Transformation: The Spirit Leads We Follow

Over breakfast recently, my brother recalled us learning to waterski in beautiful, sandy-bottomed Mullet Lake, near Cheboygan, Michigan. I got up on the second try, but Eric had a more difficult time. “I kept trying to pull myself up,” he recalled, “I had to learn to let the boat do the pulling.” (We see where this is going, don’t we?)

Beginning with our June 10 post, we have focused as believers on our ongoing transformation into the image of Christ Jesus. We saw first that God has a vision for us: to be like His Son. We then recognized that we’re not there yet; our change into His likeness is ongoing. Most recently, we have observed God as the actor in our transformation: like the boat, God is the puller, and like the skier, we are the pulled. A similar analogy offered by the renowned pastor and writer, John Piper, lasers in on being “led by the Spirit.”¹ Piper offers this helpful contrast: “The Spirit is not a leader like the pace car in the ‘Daytona 500.’ He is a leader like a locomotive on a train. We do not follow in our strength. We are led by his power.”² This is the Christian life. As Paul writes elsewhere, “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”³ We live under His power and move at His pace.

What does being “led by the Spirit” infer but ongoing relationship with Him? On the eve of His crucifixion, Jesus assured His disciples of God’s continued presence through the coming of the Holy Spirit. “You know Him because He remains with you and will be in you,”⁴ Jesus promised, adding this: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak.”⁵ The Spirit leads; we follow. He pulls; we ski. Then how do we best hear the Holy Spirit, so to recognize His voice and follow His lead? The Spirit of God speaks through the Word of God; He speaks its truth into our soul and its direction into our day-to-day life. The Spirit is present in prayer, stirring us to praise, confession, intercession, petition, and thankfulness. In fact, He himself “intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”⁶ This is relationship—active, fruitful, grateful relationship.

Then here is what we’ll find: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh [sinful nature].”⁷ He will always lead us in the ways that are good and right. And along the way, He will transform us, and we will be transformed.

Father, teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.⁸ In Christ I pray. Amen.

¹ Galatians 5:18 NASB
² John Piper, “The War Within: Flesh Versus Spirit,” Desiring God, June 19, 1983, accessed July 4, 2026, desiringgod.org.
³ Romans 8:14 ESV, emphasis added
⁴ John 14:17 NASB, emphasis added
⁵ John 16:13 ESV, emphasis added
⁶ Romans 8:27 NIV
⁷ Galatians 5:16 NASB
⁸ Psalm 143:10 NIV