Biblical Concept: Spiritual Empowerment

Life, after the point of eternal salvation, must rely on the Biblical technique of Spiritual Empowerment. The diagram below is titled: Spiritual Empowerment Ephesians 3:16 and it visually demonstrates the key elements of this important Biblical Concept. In Ephesians 3:16b, the Apostle Paul hoped that the Believers at Ephesus would learn “to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man.” They needed to understand and exploit the Holy Spirit’s work on their behalf.

The outer circle of this diagram lists some of the things that God the Holy Spirit does unconditionally at the point of a person’s belief in Christ. Grammatically or contextually, each verse in the outer circle describes a completed action by God the Holy Spirit on behalf of the Believer.

The next circle toward the center lists some of the conditional ministries of the Holy Spirit for the Believer. In the contexts of each of these passages, the controlling ministries of the Holy Spirit are contrasted with being controlled by personal sins. On a moment-by-moment basis, the Christian is either filled by the Holy Spirit or controlled by their sin-nature. To have the benefits of the conditional ministries of the Holy Spirit, Believers must deal with their personal sins according to the standards in the center circle.

The center circle lists three conditions that must be met to benefit from the Holy Spirit’s conditional ministries. First, according to I John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” When the Believer uses the simple technique of confessing (admitting) their known personal sins to God the Father in private prayer; they get cleansed (1 John 1:7b and 1:9b), restored to fellowship with God (1 John 1:5-7a), and filled by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). Second, after Spiritual cleansing, the Believer needs to: “Long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation” (I Peter 2:2). God wants Believers in Jesus Christ to learn about Him, to learn about their salvation, to learn what He expects from them. Third, God expects Believers in Jesus Christ to use the Word of God that they have learned: “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves” (James 1:22).

When Spiritual Empowerment is practiced, God “is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us (Ephesians 3:20b).

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