Holy Spirit and the Believer's Ability

**Living in the Spirit :

** Faith vs. Human Effort**

One of the greatest mistakes believers make is assuming prayer alone is enough. They pray sincerely, ask God to bless their plans, and then immediately lean on their own wisdom, calculations, and effort to accomplish them. Without realizing it, they step out of the life of faith and back into the ordinary life they lived before they were born again.

This is why many Christians experience unnecessary frustration. They have the Holy Spirit living within them, yet they still depend primarily on themselves.

Suppose a believer wants to build a house, start a ministry, or launch a business. If he immediately begins moving from person to person seeking help without first receiving God's specific instruction, he is acting from human reasoning rather than faith. The issue is not whether people will eventually help him — it's whether God sent him to them.

Faith is not merely taking action. Faith is taking *God-directed* action. Before any step, the believer must seek the Lord and wait until His direction becomes clear in the spirit. Until then, much activity that looks productive is really fruitless effort that ends in discouragement.

Our confidence rests in the character of our heavenly Father. Which earthly father, having the means, would ignore the genuine need of a son he loves? How much more will our heavenly Father care for His own children?

*"Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." (2 Corinthians 6:2, KJV)*

If God has shown us such mercy in Christ, why imagine that sincere prayers offered in faith will go unanswered? The Father who did not spare His own Son will not abandon His children when they depend on Him.

** Two Ways to Live**

The deeper problem is not unanswered prayer — it's misplaced dependence. We often forget that the Holy Spirit is not merely our Comforter; He is the source of our ability. The Christian life is not an improved version of the natural life. It is an entirely different kind of life — supernatural, and therefore only lived by faith.

Every believer lives one of two ways:

The **ordinary life** is controlled by human reasoning, planning, and natural ability. It can accomplish remarkable things — businesses built, careers established — yet works originating solely from self carry no eternal spiritual value, because their source is man, not God. This is the only life available to the unbeliever.

The **supernatural life** is the life of faith lived through the Holy Spirit's energy. Here the believer receives God's direction, depends on His strength, and obeys His leading. Every work becomes God's activity, not mere human effort.

Sadly, many Christians pray first, then live as though everything depends on them — planning, calculating, working without waiting for the inward witness of the Spirit. Instead of following the intuition of their recreated spirit, they're driven by logic, emotion, or fear. This is where many believers miss God's best.

** The Life of the Spirit**

The Holy Spirit empowers what originates from Him. When God gives an instruction, He also supplies the wisdom, grace, favor, and ability to accomplish it. When we act independently of Him, we're left to our own limited resources. The life of the Spirit cannot be reduced to human systems — it is directed from within.

*"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13, KJV)*

God doesn't only give us ability to work — He first produces the desire, according to His own purpose. The initiative begins with Him, and the power to fulfill it comes from Him too.

The spiritual believer learns to wait quietly before God, receive instruction through the inward witness of the Spirit, and obey without hesitation. Such a believer prospers — not through superior intelligence or resources, but because the Spirit energizes every work He Himself initiated.

The difference between frustration and fruitfulness is not effort but *origin*. We may work equally hard, but only what begins with God carries His power and bears eternal fruit.

Living in the Spirit means refusing to substitute human effort for divine direction — trusting the Spirit enough to wait for His leading, and believing that whatever God initiates, He is faithful to accomplish. Faith is not merely believing God *can* do something; it's walking in obedience to what the Spirit has already spoken within.

When our lives are governed this way, we stop striving to make things happen. Instead, we cooperate with the One already at work within us, fulfilling His good pleasure through our lives.

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**Hassan Thomas Nenger** Author, *My Divine Identity as the Righteousness of God* Living in the Spirit |