Spirit-Led Discomfort

One of my favorite scenes in all of scripture is the baptism scene in chapter three of Matthew’s gospel. The beauty of watching Jesus come out of the water in my mind’s eye, imagining the clouds separate, the Holy Spirit descending like a dove, and hearing the Father affirm His son. 

What an amazing picture of God’s power and grace. 

What’s disturbing for me is the seemingly 180 degree turn to what happens in the first verse of Matthew chapter 4. 

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil.” 

Does anyone else struggle that we went from an incredible family moment to being tempted by the devil? Where is the celebration? Where is the cake (everyone loves a good baptism cake)? WHERE IS THE PARTY? 

When we take a closer look at Matthew 4:1 there are lots of things we can examine for our own lives. We can talk about how the wilderness is a training ground for what God has next. Or we could explore how our biggest temptations usually come after our biggest celebrations. 

What I think we should explore today is the term, “led by the Spirit.” 

The scene seems to be separate from the event of Jesus’ baptism but what if it's really an extension of Christ’s baptism? Through the sacrament of baptism not only are we given deeper access to the Holy Spirit, but we are also invited to live a Spirit-led life. The nature of our baptismal promises move us to being joyfully-obedient to the Holy Spirit as He guides us through the wilderness seasons of our lives. 

Being led by the Spirit isn’t a promise that we will always get what we want, instead it is a reminder that the Father will give us exactly what we need. 

As leaders, this is an important reminder. 

No one ever wants to leave the party and go into the wilderness. 

No one is excited about temptation. 

And certainly, no one is overjoyed with the idea of self-denial for forty days. 

Yet, on the other side of being Spirit-led is a fullness of ministry that we could only begin to imagine. For Jesus, that meant his first sermon. Calling the disciples. And healing the sick. 

Would those things happen without His time in the wilderness? I don’t know. But I do know that being led by the Spirit to a place He didn’t want to go, taught Him a lot of things He probably didn’t understand prior to the experience. 

Being Spirit-led isn’t about Kingdom comfort, it is about Kingdom building capacity. And when you let the Advocate lead you to places, you’ll never know what might just happen. 

This is why we are excited about what God is doing on our new Substack email newsletter. Substack is both a blog, and a newsletter. We will have new posts (either a blog or a podcast) at least twice a week. We will share all of our conference audio content for our subscribers, and we will have posts like this one - designed to help you be Spirit-led. 

So, if you serve in a church, business, or community group, and you want to lean in to what it means to be Spirit-led this is the perfect subscription for you! 

We will have at least one free post a month, but if you want the audio files, and the full content the best way to make sure you don’t miss it is to get the paid subscription. 

We are excited for what God is doing on this journey!