The Work of the Spirit in the Life of the Believer

What is the intended work of the Spirit in the life of the believer? As we have already noted in John 14, His name “Comforter” indicates His coming alongside us to help us. I have not found my Christian walk to be easy. I find that my flesh fights me all the way. With Peter, I too have often discovered that the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. I understand what Paul was talking about in Galatians 5 as he spoke of the warfare between the flesh and the spirit. If God has help for me, I’m ready for it; I want all the help I can get! I never want to set limits on what God wants to give me, or what He wants to do in my life. I do not want to be guilty, as were the Israelites in the wilderness, of limiting God (Psalm 78:41). By the same token, I am not looking for experience for experience’s sake; I want only the genuine work of the Holy Spirit, but I want it all.

Trusting the Spirit

In the discourse of Jesus to His disciples, beginning in John chapter 14, He is seeking to prepare them for His departure. He is talking much about His leaving them and returning to the Father. He also speaks much to them of the provisions which the Father and He had made for them by the power of the Holy Spirit. He would be there to help them. As they had learned to trust in Jesus for any situation or emergency that might arise, they must now learn to trust in the Holy Spirit. He will now be their Helper.

Jesus spent His three years with His disciples teaching them the truth of God. Now their Teacher is departing to return to the Father, but the students will not be on their own; this Helper, the Holy Spirit, will now teach them all things and will recall to their remembrance all the things that Jesus had said to them (John 14:26).

Perhaps you’ve had the experience of sharing the gospel with someone when he or she asked a question that immediately stumped you; but as you began to answer, the Scriptures started coming into your mind, and you were pleased and satisfied with the answer you gave the person. This is the recall work of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit helps us to understand the things of God. Many times I have been frustrated in an attempt to explain some spiritual truth to a non-believer. It seems so clear and obviously evident, yet he or she cannot seem to grasp it. If you are dealing with things concerning the Spirit of God, the natural man “receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: …neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Dead Versus Living Spirit

While attending college I had a sociology professor who believed in the dichotomy of man, and I believed in the trichotomy of man. Many times we expressed our differing views to each other. I was frustrated that he could make no distinction between the soul and spirit of man, but believed them to be synonymous. One day as I was leaving class frustrated after another discussion in which he seemed to have deliberate blindness, it was as though the Holy Spirit brought 1 Corinthians 2:14 to mind. Then I realized that as an unregenerate person his spirit was dead, so I was speaking to him of mysteries which he could not know. He did not and could not know of the spirit of man until he was born of the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 2:15 Paul says, “He that is spiritual [understands] all things, yet he himself is [understood] of no man.”

Anyone who lives only on the body conscious plane is living on the animal level of existence. His mind is ruled and dominated by his body needs; he does not understand the things of the Spirit, for his own spirit is dead. No wonder he seeks to relate himself to the animal kingdom, for he is living as an animal, a body-dominated consciousness. When a person is born again by the Spirit, his own spirit comes alive and, now joined to God by the Spirit, he is encouraged through the Word to live a Spirit-dominated life. As he does, he begins to have a Spirit-dominated consciousness.

Letting the Spirit Lead

As we live after the Spirit, our thought patterns are different because we are now thinking of God and how we might please Him and serve Him. The mind of the Spirit is life and peace (Romans 8:6). What a tremendous help the Holy Spirit is to us as He teaches us the things of God and helps us to understand them! The Bible seems to come alive with meaning and excitement as Scripture after Scripture seems to almost jump off the page to minister to us.

In John 16:13 Jesus promised His disciples that when the Spirit of truth had come He would guide them into all truth, and would show them things to come. It is so necessary to have that guidance of the Holy Spirit into all truth. Jesus warned of false prophets that would be wolves, yet appear in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15). There are men who come among the flock of God and appear to be part of it, but whose main motive is to prey upon the flock. They bring in damnable heresies and seek to draw men after themselves. In Acts 20:29–30 Paul warned the elders of the church in Ephesus, “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.”

Peter warns in 2 Peter 2:1, 3, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.… And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.”

Sensing the Phony Prophets

Note one of the marks of the false prophet: “…with feigned words make merchandise of you.” I regularly receive computer typed letters from noted evangelists that fit Peter’s description perfectly. These letters will say such things as, “Benny, God laid you on my heart this morning, and I have been in prayer for you. I just can’t get you off my mind, Benny; is everything all right? Is there some special need that I can pray about? Please write me immediately, because I love you, Benny, and I want to help you! Incidentally, my ministry is in one of its greatest financial crises ever. We are going to have to close down some of our great works for God unless we get your help immediately. If you don’t have fifty dollars to send me, maybe you could borrow it elsewhere and help me keep God’s faith work going. Plant your seed of faith today. God will help you repay the loan you get. Your partner in faith.”

My name is not Benny, but somehow that is the way it has gotten onto their mailing lists. These types of deceitful letters seek only to make merchandise of the people, and on the authority of God’s Word I do not hesitate to call their authors false prophets.

This is charismania in one of its most blatant forms and is practiced by most of the charismatic evangelists, especially those who emphasize divine healing. I always marvel that they can have such faith for my healing and so little faith for their own financial needs.

It is beautiful to see how the Spirit will warn you when someone starts to get off in his doctrine. Quite often you cannot pinpoint the error immediately, but you know that something isn’t quite right. The Spirit has been given to the believer to guide him into all truth.

Learning Things to Come

The Holy Spirit also shows us things to come. When Daniel was seeking a fuller understanding of the time of the end and the things he had written, he was commanded to “shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased” (Daniel 12:4). As Daniel persisted in his questioning, again the Lord said, “Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand” (Daniel 12:9, 10).

It is by the help of the Holy Spirit that a clearer understanding of the coming again of Jesus Christ has been given to the church. Paul the apostle was shown by the Spirit some of the things that were to come upon his life as he said to the elders of Ephesus in Acts 20:22–23: “And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: save that the Holy [Spirit] witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions [await] me.” Later, as Paul continued his journey toward Jerusalem, Agabus the Prophet took Paul’s belt, bound himself with it, and said, “Thus saith the Holy [Spirit], So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles” (Acts 21:11). Here is a classic example of the Holy Spirit showing Paul the things that were to come into his life.

Another example from Paul’s life of this work of the Spirit is found in Acts 27:21–24: “But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee.”

The Mighty Hand of God

In a small prayer group we decided to pray one for another; we had the person to be prayed over sit in a chair in the center of the group. When it was my turn to be prayed for, someone spoke a word of prophecy by the Holy Spirit declaring that God’s hand of blessing was going to come upon my ministry in a great way, that the people would come to hear the Word in such numbers that there would not be room in the church to contain them. The prophecy went on to declare that I was being given a new name which meant shepherd, for the Lord was going to make me a shepherd of many flocks.

Up until this time I had been struggling for almost seventeen years in the ministry with such limited success that I was contemplating leaving the ministry for some other type of work. The church I was then pastoring was running around one hundred in attendance in spite of all our efforts to increase its size through giving free hamburgers to everyone who brought a friend to Sunday school. As these words were being spoken, I was in my heart much like the man upon whom the king leaned—who, when he heard Elisha’s promise of God’s bountiful provision to come upon the starving inhabitants of Samaria, said, “If God should open windows in heaven, could such a thing be?”

Fortunately, God was merciful to me, for my fate was not the same as his; I have both seen the fulfillment of the prophecy and have been able to partake of it as we see the greatly expanded church facility filled to over-capacity, not just once, but three times on Sunday mornings, and as we minister by cassette tapes and videotapes to hundreds of Bible study groups all over the world.

Power to Conquer

The work of the Holy Spirit in your life if you are a believer is to give you the power to be a witness for Jesus Christ, to give you the power to be all that God wants you to be. One of the most frustrating things in the world is trying to live the Christian life in the energy of the flesh. The Bible speaks of the frustration in Romans 7, where Paul speaks of how, when he tried to keep the law of God and to do good, he found that “when I would do good, evil is present with me. And the good that I would I do not. And that which I would not I do. Oh wretched man that I am!” Paul describes in Galatians 5 how the flesh wars against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and how these two are contrary to each other. Jesus said to Peter, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). Because of the weakness of our flesh, we cannot live the kind of life that the Lord would have us to live and that we ourselves would like to live before the world.

God desires that your life be a true representation of Him in this world. God wants the world to see Jesus Christ in you. He wants your actions and reactions to reflect Him. He wants you to be His witness, representing Him. But if you attempt to be His witness, if you try to react like Christ, you’ll find how difficult and frustrating it is to do this—in fact, how impossible it is because of the weakness of the flesh.

The Perfect Witness

Many Christians find themselves in that frustration of knowing what is right and wanting what is right, but somehow not doing what is right. The Bible says of Jesus Christ that He was the true and faithful witness; He was a witness of the Father. If you want to know what God is like, just look at Jesus Christ, because He was the true and faithful Witness. When Philip cried out, “Lord, if You’ll just show us the Father, we’ll be satisfied,” Jesus replied, “Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? …Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very works’ sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also” (John 14:9–12). Jesus then gave the promise of the Holy Spirit to them.

Jesus faithfully represented God in every action. He demonstrated to us that God is interested in the physical, emotional, and spiritual welfare of man. God is interested in your sufferings; God is interested in your sorrows. God is interested in your pains; God is interested in your weaknesses. Jesus never came upon a sorrowing scene without bringing victory and joy to it. He never faced the weakness of humanity without imparting the strength of God.

The Great Helper

God wants to help you in your weakness, so He has sent another Comforter, One to come alongside you and help you. Jesus said, “Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost comes upon you.” You will receive this dynamic. When I think of the power of the Holy Spirit, it is first the power to be what God wants me to be, and this extends into every area of my life: power in my prayer life, power for a holy walk, power to be and do. Here the promise is power, and it is related to being a witness for Jesus Christ: “Ye shall be witnesses.”

We make a mistake when we think of witnessing as something we do; in reality it is something that we are. So often witnessing is associated with passing out tracts on the street corner, or going door to door to declare the gospel, or sharing the four spiritual laws with our neighbor over a cup of coffee. These are all forms of sharing our faith, but doing them does not make us witnesses of Jesus Christ. Being a witness is more than speaking words; it is living a life. The word witness comes from the Greek word martus, which transliterated into English is martyr. We think of a martyr as one who dies for his faith; however, it is really one whose life is so totally committed to his faith that nothing will dissuade him from it, not even the threat of death. His death does not make him a martyr; it only confirms that he was truly a martyr. Many Christians testify of Jesus Christ without ever being a true witness.

More Than Just Words

What a person says is often meaningless because he is not living a life that backs up what he is saying. If you are trying to share with someone the love that Jesus brings, yet your life is filled with hatred, bitterness, and jealousy, he will not respond to what you are saying because your life is contradicting what you are saying. If you go around saying, “You really need to know the joy of Jesus Christ; He’ll give you such joy,” but you’re always depressed and pessimistic, your life isn’t a witness of what you’re saying. People will observe your depression and discount what you said. If you say, “You need to know the Lord so you can have real peace in your heart, the peace that passes all human understanding. Receive Jesus and have peace”—but your life is torn up and you’re constantly nervous and worried and filled with anxiety, people will look at your anxiety and worry and won’t hear what you’re saying about peace. Your words can be totally drowned out by your actions. It is more important that the activities of your life be a witness for Jesus Christ, and then your words become meaningful. If your words aren’t backed up by your life, your words really have no good effect at all.

A lot of people think, “I’m a witness for Jesus—I go down to the beach and pass out tracts. I share the four spiritual laws wherever I go.” That doesn’t make you a true and faithful witness. Your life must be in full harmony with God, so that when people look at your life they say, “There’s something different about that person.” Saying it doesn’t make you a witness; living it does.

The Lord wants to give us the power to be a witness. He will empower us through the Holy Spirit, for in our own selves we are weak and failing. God wants us to be strong. God wants us as witnesses for Him.

Peter as a Failure

In Mark 14:53–54 we read, “And they led Jesus away to the high priest: and with him were assembled all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes. And Peter followed him afar off, even into the palace of the high priest: and he sat with the servants, and warmed himself at the fire.” As we follow the story through to verse 66 we read, “And as Peter was beneath in the palace, there cometh one of the maids of the high priest: and when she saw Peter warming himself, she looked upon him, and said, And thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth. But he denied, saying, I know not, neither understand what thou sayest. And he went out into the porch; and the cock crew. And a maid saw him again, and began to say to them that stood by, This is one of them. And he denied it again. And a little after they that stood by said again to Peter, Surely thou art one of them, for thou art a Galilean, and thy speech agreeth thereto. But he began to curse and swear, saying, I know not this man of whom ye speak. And the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept” (verses 66–72).

Earlier that evening Jesus had said, “All of you are going to be offended tonight because of me.” But Peter had replied, “Lord, though they all be offended, I will never be offended.” And Jesus had responded, “Peter, before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times.” At this point Peter began to get very vehement, and he said, “Lord, even though they slay me, I would never deny You!”

Peter thought he was a true martyr, and I believe he was perfectly sincere. I know exactly how he felt when he made his boast to the Lord, for his spirit was willing and he really felt he had all it took to die for Jesus if necessary. But when the chips were down, Peter didn’t have it; when this young maid asked, “Weren’t you with Jesus?” Peter responded, “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Later she said to a group standing there, “He is one of them,” and Peter denied Jesus again. Then those standing by said, “Surely you are one of them; you have a Galilean accent.” Then Peter began to curse and swear, saying, “I don’t know the man!” Then came the reminder of what the Lord had predicted: the rooster began to crow. when Peter heard this he went out and wept. How many times I have wept over my own weakness and my own failure! I didn’t want to fail the Lord; I didn’t want to let Him down; I really wanted to stand for Him. But the pressure was too great, and I was not a witness—I failed. How bitter is that failure; how hard it is to realize, “Oh Lord, I failed You again.” We get to the place where we don’t even want to promise Him anything anymore, because we just know we’ll fail Him again.

I can identify with Peter; I know exactly how he felt when he heard that rooster crowing. I know exactly that misery—“Oh, God, I’m so sorry I failed You again.” Must we go on forever in our Christian experience failing our Lord? No. Thank God we don’t have to go on failing—He has promised to us the power to be what we could never be through our own strength or strong wishes.

Peter as a Witness

A few weeks later Peter faced the same group of men who had incited the murder of Jesus: “It came to pass on the morrow, that their rulers, and elders, and scribes, and Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the [family] of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in the midst [that is, Peter and John and the lame man] they asked, By what power or what name have ye done this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy [Spirit], said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, if we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole, be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:5–12).

When they saw the boldness of Peter they marveled (Acts 4:13). This is a different fellow from the one who a few weeks earlier stood on the porch of the palace and denied his Lord. What a different man! Reading the two accounts, you wouldn’t believe it was the same person. What made the difference? The difference lies in that little phrase “filled with the Holy Spirit.” Jesus had said to His disciples, “They are going to bring you before the magistrates and the judges, and when they do, do not worry about what you are going to say. Don’t make any little prepared speeches, for in that hour the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and it will be the Holy Spirit who speaks through you. You shall receive power; you shall be witnesses.” The Holy Spirit is the Helper, the One who helps you to be all that God wants you to be—a true and faithful witness of Him.

The Only Source of Power

The Holy Spirit gives us the power to be a true and faithful witness of Jesus Christ—the power of truly representing Him on the job, in the home, or in the classroom—so that when people look at us they will see the love, the peace, and the beauty of Jesus Christ in our actions and attitudes. They will see a person who is at peace in the storm. That is the power that we need if we are to be His witnesses, for we cannot be a true witness of Him in our own strength or ability; without the power of the Holy Spirit we will fail every time the real issue arises and the pressure is on. It is not until we learn to rely completely on the Holy Spirit that we experience this power.

One of our most common mistakes is that when we see an area of weakness in our life we immediately try to compensate for it and to correct it ourselves. We say, “I’m sorry, Lord; I’ll never do that again. I promise you, Lord.” We mean what we say, yet we do it again. The problem is that we are trying to correct the issue ourselves, thinking that somehow, if we will only work at it a little harder or try a different approach, we can change and correct the weaknesses of our own character and nature.

It is not until we are brought to the total desperation of the helplessness of ourselves, and give up and surrender, that we know the joy of His victory. It wasn’t until Paul cried out, “Oh wretched man that I am!” that he recognized the truth about himself and no longer looked for “Who has another program that I can try?” or “Who has another formula?” Paul gave up and cried out for a power outside himself: “Oh wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me? I can’t deliver myself.” He gave up trying to deliver himself and he recognized that he was wretched.

Then he answered his own question: “Thanks be unto God that, through the promise of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, God has provided for my victory.” As we move into Romans 8 we read all about the Spirit-led, Spirit-filled, Spirit-directed, Spirit-empowered life. Paul concludes the chapter by saying that we are “more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

What a different story from the defeat and sad despair of the weakness of the flesh in chapter 7! What a glorious cry of victory—“More than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:37–39).

That glorious cry of victory is possible because of the empowering of the Spirit when I give myself up and turn myself over to God and receive that power, that dynamic from God. At this point I allow the Holy Spirit to do His work within my life, the work that God has designed for Him to do.

Not My Own Power

The effect of this is that I cannot stand up and boast to you about what a wonderful person I am or about the wonderful witness I am for my Lord or about the wonderful way I react in tough situations. All boasting is now in God’s work through His Spirit. I am still a wretched man, but thank God I have been delivered from my wretchedness through the power of the Holy Spirit. When I face a pressured situation now, and things are pushing in on every side, thank God the pressure doesn’t even build up anymore. It’s almost like sitting on the outside and watching the Spirit work rather than being involved. All of a sudden I say, “Thank God! That’s not me; that’s not the way I react!”

A retired naval officer accepted Jesus as his Lord a while ago. He had a foul tongue, as many military people do. After he accepted the Lord he was really all-out for Jesus. When he was about six months old in the Lord, he was out in the backyard mowing the lawn with his power mower, whistling as he bubbled in the joy of the Lord. As he was busy mowing and not watching very closely, he went under a tree and a limb caught him right in the forehead and laid him on his back.

As he lay there on his back, all of a sudden he got excited. He went running into the house, grabbed his wife, and said, “Honey, guess what happened to me!” She looked at his bloodied face and asked, “What happened to you? What did you do?” He replied, “That’s not what it is; it’s what I didn’t do! When it happened I didn’t cuss! Not even one bad word!” She responded, “Honey, do you know that I haven’t heard you use a bad word in six months?” He asked, “You haven’t?” The Lord had taken away his foul tongue without his even realizing it, until a situation came along that was so apt to arouse the old nature that suddenly he realized that God had given him the victory.

Changed on the Inside

That’s the beautiful way of the Holy Spirit; He works in such a way that many times the work is already accomplished, and we don’t even realize it. We’re changed from within; that’s the method of the Spirit. It’s the change from within that comes out, which is exactly the opposite of the method by which we have been trying to do it. We have been trying to force the changes from the outside in. We can sometimes be successful in changing the outside, but if the inside isn’t changed, what is in will eventually come out.

It is important that the Spirit do the changing from within. When this happens, only God can receive the glory. Where is my boasting? It is excluded. There is no way I can boast, because what I was I still am. But thanks be to God for His grace: through the power of His Holy Spirit I am now a new creature in Christ Jesus. The old nature I count as dead. Does this mean that I never get angry? No, I wish it did. But it does mean this: whenever I do get angry and fail, I say, “Lord, let Your Spirit work. Give me the power, Lord; I can’t do it. You will have to do it, Lord; give me the power.” In one area after another in my life, when I yield that area of weakness to the power of the Holy Spirit, I begin to experience real changes as the Spirit works within me and conforms me into the image of Christ.

Closing the Door?

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus made a very remarkable statement, one that must have puzzled those who heard it. In Matthew 5:20 He said, “For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” It is our desire, goal, and prayer that we might enter into the kingdom of heaven. But it would seem that Jesus was actually closing rather than opening the door of the kingdom of heaven when He made this astounding statement, for the Pharisees practiced being righteous. They spent their lives trying to interpret the right action, then sought to do it. When Jesus said to His disciples, “Except your righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven,” I imagine that a sorrowful sigh went through them as they gave up hope of ever entering.

Then Jesus went on to close the door even tighter, because He began to give a series of illustrations to explain what He meant—illustrations of how the law was wrongly interpreted by the scribes and Pharisees. Then He contrasted that with how the law was originally meant to be understood. The basic flaw in the Pharisees’ interpretation of the law was that they were interpreting it so they could fulfill it and feel good about it. They were interpreting the law to live comfortably with it—but you can’t live comfortably with the law. They had begun to feel that they had fulfilled the law, and were going around doing their little righteous acts and thinking they were righteous.

But Jesus showed them that, though their actions were correct, their attitudes were wrong, and thus they were sinners, for the law was spiritual. The law wasn’t intended to deal with just the outward actions of man; it was intended to deal with the inner attitudes of man. When the law says, “Thou shalt not murder,” you can’t really sit back comfortably and boast in yourself by saying, “Well, I’ve never killed anybody.” If you feel smug and self-righteous that you have kept that law, remember that Jesus said, “The way God meant this is that you are not even to hate your brother.” The attitude of hatred, Jesus said, was equivalent to the action of murder, as far as the violating of the law.

So it would seem that Jesus was closing the door to the kingdom of God. Finally we get to the last verse of Matthew 5, where it seems like He bolted and locked it, for there He said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

I Give Up

All of a sudden I realize I cannot attain what God requires of me, because no matter how hard I try, I can’t be perfect. I have failed, and there is no way I can fulfill God’s requirement or the command of Jesus Christ. It’s not that I don’t want to be perfect. The Lord knows I’d love to be perfect, especially when I’m wrong. It would be nice to always do the right thing; it would be nice to always have the right reaction; but I don’t. Many times I have a very wrong reaction to things, and that’s when I wish I were right.

This is what psychologists call our superego—the picture of our ideal self, what we really want to be, and what we would be if circumstances were only different. In contrast to this is our actual self, our real self, our ego—that which we really are. Psychologists tell us that our mental problems are sometimes caused by the disparity between the two. If the real you is far removed from the ideal you, then you may have great mental conflicts. The closer together the ideal you and the real you are, the better-adjusted person you are.

If you go to a psychologist because you are mentally disturbed, he will attempt to discover what you really think you should be—the ideal you—and where in your actual self you are failing. Often he will then try to bring down your concept of the ideal you. He will seek to show you that your values are so high and pure that they are impractical. Often he will seek to lower your standards in order to remove your inner conflicts.

However, when the Lord works on us, He does the opposite. He tries to bring the real you closer to the ideal you. Man working on the problem would bring the ideal you down; the Lord working on the problem would bring the real you up to match the ideal. But God requires of us that which we cannot attain, that which we cannot give.

God’s Provision

There is no way that I can fulfill the divine ideal for my life, so God, realizing that, has made provision for me. Knowing that I cannot attain to His divine ideal, God sent His only begotten Son to take all of my failures, all of my sin, all of my shortcomings—and to accept the responsibility for them and to die in my place. God, knowing that I cannot fulfill the divine ideal, has inaugurated a substitute plan so that now what God requires of me is only that I believe in His Son, Jesus Christ.

I can do that! Though I cannot be perfect as God has ideally required of me, I can believe in Jesus Christ, which is God’s actual requirement for me. You see, God has now made the kingdom of God open and available to all of us because all it takes is for us to believe in Jesus Christ. When people came to Jesus and asked, “What shall we do that we might work the works of God?” Jesus answered, “This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He hath sent.” You cannot stand before God in that day of judgment and try to excuse yourself by saying, “Well, God, I just couldn’t be perfect. I’m just human; I just had all these faults, and I just couldn’t keep your requirements, so I just gave up because I figured there’s no sense trying.” God will reject your excuse because God has only required that you believe in Jesus Christ, the provision that He made for your failing and sinful self. God has made the kingdom of heaven available for everyone. You don’t have to be perfect to get there. All you have to do is believe on God’s provision through Jesus Christ.

But when you believe on Jesus Christ, and you open the door of your heart and invite Him to come in, then as the Spirit of God comes in He begins to work within you and change you. The Bible says, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). God’s Spirit begins to work in your life to do in you what you couldn’t do for yourself. God’s Spirit begins His work of change in you, strengthening you, helping you, and conforming you into the image of Jesus Christ.

God’s Ideal

As we look around us today and seek to understand God by His creation—God’s purpose for man and what His intention was when He created man and placed him on the earth—we cannot discover this truth, for we do not see man fulfilling that ideal. The only place we can discover what God really intended man to be is in Jesus Christ. He is what God intended when in that divine council they said, “Let us make man in our image, after our own likeness.”

What did God intend? Look at Jesus Christ and you’ll know, for Jesus said, “I do always those things that please the Father.” The Father said about Christ, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” As we look at Jesus Christ we see what God intended man to be. We cannot look at Adam, because Adam fell, even though God did not intend for man to fall. We cannot look at ourselves, because we have fallen, even though God didn’t intend for us to fall. But if we look at Jesus Christ, there we find the divine ideal, that which God intended when He created man. It is the purpose of God that, through the work of His Holy Spirit in your life, and through the power of the Spirit to bring about changes in you, He will bring you into the likeness or image of Jesus Christ.

In Ephesians 4:13 we see what God wants to do in us. Paul declares, “Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” That’s what God is working in us today. That’s the work that God seeks to accomplish in our lives through His Holy Spirit, bringing us unto the perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. In Romans 8:29 we read of the work of the Holy Spirit within us, conforming us into the image of God’s Son. It is God’s predestined purpose for us that He, by the Holy Spirit, might conform us into the image of His Son.

How it Works

In 2 Corinthians 3:6–18 Paul talks about the Old Testament period when God first gave the law. When Moses came down from the mountain having been there in the glory of God’s presence, his face shone so that he had to put a veil over his face when he talked with the people (verse 13). But then in verse 18, in contrast to this veil, Paul said, “We all with [unveiled] face beholding as in a [mirror] the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit the Lord.”

It is when I look at God’s divine ideal in Jesus Christ that the Holy Spirit works in me, changing me from glory to glory into the image of Christ. I believe that this is a lifelong work. The Holy Spirit has not completed His work in my life by a long shot. But, praise the Lord, He’s working. And, praise the Lord, I’m not what I was—I’m being changed! Those changes are taking place, though I confess that they’re taking place too slowly for my own desire. I would love to have them made all at once.

Whenever the Holy Spirit shows me an area that needs working on, whenever He opens up the light and causes me to see my true self and how far it is from what God would have me to be, immediately I think, “Oh, let’s get to it; let’s conquer.” I step in and try to be better, and I keep trying to be better, but the harder I try the worse I get, until I get to the place of defeat and giving up. Then I cry out, “Oh God, I’m so wretched. I cannot do it.” He replies, “Good. Now will you step aside and let Me work? You’ve been in My way.” He is not interested in my self-righteousness; He is not interested in my help. He wants to do His work in me unhindered by my fumbling efforts, because even if He used my fumbling efforts to help give me the victory, I’d be going around boasting in my fumbling rather than in my God. God lets me fail until in despair I cry out for help. As I yield myself to the Spirit of God and allow Him to do His work, He conforms me into the image of Jesus Christ.

I’m No Match

I must be brought to the place of acknowledgment and recognition that I cannot rid myself of the flesh or its desires or weaknesses. I’m no match. As long as I’m struggling and trying, I cannot make it; I will fail.

We’re sinners; we need to recognize that fact; there is nothing we can do about it ourselves. We have to call out for a power greater than our own. That’s what Paul was doing in Romans 7 when he said, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (verse 24). He called out for a power greater than himself, and when he did so, he found the power.

When we with open face behold the glory of the Lord we are changed from glory to glory. God is changing us—changing our attitudes. By our Adamic nature we are very selfish and self-centered. It begins very early in life; you can see it in small children as they say “mine”; it’s one of the first words they learn outside of “mama” and “dada.” You see them clutching their possession, and you don’t dare try to take it away from them or you will hear about it in no uncertain terms. If you take their bottle away, you’ve got a fight on your hands—screaming, hollering, and kicking. It’s just fortunate that they are as small and weak as they are, or they would tear the crib to pieces! They are blessed little children, but they have the Adamic nature.

As long as I am selfish and self-centered, I am not what God wants me to be. God does not want me to be self-centered. God does not want me to be interested in my own welfare first. The Lord wants me to be interested in other people and to share what I have with them in their need. That is what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 5 when He said, “Be ye therefore perfect; even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” But this isn’t natural; it’s supernatural, and we can attain it only by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit coming in and changing our attitude concerning ourselves and our possessions.

Not only does He change the attitude (which is the most important thing), but the changed attitude changes action. Too often we try to do it the other way around. It seems that our philosophy is to change a person’s actions and hope that by changing his actions we can change his attitude. Psychologists say that if we act out emotion we will get the corresponding emotion. But God is interested in truly changing the attitude of our heart, and this changed attitude brings the changed action of our life.

The Change from Within

The gospel and the Holy Spirit work from the inside out. My heart is changed and my attitude is changed, and thus my actions reflect the changed attitudes within. The Holy Spirit working in me is changing me from glory to glory, bringing me into the image of Jesus Christ. How? By my looking at Him with unveiled face. How do I see Him? I can only see Him in the Word, and the Spirit makes the Word alive to my heart.

Peter tells us in his second epistle that God has given us exceedingly rich and precious promises, and that by these we are made partakers of the divine nature. It is there in the Book, but you must behold Jesus in the Book; you must look for Him there. Many people read the Bible with their faces veiled. It takes the Holy Spirit to open the Bible, to take the veil off their eyes so they can understand. The work of the Holy Spirit within us is so important. We cannot be what God would have us to be apart from the working of the Holy Spirit within our life.

No one knows me as well as I know myself except the Lord, and He knows me better than I know myself. A lot of things that I thought about myself I discovered were not true. Many of the things in my ideal self-image did not turn out like I thought they would. When I looked at myself through rose-colored glasses, I looked very rosy! But when the Holy Spirit broke my glasses, I was surprised. But He had to. He had to destroy my illusions of myself in order to deal with those areas of my life that I refused to acknowledge to Him. He had to bring them forth and reveal them in all of their ugliness so that He could then work to rid me of them.

A Son of God

I know that I am now a son of God, not through any righteousness of my own, but by my faith in Jesus Christ. “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12). Because I believed on Jesus Christ, God gave me the power to become a son of God. So now I know I am a son of God, and that to me is absolutely glorious. If I am a son, then I am an heir. I am an heir of God and a joint heir with Jesus Christ, and I do not know anything that could be more glorious than that.

God is working on my inner man by His Holy Spirit, but my problem is that though I am new on the inside, I am still the old Chuck on the outside. But the old Chuck is actually dead, so I have got to drag this old corpse around until the day that God finally delivers me from it. With my mind and with my heart I serve the Lord, but so many times with my body I am controlled by my own selfish desires. This old corpse gets heavy and hard to carry around. There are times when I groan, desiring to be delivered, not that I would be an unembodied spirit, but that I might be clothed upon with that new body which is from heaven, that I might be like Him, as I see Him as He is.

I am a son of God. I have a renewed spirit in an unredeemed body. God is not going to take this body into heaven, praise the Lord! “This corruption must put on incorruption.” A change is starting to take place now: “We with open face beholding the glory of the Lord are changed…” This particular word changed in the Greek is “metamorphoo.” The word is used to describe a change of body, as when a caterpillar is changed into a butterfly. Paul said that all creation groans and travails together until now, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, namely, the redemption of our bodies.

Like Christ Forever

I should never be satisfied with myself or with my present state of development until I am like Jesus Christ. David said, “I shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy likeness.” The morning I wake up and take a deep breath of air, and there is no smog, and I feel so different, and I realize that this corruption has put on incorruption—then I will be satisfied, for I will be like Him, for I will see Him as He is. That is what the Spirit is bringing me to; that is the purpose of the work of the Holy Spirit in my life. He will not be satisfied until He is finished and brings me into complete conformity to the image of Christ.

The final change will take place at the coming again of Jesus Christ for me, whether it be by death or the rapture of the church. At that time the old nature will be put off and the final change made, but I should not wait for that day. Even now, as I look to Jesus, the process of change is taking place. We should be closer to the image of Christ this year than we were last year, and next year than we are this year, for we grow in grace and in the knowledge of Him, and the Spirit working in us should be bringing us more and more into His likeness.

Mature or Just Old?

I love to be around saints who have been walking with the Lord for fifty, sixty, seventy years. I mean those who have really been developing in their walk. I know there are some who have been around fifty, sixty, seventy years but are still in their spiritual crib, and that is tragic. If you see a child that is just four or five months old, and his arms sort of wave excitedly, and he says, “Da da da…” you think, “That’s beautiful; look how smart he is—what a beautiful child!” But if your child were twenty-one years old, and when you walked into the room he was lying on the bed and started smiling and saying, “Da da,” it would no longer be a thrilling, exciting emotion—it would be very tragic.

That is the tragedy about so many people in the church today. After fifteen or twenty years they are still at the same level of development. They are still banging their cribs. They have still got the same petty gripes. They are still upset with the message of last Sunday, and they are still divided in their little factions. They have not progressed at all. They are spiritual monstrosities because there has never been any development, and the problem is that there are so many of these Christians that it isn’t even novel enough to be a curiosity. They are all over the place. They just have not delved into the Word of God to really behold the face of the Lord. They have not allowed the Word of God to really penetrate and the Spirit of God to really teach and instruct them in the things of the Lord or to reveal Jesus unto them in the Book.

How Far to Go?

Oh, that we would yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit now, that He might do His work in us, conforming us into the image of Jesus Christ! How far does He have to go in your life? Have you ever taken one of these little self-evaluation tests to discover if you are appealing or a social bore? In 1 Corinthians 13 is a very simple little self-analysis test that you can take to find out how far the Spirit has come in your life in just one area: the area of love, one of the most important areas. Beginning with verse 4, the definition of this word love is given: “Love suffers long and is kind; love envies not, love vaunts not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not its own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil, rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”

You say, “What’s that got to do with me?” Take out the word love and put your name there instead. Then read the list again. “Chuck suffers long and is kind. Chuck envies not, Chuck vaunts not himself, is not puffed up, does not behave himself unseemly, seeks not his own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil, etc.” To the degree to which the text seems to be incongruous, to that degree I have failed from attaining what God wants me to attain. God help me to yield myself to the Holy Spirit so that He might do His work in me, so that what I have tried to do and failed—what I want but cannot achieve or attain—might be accomplished for me by His power.