Finally there is the matter of the sons of God. We were debtors; we were dead persons. But now we are sons of God. To be a son of God means that we are full of life, that we are in maturity, that we are full of liberty, with no bondage, no debt. We are sons, mature sons of God, sons in the full sonship.
The leading by the Spirit is the vocabulary composed with these eleven letters. If you put all these eleven positive items together, you have the leading. Is the law of life in you? Is the Spirit of life in you? Is the divine life, the life of God of which the Spirit is, in you? Do you have a spirit mingled with the Spirit of God? In a sense you do not need to go further. You can just linger here with these four items: the law of life, the Spirit of life, the divine life, and your regenerated human spirit mingled with God the Spirit. As long as you have these four items, you have the leading by the Spirit. Spend some time to pray-read all these items, and they will become your check points.
Whenever you say that you have the leading of the Spirit, you have to check about the law of life, the Spirit of life, the divine life, and your Spirit mingled with God’s Spirit of life. Just check with these four points. If the leading is genuine, you would have these four points. If the leading is not genuine, you could not get through these four points.
Then you can go on to the things of the Spirit and the mind set on the mingled spirit. Then comes the peace. After these comes the Triune God: the Father as the Spirit, Christ the Son as the Spirit, and the Triune God as the resurrecting One. If you could really get through all these check points, you can be assured that you have the leading by the Spirit.
For years we considered that the way to know the leading of the Lord is by checking the inner sense, by checking the Word of God, and by checking with the circumstances. But now the Lord has shown us a better way. You just need to check with the law of life, with the Spirit of life, with the divine life, with your mingled spirit, with the things of your mingled spirit, with the mind set on this mingled spirit, with peace, with God the Father as the Spirit, with God the Son as the Spirit, with the Triune God as the resurrecting One. In a sense you don’t need to check concerning the matter of the sons of God. If you can get through the first ten items, you are surely a son of God.
You must be able to get through all these eleven items. If you cannot, you are not under the leading by the Spirit. This is very clear, and it is accurate.