As a people-orientated person, don’t we just love serving and helping people? It satisfies us.
More than that, while we are doing people-orientated tasks, we could learn or be motivated by something. So, like Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12 says the word of God is a double-edged sword as it is both that God speaking to us and we could be transforming spiritually by it, serving is also like a double-edged sword as well.
For example, I love writing devotionals for people. Through it, not only could I teach but also my writings motivate me to be a better Christian.
I don’t only teach people but I also include application of my writing in terms of motivating others to do things, or showing what I need more practice on, just like everyone else. This shows that I’m not a master at living spiritually and I am like everyone else.
Likewise, God’s Spirit, also known as the Holy Spirit who is living within Christ’s followers, has two functions—transforming and empowering.
The Spirit’s Transforming Role
When we start to believe in Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour, the Holy Spirit begins to transform us spiritually.
According to the Bible, we were all dead spiritually before we believed in Christ. However, God has made us alive in Christ through the renewal of the spirit by God’s Spirit Himself (Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1-9; Titus chapter 3, verses 3-7).
We cannot be made alive in Christ on our own because God is Christ, Christ is God, the Holy Spirit is both God and Christ. They are all One Being and together they are called the Holy Trinity.
As we are made new in Christ through the Holy Spirit, we are continually being transformed into Christlikeness (2 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 12-18). While we are being transformed, we have a mission to fulfil. It actually is not our mission. It’s God’s mission and we are just participants of it.
God has given us the Great Commission—making the disciples of Christ everywhere we go. Remember this from part two of “The Mission of God”? It is not that God needs us. God could restore the world and motivate people to follow Christ through the power of the Spirit in one second. Just like that!
The Spirit’s Empowering Role
But God wants us as Christ’s followers to participate in His mission. Other than God wanting us to become involved in His work to understand more of Him and that we get to understand what privileges we have to be able to live as children of God, God also wants to use us as His mouthpieces to spread the good news of Jesus Christ.
Since we are mouthpieces of God, we all have been given gifts. I don’t mean gifts as earthly and physical ones, something we can touch. I mean gifts as skills.
My natural gift has been encouragement and exhortation I think. Then, after two years of being a Christian, I was prompted to use my writing skills to spread the good news of Christ. I thought this was my temporal hobby but as I kept writing devotionals, it is like God has advanced my gift in encouraging others.
Since the Spirit has been empowering me to write more and more to spread the good news of Christ, I sensed this is the will of God and one of my ultimate purposes in living. In this sense, I count my disability in speech as a gift from God.
Disability in speech allows me to spread the good news of Christ towards various communities, instead of just specific communities. Because of this, I have twelve platforms for my devotionals and three platforms for my articles.
However, I am just going to combine them together to write devotionals, articles, or both at the same time, since I desperately want to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. My number one hope is that everyone gets to reconcile with each other and with God.
Overall, when we participate in God’s mission, God wants to use Christ’s followers as His mouthpieces and not to force others to believe in Jesus Christ. This is the Holy Spirit’s job. Our job is only to love others as God has loved us and spread the good news of Jesus Christ joyfully with a lot of patience.
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John chapter 4, verses 11-12)
In your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. (1 Peter chapter 3, verses 15)