The Mysterious Power of the Spirit

Before you start todays devotional, ask the Lord to use it to grow you up in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To live the Christian life is to live a supernatural life. God wants all of us to love His Son and be awed by His amazing power.

During Old Testament times, so much truth about God and salvation remained a secret. But Jesus brought a new experience and revealed the secrets of knowing God.

God wants to reveal so much about Himself to us when we seek Him. The Lord knows all things and is the perfect judge of every aspect of our lives; that’s why it’s best to leave all the judging to Him.

God teaches us that as Christians we are either spiritual or we are natural in our responses to Him and His Word. The natural person is controlled by sin, and everything comes naturally to us as sinful people.

But if we are spiritual in response to God, that means we live with the Holy Spirit controlling and guiding our thoughts and our emotions and every other part of our lives. We can understand (discern) the deep things of God and make decisions that honor Him.

Once we become a child of God, the Lord expects us to grow up in our faith. We start out on the “milk” of God’s Word. But we cannot keep relying on a diet of basic truth—eventually, we need to develop an appetite for solid biblical truth. When we stay with the basics, we will not mature spiritually. We will act like children, treating each other out of selfishness and jealousy.

But God does not want us to live like that. He has given us the Holy Spirit to help us grow out of the baby stage and into the adult stage of knowing and experiencing Him and His Son.

God also cares deeply about the way we choose to build our lives. The foundation of our faith is Jesus Christ. Everything else rises on top of that first decision to trust Him. We might be tempted to build our lives on things offered by the world—like being famous or making money or even finding the perfect person with whom to spend the rest of our lives. But God knows none of those bring lasting satisfaction.

That’s why God warns Christians about being too confident in human wisdom. He wants us to learn to trust Him, to experience His power, and to seek His direction in everything.

What a privilege to be caretakers of God’s wonderful message of love through Jesus Christ. Every believer in Jesus becomes a “minister” of His grace and a spokesperson for Him to others. What God desires from us is that we be trustworthy in living our lives in ways that honor Him and show to the world around us that we are faithful to His call on our lives,

Being a faithful caretaker of God’s message means you can enjoy God’s favor because of what Jesus has done for you, giving you a right standing with God. That is wonderful news, don’t you agree?

Human nature causes us to judge ourselves too harshly. God only wants us to value His assessment of us overall. Everything we have is a gift from God, and that ought to satisfy us perfectly.

1. Why do you think there is a tendency to rely on things other than the power of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life?

2. How would you describe the difference between the natural and the spiritual man?

3. If even our own minds can deceive us, where can we turn for wisdom?

Additional Resources

Listen to Dr. J. Vernon McGee’s complete teachings on 1 Corinthians 2, 1 Corinthians 3 and 1 Corinthians 4.