't that what it's about?  Setting the captives free,  breaking off addiction, breaking off depression,  breaking off condemnation, self-sabotage, all those lies spoken over you when you were born into a corrupt field or a corrupt world, a  sinful world.

There's so much dark,  but He's waiting to be your Light like He was for me. 

He is your Light.  He's everything.

Seek Him.  Seek His truth. 

As you reflect on your life, you realize the choices that you made,  that you beat yourself up over, that threaten your life when you contemplate suicide.  Those are lies.  You had no control over that. You were a child.  You were born into an evil world and to flawed parents who had their struggles and who were not led by the Spirit of Truth because if they had been,  you wouldn't be where you were.

He leads us beside still waters.

No weapon formed against us shall ever prosper.  He's the great I Am, the Helper, the Comforter. 

When I look at my life,  there were times He was speaking to me and saying, No, no.  Don't do that.  That's not going to end well.  Don't meet that person.  Don't go on that date.  Don't go to that job interview.  Don't go that way. I know everybody's going that way.  But don't do it.  It's not going to end well. 

What did I do?  I followed my flesh, and I didn't listen.  And that conviction that was in my spirit, that gut punch,  that voice saying don't do it, don't do it.  I refused to listen to it. I got busy with work and tasks because I didn't want to hear it. And then that other voice became louder—that voice of the world that was speaking the world's truth over my life. 

It's okay.  You can do it. You'll feel better after you do it. 

That high,  that temporary moment of pleasure,  whether it's from eating a piece of pumpkin cheesecake,  which I admit I did recently,  or it's taking a drug,  sleeping with someone,  whatever it is, that temporary moment of pleasure,  taking that drug that could kill you, it ends in destruction. 

For that is the pathway of the world.  You're not to follow the world.  You're to follow the Spirit, Truth, and Christ.  By way of His Holy Spirit, because He died on the Cross to set us free, the Spirit was allowed to come to be with us.

It was an amazing gift, a sacrifice on Jesus's part and even on Abba's Father's.  A Father that gave His only begotten son,  so that whosoever believes in Him, that's it, whosoever believes in Him. 

There's freedom at the Cross. There's freedom and trusting, obeying and surrendering to the Spirit and saying, not my will, not mine, but Yours.  Holy Spirit, You and You alone lead me,  not the world, not anyone else.

Get alone in your prayer closet, your secret place, and seek the Truth.

Seek the Bearer of the Light. 

Seek peace. 

There's no confusion nor condemnation in Christ.

If your actions, what you are contemplating doing,  If that job you want to take, that path, that road that you're walking towards,  if it causes you to compromise your faith or if it causes you to compromise who God's called you to be, if there's confusion, doubt,  correction, in your spirit, then you are not to go,  it doesn't matter. 

You must praise your way and trust your way to prosperity,  to the True Vine.

When you put God first, everything else comes after that.  And you are to put God first.  Because nobody gets to the Father that doesn't go through Christ.  Christ died for us,  and we have access to His Holy Spirit to guide us. We don't have to go blind in a dark world; we can walk with the Light, in the Light, and the Light can guide us.

The Spirit of Truth can guide us.  As the body of Christ, the church, and the bride, we must follow only the Truth during this next season.  Because the winds of change are blowing, and are we, as a church, adjusting our sails?  Are we as a body?  Uniting and coming together for the common purpose of the Kingdom of God because it's only about the Kingdom of God.

Matthew 6:9-13
King James Version
9:After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10: Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11: Give us this day our daily bread.

12: And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

Are we letting God guide us?  Are we letting the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth?  

That is what you ask yourself today. That is what you will ask yourself.  That is what will guide you, and only that; that Wellspring of Living Water, that Truth, that peace. 

Only let that Spirit of Truth pour into you, in that well of Living Water so that you are tethered to the Holy Vine and only to the Vine of Truth, not the world,  not the world,  nothing else that leads you to temptation, but only leads you, leads you along those paths of righteousness for His Name's sake. 

For that's where freedom is,  that's where strength is,  that's where provision lies,  That's where that relationship lies that you've been waiting on,  is when you put God first when you get alone with God when you let Him speak to you. Only Him,  when you refuse to be guided by the world,  that is where you find your freedom and your Truth. 

That's how you stay whole. That is how you stay sober.  That is how you stay.  

If you have to grab hold of the hem of His Garment and tether so tightly,  like glue,  glue yourself to the Steadfast Anchor of Christ,  for He will never leave you nor forsake you. Anything else in this world can fail you.  He will never fail you.

He is a Father that will never let you down. He is a Friend that will never let you down.  He is the Only Anchor, the Only Way,  His Way and not the world.  

Follow Him and Him alone this season.  

Let Him guide you. Let Him strengthen you, and let Him heal you.  

He's waiting?  He's waiting. 

He set me free, and you can be set free too,  walk in the Light. For He is in the Light, He is the Light.

Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Reflective Hour with Tammy Toney-Butler.