Faith Hurdles (7)

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and theyare life.” John 6.63

What if?
Suppose we could somehow manage to overcome every obstacle to belief, every faith hurdle that we’ve talked about so far. What if we could speak the Gospel so clearly that all our unbelieving friends could tell it right back to us, and get it right? If we could expose and unravel all the lies and deceptions by which influential others keep unbelievers from receiving Christ? Could get our friends to repent of their sins? To denounce the god of materialism? Swallow their pride? And see in us a truly faithful and believable, flesh-and-blood example of the truth we proclaim?

What if we could do all that with all the unbelievers in our Personal Mission Field? Would that be enough to see them all embrace the grand proposal of new life in Jesus and join us on our full faith journey of seeking His Kingdom?

The short answer is, No.

No amount of clearing away obstacles, reasoning persuasively, or living like a saint will convince your unbelieving friends to turn with all their hearts and embrace Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. For that to happen, one more obstacle must be overcome, one more hurdle remains to get over.

They must be set upon by the Spirit of God.

The Spirit’s work and ours
Only the Holy Spirit can bring new life to dead souls. We, like John the Baptist, have important work to do in clearing a path for the Spirit to work, but unless He comes with power, nothing resulting in eternal life is going to ensue.

Only the Holy Spirit can convict lost sinners of sin, righteousness, and the judgment to come (Jn. 16.8-11).

Only the Holy Spirit can break through the heart of stone with which people resist the call of the Lord, and bring a new heart into the soul (Ezek. 36.26, 27).

Only the Holy Spirit can teach people the deep secrets of the Lord and His Gospel (1 Cor. 2.12, 13).

Only the Holy Spirit can exert the power to bring people to new life in Christ and enable them to cry out to God as their Father (Gal. 4.6).

And only the Holy Spirit can “seal the deal” and give that assurance of forgiveness and new life which inaugurates a life of grateful obedience to the living God (Eph. 1.13, 14). Unless the Holy Spirit comes to our unbelieving friends, they will never embrace the Good News of the Kingdom of God.

So where does that leave us? Well, first of all, it leaves us with a good deal of work to do in cultivating the soil of our unbelieving friends’ souls and in sowing the Word of God, little by little and by word and deed, into their lives. The Spirit works with the Word to bring conversion and new life, and God has entrusted His Word to us.

So while the Spirit has to do the final work to help a lost friend come to faith, we have to do the preliminary work which, if it pleases the Lord, the Spirit will use. We need to work our Personal Mission Fields every day, consistently, and with a view to helping people learn more about Jesus and His love for them.

Pray for the Spirit!
But we must also pray for the Spirit to come to our unbelieving friends. We should pray that He will strive mightily with them, to persuade them of the reality of God, of their own sins, and of the beauty of Christ and His Gospel (Gen. 6.3). We can pray that the Spirit would fill us and empower us to be effective witnesses for the Lord at all times (Eph. 5.18-21; Acts 1.8). And we can pray that it might please God to send His Spirit to our unbelieving friends, so that they join us in the Kingdom of God and the grand proposal of new life in Jesus Christ (Lk. 11.11-13).

God is sovereign in the work of salvation; His Spirit blows where He wills, and brings life to whomever God chooses. At the same time, God calls us to be active agents in the progress of His Kingdom. Our role, flowing out of our full faith experience of Jesus, is to embody and proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom and to urge our unsaved friends to consider Jesus and the gift of life He offers.

We must do our part, at the same time pleading with God for His Spirit to bring our work to completion in Him.

For reflection or discussion
1.      Why is the Holy Spirit indispensable for someone to overcome all the obstacles that are keeping him from coming to faith in Jesus Christ?

2.      If the Holy Spirit is the “CEO” in the conversion business, we are His “executive assistants.” Explain:

3.      How would you expect the Holy Spirit to use you – words and works – to help unbelievers have a clearer understanding of what we propose to them in the Gospel?

Next steps: How will you begin to take more of your full faith calling to help people overcome the faith hurdles in their lives?

T. M. Moore

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This week’s ReVision study is Part 7 of a 10-part series, “Full Faith.” You can download “Faith Hurdles” as a free PDF, prepared for personal or group study. Simply click here.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.