Choose: Deciding What to Do With What Jesus DidSample

When we believe the story of Jesus is true and trust Him to rescue us by making Him the boss of our lives, God saves us and adopts us as His children forever. He sets us apart from everyone else by putting the Holy Spirit in our hearts to mark us as His. He does this so we don’t have to wonder whether or not we have been saved and to show other people that the story of Jesus is true so they will trust Him, too.

When the Holy Spirit comes to live inside us, He brings spiritual gifts that we can use to serve each other like Jesus served people. He also helps us tell the difference between right and wrong, understand the Bible, pray effective prayers, and bear spiritual fruit like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The Holy Spirit also helps us live in unity with other people who have been saved. None of this comes naturally to humans, of course, so when people see us living this way with consistency, they know something bigger than us must be responsible. If we’ve done a good job of telling the story of Jesus, they’ll know that something bigger is actually a someone—it’s Jesus!

When we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, we let people see who God really is, what He made possible through Jesus, and how much He loves them. We give them good reasons to put their trust in Jesus, too, and encourage them to give God the praise and recognition He deserves. We glorify Him and show Him love!