Led by His SpiritSample

I learned a lot of things during the years we spent on the mission field in Korea when I was a teenager. One of them was the difficulty of communicating with people who don’t speak your language. No matter how much you may want to get a message across, if they don’t understand what you are saying, they won’t get it. Even a conversation about the simplest things is fruitless when your words have no meaning to the person who hears them. If you don’t speak their language, you need an interpreter to get them to understand what you are saying. Otherwise, no matter how eloquent or persuasive your words may be, they will not produce an understanding or response.

Similarly, when we try to share biblical truths with those who do not know Christ, they cannot understand the spiritual realities behind those truths. In fact, the unsaved person (referred to as “the natural man” in 1 Corinthians 2) will never understand spiritual truths until he is saved. And even to be saved, he needs the Holy Spirit to convict him of his need for a Savior. When we share the gospel with unsaved people, the Holy Spirit works as an “interpreter,” convicting the hearts of those with whom we speak of the realities of what we are telling them. Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, “And when he has come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8). The way we can effectively witness to those around us is through the filling and power of the Holy Spirit.