The Holy Spirit’s Power: How God Enables Us to Live for Him

Summary

Living for God often feels impossible in our own strength, but the Holy Spirit supplies the power we lack. Like a battery that never fails, He directs believers, empowers obedience, and produces lasting spiritual fruit. While the sinful nature pulls toward destruction, Spirit-led living brings righteousness and life. Since the Spirit gives us life, believers are called to follow His leading daily, allowing Him to transform every area of their lives.

When Life Refuses to Start

Neither car would start on a cold winter morning several years ago. Both batteries went dead on the same day. We couldn’t move either vehicle.

Do you have trouble getting your living for God vehicle moving? Do you think it is up to you to do it? Do you fail repeatedly?

The Holy Spirit as Our Power Source

Well, it is up to us to do it, but we have an invisible resource to help make it happen. God supplies the power to do what He expects. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to live for God. Are we using it?

The Holy Spirit is the battery. He never fails. He works on hot days and cold days—every hour of every day.  

He who fills the universe somehow fits neatly into the hearts of His children (Romans 8:9). His Spirit powers every good deed God plans for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

Guided for God’s Mission

The Holy Spirit compelled Jesus to enter the wilderness (Mark 1:12). The Spirit led Simeon to the Temple when Mary and Joseph came to present the baby Jesus to the Lord so he could see the Messiah before he died (Luke 2:25-27). He directs us through a persistent sense of what we should do, and then He provides the power to do it.

God’s Spirit at Work in Jesus and Us

The Spirit anointed Jesus and sent Him on His ministry assignment. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free” (Luke 4:18 NLT). Jesus possessed the Spirit without limit (John 3:34).

We follow in Jesus’ steps. The Spirit anoints us and sends us to do the good deeds God has planned for us for His glory. As with Jesus, the Holy Spirit empowers us for our mission and fills our hearts with His joy for the trip (Luke 10:21).

The Holy Spirit directed and empowered Philip to lead the Ethiopian eunuch to faith in Christ. The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and walk along beside the carriage” (Acts 8:29 NLT). The eunuch didn’t understand Isaiah 53. He asked Philip to explain it. That gave Philip the chance to share the Good News about Jesus.

God guides us through that same Holy Spirit. “So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves” (Galatians 5:16 NLT). The sinful nature is our default mode. We automatically follow it unless we choose to follow the Spirit’s lead.

The Battle Between Flesh and Spirit

Our sinful natures are as attracted to evil as a nail to a magnet. The Apostle Paul spells out the behaviors they spawn and the consequences of letting them lead us.

“When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19–21 NLT).

The Spirit’s leading generates our good intentions. Our sinful nature cranks out evil intentions. Like the Hatfields and the McCoys, they can’t agree on anything. Our sinful natures consistently resist our good intentions (Galatians 5:17). Doing good is like mountain climbing rather than skiing downhill.

Self-absorbed living hurts us and others. It destroys relationships. It’s a cancer of the soul. It produces decay and death.

Choosing Spirit-Led Living Every Day

In contrast, the Holy Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Such living builds relationships. Its harvest is God’s promised righteousness (Galatians 5:5) and everlasting life (Galatians 6:8).

We can get in line behind the leading of the sinful nature or the Holy Spirit’s leading. The Holy Spirit gave us spiritual life. Does it not make sense to follow Him 24/7 in every area of our lives (Galatians 5:25)?

Compartmentalized faith lives for an hour or two in some local church sanctuary and disappears the remainder of the week. In contrast, living faith changes every area of life. See more about the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

When we choose to be controlled and empowered by the Holy Spirit and to follow His leadership, He empowers us with inner strength (Ephesians 3:16, 5:18). He helps us change how we think by renewing our thoughts and attitudes through His word (Ephesians 4:23). That word becomes our sword to destroy the enemy’s attempts to lure us back to self-absorbed living (Ephesians 6:17). We have the power to live for God. Let’s use it!

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