Tag: Bible

(This is Part 2 in our series on Discipleship. Click here for Part 1.)

In part one of this discipleship series, I shared why discipleship matters, and must be a priority for us in order to fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus. We need to feel the weight of Jesus’ command, and change our priority from just “soul-winning” to “disciple-making.”

While not removing that responsibility from believers as those who received the Great Commission, what I want to look at now is the fact that it is the Holy Spirit – not us – who is the chief disciple-maker. Without His direct involvement in both the life of the individual being disciples, and in us as the disciplers, we will never finish the work.

The Bible says,

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 

1 Corinthians 2:12–14; English Standard Version

With that in mind, I want to look at just a few of the things the Holy Spirit does in the process of discipleship.

The Holy Spirit Regenerates

It is the Holy Spirit is the one who gives new life in Jesus. Without His influence at the moment of hearing the Gospel, no one would accept to turn and follow Christ as Lord and Savior. 

Jesus said,

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me…

John 6:44–45; English Standard Version

This obviously does not mean that everyone who is born again hears an audible voice from heaven leading them to get saved. Yes just as supernaturally, God the Father draws people to Jesus through the influence and leading of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit Convicts of Sin, Leading to Repentance

From the initial decision to get saved, the Holy Spirit begins the process of redirecting a person’s life out of their sinful activities of the old man through the conviction of sin. 

Jesus said,

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 

John 16:7–8; English Standard Version

As the Holy Spirit brings conviction of sin and righteousness on a person, the natural response is repentance – a changing of the mind, leading to a changing of actions.

Early conviction in a new believer will be of the “big” sins in their life. For me, this was my teenage alcohol addictions, testing of various drugs, and sexual promiscuity. However, once the big sins are removed, the Holy Spirit will continue to root out more and more from the believer, helping them conform to the image of Christ.

As Martin Luther said in his Ninety-Five Theses which he nailed to the doors of the church at Wittenburg,

 “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said ‘Repent,’ He intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.”

Repentance isn’t only for new believers, but as a disciple stays tuned to the Holy Spirit, seeking to have a clean heart before the Lord, the Spirit will always open up new areas of false belief, negative attitudes, and unrighteous deeds.

The Holy Spirit Sanctifies

If I were to walk through all of the scriptures concerning the work of the Holy Spirit, it would be obvious that His role is to fully renew us according to the image of Christ in a process called sanctification. He is the one who draws us to Christ in the beginning. He causes us to be born again (John 3:5-8); and He continues this work within us until we are perfected in Christ for eternity. Of course, that does not happen this side of eternity, but the goal is to get as close as possible before then!

The Holy Spirit’s active work in the life of believer’s after salvation has historically been viewed in two general categories. The Pentecostal Revival in the early 1900’s revived the power gifts of the Holy Spirit – such as prophecy, healing, and tongues – which had long been neglected by the church after the rationalist worldview took hold post middle ages, and has become a strong focus in the church on the work of the Spirit. However, a few hundred years before the Pentecostal Revival, there was another great movement of God called “The Holiness Revival” in Europe (this became the Second Great Awakening when it moved to the U.S.). 

Under leaders like John Wesley and George Whitfield, people were encouraged and sought a powerful, personal encounter with the Holy Spirit which they called “full sanctification.” This was a tangible experience with the Spirit that inevitably led to a higher desire for holiness in the person, and a complete rejection of sin and self. We now refer to this experience as “being baptized or filled with the Holy Spirit.” Nevertheless, before this experience was viewed as an impartation of power, it was viewed as an impartation of holiness. I contend that we should be pursuing both.

This impartation of holiness makes sense to the character of the Holy Spirit. If He is active in your life, He will inevitably seek to make you like He is. We have the choice to surrender to His transforming power and be made holy, or we may willfully refuse His power, continue in sin, and ultimately “grieve Him” (Ephesians 4:30), suppressing His sanctifying work in us.

As I stated before, this work of the Holy Spirit should continue in every believer, becoming more like Christ, until we enter eternity and gain our complete transformation into Christ’s image.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are… Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure… No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God…

1 John 1-3, 9-10; English Standard Version

It should be evident – and trusted! – that the process of discipleship depends on the Holy Spirit’s working in the life of every believer. It is not initiated, nor completed by man. It is wholly upon Him. However, that doesn’t change the fact that we are also called to partner with Him in the process of discipleship in the world. That is what we discuss in the next post.

Photo by Stephen Hocking on Unsplash