Which Spirit Leads You?
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” (Psalm 23:1-3). These words of David are familiar to many, yet their depth is not immediately apparent. They speak not merely of divine comfort, protection, or blessing. They confront every person with a direct and searching question: who is leading me? Which spirit guides me? Whose voice shapes my decisions, my thoughts, my desires, and the direction of my life?
If the Lord is called a Shepherd, then man stands before Him not as his own master, not as an independent wanderer, and not as the self-sufficient ruler of his own fate. He is a sheep of His flock. This is not humiliation – it is profound security. A sheep does not survive by its own cunning or strength. It recognizes the shepherd’s voice, stays close to him, and goes where he leads. When the Lord becomes one’s Shepherd, a person ceases to wander through his own fears, passions, and impulsive choices. He comes under divine guidance.
David declares: “I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1). This does not mean that the believer will never face hardship, unanswered questions, or inner conflict. It means something far greater: the one who has truly made the Lord his Shepherd has access to a source that never runs dry. God leads to green pastures, where genuine nourishment for the soul is found. He leads beside still waters – not the turbulent currents of the world that intoxicate, cloud the mind, and stir up anxiety within, but to waters where a person finds peace once more. The Lord does not drive His flock into chaos – He leads them to rest, to purity, and to life.
Yeshua said: “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). The Good Shepherd does not merely point the way from a distance. He lays down His life for those He leads. His voice carries no coercion, no fear, no bondage. His voice speaks through the Holy Spirit, who instructs, reminds, comforts, convicts, and leads into truth. The question of guidance is therefore not a matter of religious form. It is a matter of life itself: do I hear the Shepherd’s voice, and am I following Him?
Yeshua told His disciples of the Holy Spirit: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). The Spirit of God never leads a person into deception, sin, moral corruption, or lawlessness. He does not make room for unsanctified desires or approve decisions driven by the flesh. He leads in the paths of righteousness for the sake of the Lord’s name. It is therefore impossible to genuinely claim to be led by the Spirit of God while comfortably following wherever the flesh leads. Guidance has its marks. It has a direction. It bears fruit.
The human soul is in constant need of restoration. David says: “He restoreth my soul” (Psalm 23:3). The soul includes our thoughts, emotions, and will. Emotions matter, but a person of God must not be governed by feelings alone. Emotions flare, shift moods, and push toward hasty words and misguided actions. Yet God has given man a will – the capacity to make a decision and stand firm in it. When the mind is renewed by the Word of God, the will is strengthened and emotions find their proper place. The person then moves not by the storm within, but by the truth the Lord has revealed.
Scripture declares: “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). A renewed mind is not merely familiarity with biblical phrases. It is an inward transformation in which the Word of God begins to determine how a person thinks, what he chooses, what he says yes to, and what he refuses. The Holy Spirit works in harmony with the Word, because He is the Spirit of truth. He does not lead a person around Scripture. He takes the Word of God and makes it living and active within us, so that our souls are restored and our wills are empowered to choose life.
This is precisely why it is vital to ask oneself honestly: what draws me? Am I drawn toward the house of God, toward worship, toward prayer, toward fellowship with believers, toward the proclamation of the Gospel, toward holiness and obedience? Or am I drawn toward what destroys the heart, distances me from God, and strips away my peace? A person may deceive others, and may even attempt to deceive himself, but the direction of his life reveals which spirit leads him. The Spirit of God always leads toward Yeshua, toward truth, toward holiness, toward freedom, and toward love.
Walking with God does not mean the absence of valleys. David did not say, “I will never pass through the valley of the shadow of death.” He said: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). The life of a believer includes attacks, pressure, sorrow, conflict, and moments of weakness. But what distinguishes the person of God is not that he never passes through darkness – it is that he does not walk there alone. The Shepherd is with him. The authority and the support of God are with him. The Word and the Spirit are with him.
The rod speaks of authority; the staff speaks of support along a long road. The King’s word carries power, and the Spirit of God sustains us on the journey. The question, then, is not only whether darkness surrounds us, but where we seek our comfort. Do we settle our hearts with the Word of God, or with the excuses of the flesh? Do we lean on the Lord, or on our own understanding filled with anxiety? Scripture says: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1). True rest is found not in the absence of threat, but in the presence of God.
The apostle Paul writes: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). This word carries immense freedom, but it is not a license to live however one pleases. Condemnation has been destroyed in Messiah Yeshua, yet a life lived after the flesh reopens a person to bondage, fear, and death. God has not set us free so that we might return to our former chains, but so that we might live under new guidance – not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Paul continues: “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Romans 8:5-6). Death often begins not with an action, but with a thought that is allowed to take root. What a person consistently dwells upon gradually shapes his desires, his words, his decisions, and his path. The battle for life in the Spirit is therefore also a battle for the mind. Not every thought that enters the mind belongs to the person. Not every thought must be received, developed, and fed.
Scripture calls us to take thoughts captive: “casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). This is not a passive spiritual life in which a person simply waits for everything to change on its own. God has already done what is essential: He gave His Son, opened the way of salvation, sent the Holy Spirit, and granted His Word and authority to resist sin. Now the person must respond in faith and obedience. God will not read the Word for us, pray for us, worship for us, or make our decisions for us. We ourselves must enter into what He has already prepared.
Repentance is not merely regret over the past. It is a transformation of thinking and a complete turning of one’s path. A person returns to God and begins to think differently, to see differently, to choose differently. As he gives himself to the Word of God, old patterns of thought yield to God’s thoughts. And God’s thoughts give birth to God’s words and God’s actions. This is where genuine change becomes visible: a person no longer merely professes faith – he begins to live as the Holy Spirit leads.
Paul speaks plainly: “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:12-14). These are weighty words. The flesh may still raise its voice even after a person has come to faith. Old desires, habitual reactions, and sinful thoughts may attempt to resurface. But the believer is not obligated to submit to them. He is not a debtor to the flesh. He can, through the Spirit, put to death the deeds of the flesh and choose life.
To mortify the deeds of the flesh means to refuse sin the right to rule. It means stopping the thought that leads toward death. It means answering temptation with prayer, worship, the Word, and the confession of truth. It means making the voice of the spirit louder than the voice of the flesh. The simple disciplines of the spiritual life – prayer, reading Scripture, participation in the life of the congregation, worship, gratitude, fellowship with believers, refusing to judge others – become the channels through which a person remains in the guidance of God. They are simple. Yet it is through them that strength comes.
Paul writes further: “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:15-16). The enemy acts as an enslaver. He does not ask permission. He forces his way in wherever a door has been left open and begins driving a person toward what that person no longer even wants. The Spirit of God acts differently. He does not return us to fear. He brings us to the Father. He does not reveal bondage – He reveals sonship.
Service to God must not be built on a sense of obligation alone. Duty may restrain a person outwardly for a time, but it does not heal the heart. True obedience is born of love. The believer prays not because he has been forced, but because he loves the Lord. He comes to the house of God not as a servant driven by fear, but as a son who knows where home is. He chooses purity not out of fear of punishment, but because he loves God more than sinful pleasure. Freedom in Messiah is not the right to live after the flesh – it is the power to live in love toward God.
The Kingdom of God is neither grim obligation nor hollow religion. Scripture says: “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17). The world offers its pleasures, but they often leave destruction in their wake. God gives a joy that does not consume the soul but heals it. He gives righteousness that straightens the path. He gives peace that is independent of outward noise. He gives a life in which a person can glorify the Lord, serve others, and not destroy himself in the process.
To be led by the Spirit of God means to remain a disciple. Sometimes the Holy Spirit speaks through preaching, sometimes through Scripture, sometimes through prayer, sometimes through a brother or sister, and sometimes even through someone from whom we least expected to hear something significant. A proud person refuses instruction because he is convinced he already knows everything. But a son of God is able to listen. He discerns the voice of the Spirit not by the status of the one speaking, but by the truth that aligns with the Word of God.
David says: “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over” (Psalm 23:5). God not only protects His flock – He nourishes it. He prepares a table even where enemies are present. He anoints the head with oil. In the imagery of the sheep, this carries particular depth: the anointing protects against what seeks to enter through the eyes, the ears, the breath, and the thoughts. A person needs the anointing of God in order to see clearly, to hear rightly, to breathe life rather than death, and to refuse to allow a foreign voice to take up residence in the mind.
This anointing is not a mystical coating – it is the active work of the Holy Spirit in the life of one who seeks the Lord. When we worship, read the Word, pray, stand in the gap, come to the house of God, and do what God has said, He strengthens us. He guards our eyes from feeding on what is unclean. He guards our ears so that the voice of the enemy does not become familiar. He purifies the breath of our inner life so that we do not absorb the smell of death, but live in the presence of God.
At the close of the psalm, David confesses: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever” (Psalm 23:6). This is the confession of a person who knows his place. His place is not outside the flock, not in solitary wandering, not amid the turbulent waters of the world, but in the house of the Lord. There he is fed, strengthened, and grows. There he learns to hear the Shepherd’s voice and to remain faithful to the end.
Even in our weakness, the Holy Spirit does not abandon us. Scripture says: “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26). God knows our struggle. He knows where the flesh is pressing for control. He knows where the heart has grown weary, where thoughts have become tangled, where the will has faltered. Yet He has given us His Spirit, who strengthens, intercedes, and lifts us back into life.
The final word, therefore, does not belong to fear, to the flesh, to the enemy, or to the valley of the shadow of death. The final word belongs to the love of God in Messiah. The apostle Paul declares: “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:37-39). We overcome not by our own strength, not by sheer determination, not by religious striving, but through the power of Him who loved us.
And so today, each person can answer once more the defining question: which spirit leads me? If we are led by the Spirit of God, we will hear the Shepherd’s voice, walk beside still waters, be nourished by His Word, put to death the deeds of the flesh, live not in fear but in adoption, not in bondage but in love. The Lord desires to lead His flock. He desires to restore the soul, to guide in the paths of righteousness, to anoint with oil and fill the cup to overflowing. And blessed is the person who does not merely know the words “The Lord is my shepherd”, but who truly allows the Lord to be the Shepherd of his entire life.
Pastor Oren lev Ari