Stay plugged into God’s Power

 

My hubby and I often talk about the difficulty of understanding what motivates people, even ourselves. We cannot read minds and realize that our own minds can be driven by the subconscious part so that we do things and wonder why we did them. Living by the power of the Holy Spirit can be difficult to understand too, yet the Bible uses the word EMPOWER to clarify His activity and show us a little about what the Spirit does.

My Bible dictionary says empower means to implement or cause to function; to carry into effect. It is the empowering to enable us to do what we are supposed to do. A similar word is defined as, “to do what something is used for; perform as expected when operating.” An English dictionary says it is about putting something into effect. All this tells me that the function of the Holy Spirit is to enable me to live like God created me to live. It is about motivation but also about the ability to bypass human motivations and do what God wants. As the Bible says, the Spirit and the flesh are in conflict however the Spirit can win that ‘war’ empowering me to obey God from the heart.

For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:5–6)

One of the first descriptions refers to spiritual gifts. 1 Corinthians 12 says there are a variety of them but all are given and empowered by the same Spirit, even if those gifts are seemingly opposites, such as leading/serving.

This empowering is illustrated in the life of the apostles. Peter had an apostolic ministry to the Jews while Paul served the Gentiles, both empowered by the same Spirit but doing different work. (Galatians 2:8)

Further, this is not about rules, or special programs, or any human inventions. It does not happen because of God’s laws but depends on faith and love from God and working together. (Galatians 3:5 and 5:6) We cannot decide what the Spirit should be telling us because He “works all things according to the counsel of his will.” (Ephesians 1:11)

The reality is that once I was under the empowering influence of Satan. God’s Word is clear that this evil entity can govern those who do not believe. However, the power of the Holy Spirit overcame that influence and brought me to new life in Christ. This was His doing, not mine:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:1–9)

Even though that “lawlessness is already at work” the Holy Spirit still “restrains it” (2 Thessalonians 2:7) so we can depend on Him because He is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.” (Ephesians 3:20) For that reason, my obedience to the Spirit of God has great significance.

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. God tells me to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” because it is His Spirit who “works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13) This passage says that working means to put something into effect entirely or thoroughly! For that reason, I must agree with Paul who said, “For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” (Colossians 1:29) and also “thank God constantly for this, that when Christians received the word of God . . . they accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in them.” (1 Thessalonians 2:13) Another application is that I fervently continue to confess my sins and pray for others because God says, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16) using the same word as the verse that speak of the function power of the Holy Spirit to implement the will of God. Wow!