"Through Him are all things" (Romans 11:36)
Adam was created by God with fantastic powers in his soul. He could give a name to every animal and bird that God had made (Genesis 2:19). We find it difficult to remember even a few of those thousands of names. Adam could give a different name to each. That is just one indication of the power of Adam's soul. These powers that God had given him were meant to be used in dependence on God. But Adam chose to develop them apart from God, and after that fatal choice in Eden, began to live by his soul.
We must know something of the difference between Holy-Spirit power and soul-power, if we are distinguish between soulish and spiritual activity, and escape being deceived by the counterfeits of Satan.
Consider one area, where human soul-power is being used extensively in Christendom today - the area of healing.
Since the nineteenth century, science has begun to discover something of the tremendous powers of the human mind. The science of hypnotism has made great advances, and it is amazing to see what is possible through mental powers. The principles of hypnotism are now being imported into Christianity under the label of 'the gifts of the Holy Spirit.'
This is not to despise the genuine gifts of the Spirit, which will always lead to the building of the church and the glory of God; but rather the counterfeits, which look so much like the genuine, but which lead to the exaltation of human personalities and to the building up of their own kingdoms and their financial empires!
Much of what passes for Divine healing these days at the hands of 'faith-healers' (Christian and non-Christian), is merely the using of these powers of the human mind - convincing oneself that one is healed, even when the symptoms are still there. Since a very high percentage of illnesses today are psychosomatic (that is, physical diseases having a mental or emotional origin), it is true that 'positive thinking' and a changed attitude to the sickness itself, does often produce healing in the body. But this is just a result of the functioning of the natural laws of the body and mind. It is not supernatural healing at all.
Jesus still heals people today miraculously, but not by such psychological tricks. Wherever the genuine gift of healing is manifested, there will be no mental struggle to believe - for faith is the gift of God, and is based on the promises in His Word, and not the product of 'positive thinking.'
By practising the principles of hypnotism (even unintentionally), men can have power over others in a way that God never intended them to have. This too can often be mistaken in Christian circles, for the authority of the Holy Spirit, in an individual.
There are grave dangers in developing one's soul powers, apart from God. God gave us those powers to be yielded to Him for His use.
This was how Jesus lived. He put His soul-life to death, and refused to live by the powers of His human soul. He lived instead in entire dependence on His Father and sought for the power of the Holy Spirit constantly both for His life and His ministry.
We have already seen that He frequently withdrew into the wilderness to pray (Luke 5:16). During His last days, before the crucifixion, He would teach in the temple during the day and retire to the Mount of Olives during the night - no doubt to have extended times of undisturbed prayer (Luke 21:37, 38).
To live by faith is to live in such perpetual dependence on the Father.
Only that which is done through God's power is eternal. All else will perish. The Bible compares the man who lives in dependence on God to a tree that draws its sustenance from an underground river (Jeremiah 17:5-8). That is how Jesus lived - perpetually drawing His spiritual resources, as a man, from the Holy Spirit (the river of God).
Jesus' victory over temptation, was not through human determination, but because He drew strength from the Father, moment-by-moment. The way of self-denial as exemplified and taught by Jesus is not one where the soul attempts to master itself. No. That is Buddhism, and yoga, and is as different from the teaching of Scripture as earth is from heaven.
Jesus taught that as human beings we do not have the power to live and serve God as we should. He said that we were like helpless branches entirely dependent on the sap supplied by the tree for fruitfulness. "Apart from Me," He said, "you can do nothing" (John 15:5). And so, what we do manage to do, without the help of the Holy Spirit can be considered to be NOTHING.
Herein lies the vital necessity to be "filled with the Spirit continuously" (Ephesians 5:18).
Jesus Himself was filled and anointed with the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1, 18), and He lived and laboured for His Father in the Spirit's power. But this was possible, only because as a man, He was poor in spirit.
Jesus was conscious of the weakness of the human frame that He had taken on. Therefore He was perpetually looking for opportunities to get alone and pray. Someone has said that, as tourists look for good hotels and for important sights to be seen, when they enter a city, so Jesus looked for solitary places where He could pray.
He sought for power to overcome temptation and put His soul-power to death. No man was as conscious as Jesus was, of the utter weakness of the flesh, and so He sought the Father's face in prayer for help, as no man ever did. He prayed with "loud crying and tears" in the days of His flesh. The result was that He was mightily strengthened by the Father, much more than any other man. Thus, Jesus never once sinned and never lived out from His soul (Hebrews 4:15; 5:7-9).
Isn't it significant that 25 times in the gospels, the words "pray" or "prayer" are used in connection with Jesus?
Therein lay the secret of His life and His labours.
Jesus not only prayed before the great events of His life, but also after some of His great achievements. After feeding the five thousand miraculously, He withdrew into the mountains to pray. This was no doubt to guard against temptations to pride or complacency over the work accomplished, and to renew His strength by waiting on His Father (Isaiah 40:31). We usually pray only before we have some important task to do for the Lord. But if we would develop the habit that Jesus had, of waiting before the Father after we have finished our task, we would preserve ourselves from pride and thus be equipped to do greater things for the Lord.
The busier Jesus' life became, the more He prayed. There were times when He did not have time to eat or even to rest (Mark 3:20; 6:31, 33, 46), but He always took time to pray. He knew when to sleep and when to pray, for He obeyed the promptings of the Spirit.
Poverty of spirit is a prerequisite for effective prayer. Prayer is the expression of human helplessness, and if it is to be meaningful and not a mere ritual, there must be a constant recognition of the inadequacy of human resources either to live the Christian life or to serve God.
Jesus continuously sought for the power of God in prayer, and was never disappointed. Thus He accomplished things through prayer, that even He could not have accomplished in any other way.
The one who is strong in self-confidence will continue to depend on "the arm of flesh" for victory over sin. Such a person has to be broken, before he can know the power of God unto victory. And so God permits him to be repeatedly defeated, month after month, till he comes to a 'zero-point' and acknowledges His impotence. Then God pours out on him the Spirit of grace and leads him into a life of victory, and the glory of God begins to be manifested through His life.
It is when we become weak that we are truly strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).
Abraham produced Ishmael in the power of his natural strength, but God would not accept Ishmael, and asked Abraham to send him away (Genesis 17:18-21; 21:10-14). At the judgment-seat of Christ, when we present our well-meant efforts, produced through our human abilities without dependence on God, He will tell us too that they are unacceptable. All of that wood, hay and straw will then be reduced to ashes.
Only that which was done "through God" will remain.
When Abraham came to the place of impotence - when his, natural ability to produce children had ceased - then Isaac was born, through divine power, and this son was acceptable to God.
One Isaac is worth more than a thousand Ishmaels, as far as God is concerned. One gram of gold is worth more than a kilogram of wood - after the fire has tested them both. A little done in the power of the Holy Spirit is worth far more than much done in our own strength.
Our good works and our own efforts to serve the Lord will always be filthy rags both before and after conversion. But that righteousness which is produced by faith, and that service which has been done in dependence on the Holy Spirit - will form our wedding garment on the day of the marriage of the Lamb (Revelation 19:8). What a difference - either filthy rags or a beautiful wedding dress! It all depends on whether our life is lived in our own soul-power or the power of God.
Jesus depended on the power of the Spirit for His ministry too. He did not dare to go into the preaching ministry without first being anointed by the Holy Spirit. For thirty years He had already lived in perfect holiness through the power of the Spirit, so that the Father could testify, "This is My beloved Son in Whom I am well-pleased" (Matthew 3:17). Yet He needed to be anointed by the Spirit for service. And so He prayed to be anointed, and He was (Luke 3:21). And because He loved righteousness and hated sin more than any man that ever lived, He was anointed more abundantly than any other man (Hebrews 1:9). As a result, people were delivered from the captivity of Satan, through His ministry. This was the chief purpose and the primary manifestation of the anointing (See Luke 4:18 & Acts 10:38).
God's work is not done through human talents and abilities. Men who are highly gifted naturally, when converted, often think that they can now use their intellectual and emotional powers to influence others for God.
Many Christians even mistake their eloquence, logic and clarity of utterance for the power of the Holy Spirit. But these are only the powers of the soul, and they will be a hindrance in the service of God, if any dependence is placed on them. Work done through human soul-power can never be eternal. It will perish, if not in time, then at the judgment seat of Christ.
Jesus did not depend on the power of eloquence or of emotion to move people towards God. He knew that any work done through such soul-power would only reach the souls of His audience, and never help them spiritually. He did not, for the same reason, use musical entertainment of any sort to draw people to God.
He did not play on the feelings of His audiences and work them up to feverish excitement to get them to surrender to God. In fact, He used none of these and other soulish methods that are so common with evangelists and preachers today. He did not use emotional passion and soulish fervour to influence people. These are the methods of the politician and the salesman, and He was neither of the two.
As the Servant of Jehovah, Jesus depended entirely on the Holy Spirit in all His labours. The result was that those who followed Him came into a deep life in God themselves.
Jesus did not use soul-power to manipulate others to His way of thinking. He never imposed Himself on others. He always gave others the freedom to reject Him, if they so chose. Soulish Christian leaders dominate their flock and their co-workers by their strong personality. People are awed into subjection to such leaders and adore them and obey their every word.
Multitudes may flock around such a leader, and they may even all be united, but it is only a unity of devotion to the leader. Such leaders may even delude themselves into thinking that what they have is the power of the Holy Spirit, because they are not able to distinguish between soul and spirit. Their followers are also similarly deceived. But the clear light of the judgment-seat will reveal that it was all human soul-power and that it hindered the work of God.
There are political and non-Christian leaders too who have such a human charisma about them, that they are able to draw large crowds by the power of their personality and oratory etc.
Jesus was no such leader. Neither should any Christian be. We should dread to use our soul-power, for it is a violation of God's laws for man, and cannot but be a hindrance in His service.
Soul-power may be able to produce superficial changes in others and bring about a form of godliness in them, but there will be no deep devotion to God nor victory over sin in their private lives.
A truly spiritual work can never be done by the power of the human soul, but only by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus knew this; and so He constantly put His soul-power to death. Thus He was able to do a deep and abiding work in those who followed Him in a very short time.
He never imposed His personality on others, never domineered over anyone, and never awed people by His language or His intellectual powers. He did not seek to impress men but to help them.
Soulish Christians are more interested in impressing others than in helping them. Soulish Christian leaders cannot build the true church, because they unite people to themselves and not to Christ the Head.
Those who have strong soul-power have to minister the Word in fear and trembling (as Paul did - 1 Corinthians 2:1-5), lest the faith of their hearers rest in the speaker's human wisdom rather than in the power of God.
Jesus remained at all times conscious of His human weakness. He said, "The Son can do nothing of Himself.... (John 5:19). Hence His intense prayer-life. Therefore the Father was able to do all His works in Jesus (John 14:10).
It is such an attitude of dependence on God that will keep us from using that which God has forbidden and which Jesus told us to hate - our soul-life and its powers. Then the Holy Spirit will be able to manifest the glory of the Lord through us.
If we live by faith (in dependence on the Lord) and our work is a work of faith, then we shall indeed build with gold, silver and jewels.
And so, let us ask ourselves this second question:
AM I LIVING AND LABOURING BY THE POWER OF GOD?
Be the first to react on this!
Zac Poonen ( - Present)
God called brother Zac Poonen to a new work early on in his Christian experience. The movement is now called Christian Fellowship Churches where the New Covenant of New Testament Christianity is clearly preached.Brother Zac Poonen has written 25 books most of them being on the deeper Christian life. Many of these have been translated into a number of languages and have been circulated widely around the world. He clearly and passionately shares the narrow way of Christian discipleship that is neglected by so many modern preachers.
Recommends these books by Zac Poonen:
Through The Bible by Zac Poonen
The Final Triumph-A verse by verse study of the book of Revelation by Zac Poonen
Beauty for Ashes by Zac Poonen
Zac Poonen is a former Indian Naval Officer who has been in full time ministry in India for nearly 50 years as a Bible teacher and preacher. He holds responsibility for a number of churches in India and abroad. He currently pastors the Christian Fellowship Church in Bangalore, Karnataka.
He has written more than 25 books and numerous articles in English - which have been translated into many Indian and foreign languages. His messages are available on audio and video format.
Like the other elders in his church, Zac Poonen also supports himself and his family through what he describes as "tent-making" and does not receive any salary for his services. He does not receive any royalties for any of his books, CDs or DVDs, that are published by Christian Fellowship Centre, Bangalore.