I read an amazing ebook recently called:
Discipleship: Empowered by the Holy Spirit
The Spirit has to do the work. Apart from the Spirit of Jesus, you can do nothing. I can do nothing. So often I rely on my “skills” or dazzling intellect or strategy rather than the supernatural work of the Spirit.
“You’re not going to illuminate truth,
you’re not going to reveal truth,
you’re not even going to convict of truth.”
Only the Spirit of God can do that. The disciples were told to wait for the Spirit’s power. They couldn’t do anything with power without the Holy Spirit. Nor can we. Nor can I.
1. Has God told me: “You are my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased?”
“Because, if he hasn’t, most of you will do ministry so that the Father will love you, instead of doing ministry because you know the Father loves you.”
Is God enough for me?
Or do I use people to gain love, approval, and validation?
Is God’s love and adoration of me enough for me?
“I saw a hard, cold theologian turn into a soft, caring, missiological genius and how he loved people and cared for people. You’ve got to have that first. Jesus needed that before he did ministry.”
2. How to truly overcome temptation.
It isn’t enough just to quote the Bible to overcome temptation (after all the enemy quoted Scripture).
“Jesus was full of and led by the Holy Spirit, so that the Word could be appropriately applied to the situation. If you don’t have the Spirit and the Word, you’re not going to overcome sin. You need both.”
Remember, as a discipler and a disciple, it’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convict someone of their sin. We need to pray and ask the Spirit to convict, both on behalf of the sinner and yourself! The Holy Spirit…
“…is really good at doing his job; He has been doing it for a long time.”
3. How to live truly human.
“Ever wonder how Jesus spoke with such power and authority? He got the Spirit of God on him. Why? Because Jesus is showing us how the human life is to be lived. Jesus is showing us how power preaching takes place. Jesus is showing us that when the Spirit of God comes on men and women, they proclaim with power the greatness and goodness of our God in such a way that people will go ‘Who is this?’ And we will have to say: ‘it’s not me, it’s Christ in my by His Spirit proclaiming to you.’ I want to offer to you, if you want to be effective in proclaiming the Gospel, you must be full of the Spirit.”
I tend to trust in my own power…my own skill set…my own particular way of proclamation. There are times when I do trust in the Spirit, but way more often I don’t.
“I’m going to tell you that I’m a charismatic and you better be too, because if you don’t have the Spirit of God, I don’t know what you are doing. Intellect alone will not save people. The Spirit must.”
A Remarkable Normal
“If you have the Spirit of God in you, you can do remarkable, unexplainable things that can only be explained by the Spirit of God working in you and changing you. That is what the church should have in them. Every one of us should be living in such a way that there is no way to explain our life other than the power of God given to us by the Spirit of God.”
source Verge Network
