Pastor Marty Saturday, June 13, 2026 at 10:52PM 1 Corinthians 13. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, June 7, 2026.
Here is the audio. The article will be added later.
Pastor Marty Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 3:23PM 1 Corinthians 12:1-31. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, May 31, 2026.
We are going to look at how the Holy Spirit helps us through spiritual gifts within the Church. Our passage today is not given to explain each spiritual gift and its function, like a how-to guide. Rather, Paul is writing to correct errors and abuse within this area of spiritual gifts. This chapter combats pagan thinking by giving us God’s thinking about spiritual gifts. Proper understanding will go a long way to helping us correct abuse in this area.
It is common today to respond in two different ways. One response is born out of fear. It shuts down all spiritual gifts, whether declaring them invalid today or simply declaring that no one is doing it correctly. Another response is to embrace them. However, that embrace runs the risk of raising our subjective experience and desires above what the Holy Spirit is actually wanting to do through spiritual gifts.
Passages like this one are written to help us navigate this area in step with the Holy Spirit.
Let’s look at our passage.
Paul begins by noting that they weren’t always Christians. Most of them had a prior life of worshipping the Greek gods (this is Corinth, Greece). They had been led astray to these mute idols. Because their religious understanding had been informed by paganism, they were not recognizing the difference of worshipping and serving the One True God. They lacked understanding of the reason for spiritual gifts and how they should be exercised. Their whole prior experience came from a world that was in rebellion to God and His ways.
This sets up a baseline contrast between the false religions and truth. They had been led to these idols in a number of ways. Some were simply born into it. Others may have encountered human and (or) spiritual deception involving manifestations and signs. The ancient world was filled with prophecy from these so-called gods.
In our culture today, most are born into materialism that does not worship literal idols. However, materialism simply replaces the Creator God with something within creation, i.e., money, sex, power, humanity, or even self.
Those who are not following God are not led towards Jesus. The spirit of this world, whether in materialism or false religion, points us away from Jesus. However, the Holy Spirit always leads us towards Jesus, and him as the blessed Lord over all things.
Paul establishes this up front. The spirits of this world lead us to a position that sees Jesus as cursed, something to avoid. Those who exercise spiritual gifts in the Church must be led by the Holy Spirit and not the spirit of this age. One is poison and the other is eternal life.
The Corinthian problem was a particular fascination with one of the spiritual gifts, speaking in tongues, i.e., an unknown language. It was pushing out all of the other spiritual gifts and creating division among the believers.
Paul emphasizes that the diversity of gifts comes from the same Holy Spirit. Yet, he also emphasizes that God Himself is a unity of plurality (e.g., the mention of “Spirit (v. 4) Lord (v. 5) and God [the Father] (v. 6). We may not completely understand the nature of God, but we do know that there is a unity within plurality. It is the unity within God that sends the Holy Spirit. He manifests that unity of purpose in a variety of spiritual gifts, spiritual ministries, and spiritual workings. These always manifest within or through an individual, but it is for the benefit of all (for the common good). Paul then states that this is as He (the Holy Spirit) wills. The emphasis is not on the individual being gifted or having a gift. It is upon the Spirit manifesting through them as the Spirit of God wills. Of course, individuals will have to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. That cooperation needs to be not only in the exercise of the gift but also in the way it is exercised.
Our flesh can get in the way of the Holy Spirit in this area of spiritual gifts. It can get in the way by blocking it, first in your own life, and then in the life of others. However, our flesh can also get in the way by using spiritual gifts for our own desires and purpose. The Corinthians appear to be guilty of both. They are blocking the purpose of the Spirit and a multitude of spiritual gifts, while overly pursuing one gift for their own aggrandizement.
Paul gives a list of spiritual gifts: word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophecy, distinguishing of spirits, tongues, and interpretation of tongues. This is clearly not exhaustive since we have other gifts listed elsewhere. It is not even entirely clear that Paul is trying to say that a word of wisdom is a separate spiritual gift from a word of knowledge. This list is couched in the language of an individual being given something from the Spirit of God, which is then shared with the Church.
Essentially, this diversity of expressions are coming from the same Holy Spirit who gives these individually as He wills.
Paul uses a popular illustration of the human body to demonstrate how spiritual gifts are meant to operate in the Church. The Church is pictured as a body of Christ. This means that Christ is the One who operates the body. Yet, each Christian is a part of this body.
A human body has many parts to it, but it incorporates one body and acts as a whole to accomplish what the mind of the body desires (hint: this is Jesus!).
It would be ludicrous to imagine body parts dividing over one another in envy or rejection, but this is precisely what makes Paul’s illustration so powerful. In verse 15, he imagines a foot saying it is not a part of the body because it is not a hand. Similarly, he imagines an ear saying it is not a part of the body because it is not an eye. Whether this is out of a sense of inferiority or not, Paul emphasizes that, even if a foot and an ear were to say that they weren’t a part of a body, it would not thereby make it so. In fact, a body implies a multitude of different body parts doing different things. You can’t have a body that is only one big eye, one big hand, etc. It is a body precisely because it has all of these different capabilities working together to accomplish the one thing purposed by the mind.
In the area of spiritual gifts, this is important. If we were all the same or trying to be the same, we would be missing valuable and necessary spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit is trying to supply through us.
Paul gives a variation on this argument in verse 21. He imagines an eye saying to the hand, “I have no need of you.” Similarly, he imagines the head saying to the feet, “I have no need of you.” In verses 22 and 23, he adds the ideas of weaker body parts and less honorable body parts. Notice the idea of division here is driven by looking down on certain spiritual gifts and pushing them out. Of course, there are individuals behind these spiritual gifts. The pressure within the group was to conform to some irrational vision of what was intended by spiritual gifts.
God is the one who has placed you within the body of Christ just as He has willed. He is also the one working by the Holy Spirit to express a variety of spiritual gifts. In fact, it is ludicrous to imagine only one spiritual gift. The same God of Creation who expressed His creative ability in a vast panoply of a variety of creatures, is the one who is behind the spiritual gifts. It stands to reason that it must have variety if He is the one behind it.
Paul undercuts this tendency to uniformity by the Corinthians by pointing them back to the Spirit. It is the Spirit who manifests these various spiritual gifts. If we think some gift, or person, is more honorable, valuable, than another, it doesn’t matter. Our estimations can be quite horrible at times, especially when we are not thinking biblically.
Instead of dividing over the different spiritual gifts, we should work together for the common good that the Spirit intends. Honor is not determined by the body part, but by God who has made it and given it a particular function.
Paul then adds to the argument. If one body part suffers, all the body parts suffer with it. If one body part is honored, the whole body rejoices with it. In fact, the Spirit of God honored the apostles (Peter, John, Paul, etc.) with the power and position to establish the church in doctrine and in practice. It would be foolish for modern day “apostles” to envy that position and try to improve on it or replace it with something better. Instead of kicking against God’s function through these men, we must learn to let the Spirit work through us in a way that works together with the Spirit’s work in them. When we honor them, we honor ourselves because we are all together the body of Christ on this earth!
Though Paul has already given some connections from the illustration of a body to the reality of the body of Christ, the Church, he then brings home the illustration in some concluding statements.
We are all together the body of Christ and members of it. Regardless, what you may think or feel, God has made a place and function for you. By faith, we must embrace that place and seek that function (or those functions) that the Spirit wants to manifest through us while harmonizing with what the Spirit is manifesting through others.
Of course, all of this assumes that we are not letting the spirit of this world manifest in and through us.
God has appointed various ministries (apostles, prophets, teachers) and various works of power (miracles, gifts of healings) and various other gifts (helps, administrations). He ends the list with the spiritual gift that fixated the Corinthians, “various kinds of tongues.”
We do not all have the same ministry, and no one person has all of these ministries happening through them. However, we all do have the ministry and gifts, that the Holy Spirit so desires.
Paul concludes with two statements that seem contradictory. “Earnestly desire the greater gifts.” This thought will be picked up again in chapter 14. By desiring tongues alone, the Corinthians were displaying their ignorance about what makes a spiritual gift greater or not greater than another.
Yet, the second statement declares that there is a more excellent way. This segues to chapter 13 and a treatise on why love is the foundation to any exercise of spiritual gifts. It is interesting that he does not call love a spiritual gift. It is a way, the way of Jesus, that we are called to travel with the Holy Spirit and our fellow believers.
Why do we let spiritual gifts divide us? It all comes down to ignorance of God’s purpose and refusal to be led by the Holy Spirit. May God help us to work together with the Holy Spirit for the common good of the Body of Christ!
Email Article | Print Article | Share Article | tagged Diversity, Division, Holy Spirit, Idolatry, Spiritual Gifts, Unity Pastor Marty Saturday, May 30, 2026 at 8:10PM Galatians 5:16-26. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, May 24, 2026.
We focused last week on how the Holy Spirit helps us, empowers us, to share the Good News of the salvation made available to us in Jesus. We share that through the words we speak and through the actions of the life we live. These work together by the help of the Holy Spirit to draw people to Jesus.
Today, we focus on the transformed life that we can live because of the power of the Holy Spirit within us. We should take a moment to recognize that this contrasts with the powerlessness of the Law to transform us.
Both Paul (Romans 3:20) and James (James 1:23) point out that the purpose of the Law is to show us our sin. It is a great mirror to us of our own life and how short it falls. However, that is the most it can do. It cannot give us internal strength to battle against that sin. Of course, it is helpful to at least see the problem. Yet, it gives us no power or strength to overcome sin in our life. What the Law and its penalties were powerless to do, the Holy Spirit is able to do within us. He leads us in the battle of becoming like our lord Jesus.
He is the one who convinces us (convicts) that our righteousness is woefully lacking, but that Jesus is completely righteous. He convinces us that Jesus is God’s means of salvation for us.
This internal work of the Holy Spirit to help us be transformed is the amazing grace of God for us.
Let’s look at our passage.
Notice that Paul uses the contrasting phrases of “The Spirit of God” and “the flesh.” The flesh is not the same word as “body,” but it is connected to the body. The flesh is that internal response that is rooted in the desires of our mortal body. Because it is internal, it takes on spiritual overtones and can even seem like something other than us.
We have a multitude of strong desires that are rooted in our physical bodies. Paul describes the difficulty of obeying God’s law in Romans 7. Our flesh often wants what our mind knows to be bad. It is also true that our flesh may not want what our minds and hearts know to be good for us. Thus, both Romans 8 and Galatians 5 depict the flesh as being bent away from God and in towards pleasing self. These appetites may have come about through experimentation or seeing peers and society “enjoying” them.
I bring this up because it is not God’s desire to keep heaping more and more laws on top of us. He knows that our sinful flesh will continue to hijack our ability to obey them. Yet, it is important for us to understand this because we are a people of way more laws than Israel ever was. These united States of America have more and more laws every year. However, they are not making us more and more righteous. It was precisely because Israel had 1400 years of following the law that they could understand the amazing grace of God that was made available in Jesus the Messiah.
God’s solution was not more laws. Rather, it was to first make Jesus available as the perfect man who could live in perfect obedience to God the Father and then make a way for those who would believe to follow him.
This all starts with the help of the Holy Spirit for us now in our mortal flesh, but it leads to the day when we will receive immortal, glorified bodies. We will no longer have a flesh that is bent away from God and towards the lesser desires of our mortal bodies.
This flesh is not just contrasted with the Holy Spirit. Paul states that the flesh and the Spirit are “contrary” to one another, or “opposed” to one another. In Romans 8:7, Paul uses a stronger word. They are “hostile” to one another.
This hostile opposition between our flesh and the Spirit of God leads us to a situation where we find ourselves wanting something but not doing it. This can be a desire born of the Spirit that our flesh tries to keep from happening, and it can be a desire born of the flesh that the Spirit challenges us to put to death.
At Pentecost, something completely new was happening. God was taking up residence within all those who put their faith in Jesus. This internal presence of God works to give us power to reject the wrong desires of our flesh and follow the Spirit.
What exactly are the desires of the Spirit? John 15:26 tells us that the Holy Spirit comes to testify about Jesus. Thus, He desires that we come to Jesus and follow him. John 16:8-11 further details this that He desires to convict the world of its sin, need for the righteousness of Jesus and the judgment that looms over us.
In this passage, we will see that the Holy Spirit desires to express the character of Jesus in our lives. Jesus is our master teacher; we are his students. We need to learn his way of life and follow him in it. We could never do this in our flesh because our flesh is hostile to the idea of actually following the words and life of Jesus.
All of this comes under the idea of walking “in” or “by” the Spirit. Prepositions in one language do not perfectly map over to prepositions of another language. Both of these prepositions work. In some ways, the Holy Spirit is like an external guide with whom we walk. In another way, He is the river in which we are born along in the right direction. We could even say that He becomes the power and means by which we are able to walk with Christ, i.e., we walk with Christ by the help of the Spirit. Yet, the Holy Spirit does all of this from within us. He helps us to be aware of our actions, attitudes, direction, purpose and goals, and then, to tune them to those of Jesus.
Paul tells us in verse 19 that the deeds of the flesh are obvious. His point is not that our flesh wants all of these things at all times, but that these are the kinds of things that our flesh desires and leads us to do.
No intellectually honest person will say that the Holy spirit wants us to do these things. It is sad that some Christian groups have developed a theology that emphasizes grace to the point that you can do any sin you want, while thanking Jesus for his forgiveness. This is a travesty and a heresy. The Holy Spirit wants to help us live a transformed life that becoming more and more like Jesus.
Paul ends this by reminding them that people who live a life of doing the deeds of the flesh will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Inheriting the Kingdom of God here is not talking about joining a church or being a professing Christian. He is challenging people who are Christians not to follow after their flesh. On one hand Christians are a part of the Kingdom of God in Jesus. He is our King and we live out His commands by the help of the Holy Spirit. However, the Kingdom of God is not yet fully here. The verb “inherit” in verse 21 is future tense. He is looking forward to the Second Coming of Christ when Jesus sets up a kingdom over this earth. The saints, Christians who have been faithful to him, will be resurrected to serve as his administrators in this coming kingdom. This is an inheritance that God has promised for those who come into a spiritual relationship with the Messiah, Jesus.
We have many opportunities to walk with our flesh every day. This does not change when the Spirit indwells us following faith in Jesus. Of course, Paul is not talking about a one-time thing. “If you ever do one of these things, you will not inherit!” No, he says, “those who practice” such things. This is an ongoing choice to keep walking with your flesh in opposition to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
We all have moments in which we fail, but it isn’t over. Think about what the Spirit does when you fail. He convicts your heart about what you have done and calls you to repentance, i.e., change your mind and turn back to the righteousness of Christ. None of us will inherit without continuing to repent and keep our eyes on Jesus.
On the other hand, if I let the Holy Spirit produce the fruit of Christ in me, then I will inherit the Kingdom of God.
Paul could have continued by speaking of the “deeds” of the Spirit, but he switches to the picture of fruit. Fruit is an organic process rather than a work project. It is borne from within because of our new nature and grows a little bit day by day.
The Spirit of God within you empowers a whole new dynamic in which the character is slowly formed in you and expressed in your life. This will go from an empty branch to buds to blossoms to fruit to ripening of that fruit. In a sense, we have two natures: the old nature and new nature. Which of these natures are you expressing?
The list of love, joy, peace, etc… are essentially different facets of our love for one another fueled by the presence of God Himself within us. On one hand, I am letting the Holy Spirit do something within me (yielding to Him). On the other hand, I am doing the things that the Spirit is showing me to do.
No fruit tree can be fruitful without pruning. Bad branches that are broken or diseased must be cut off. These would be the things on the list of the deeds of the flesh. However, some branches need to be cut off in order to make room for other branches to be more fruitful. In other words, sometimes the Spirit teaches us to remove things from our life, not because they are immoral or wicked, but because they are keeping me from being fruitful. They are taking up too much space in my life.
Furthermore, sometimes God prunes things from my life. I have nothing to say about it. It just happens. Yet, other times, the Spirit of the Lord points out something that we need completely prune out of our lives. He works within us to convince us and empower us to do it.
This is the powerful evidence (fruit) of the Holy Spirit within us. We will see all of these things start to show up in our life. Yet, the Spirit will not be content with just a little love in our life.
None of us will be (are) perfect at this on this side of death. However, we are not under the law of sin and death. Verse 18 states that those who are led by the Holy Spirit are not under the Law (judged by it). Rather, we are under the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2). Entering the presence of Christ upon death is not based on our perfection in these areas. Rather, it is based upon His perfect work being applied to our lives by faith. Those who trust Jesus and His Spirit to the end of their lives will enter into His presence. In fact, some of our greatest righteousness will include repentance and forgiveness.
Paul ends with a description of what it means to follow Jesus. To belong to Jesus is to crucify your flesh with its passions and desires. It should be obvious that a crucified groom (Jesus) would only want to be with a crucified bride (all those who believed him enough to follow the Spirit).
“If we live in the Spirit” is a statement about the spiritual life we have in Christ. If I truly have put my faith in Jesus and his eternal life has taken up residence within me by the Spirit, then I need to walk by, with, and in the Holy Spirit. It is not enough to be made alive. We need to cooperate with the Spirit so that the righteousness of Jesus might be growing in our lives.
Praise God that we have a savior who covers our sin and yet does not leave us stuck in them. Let’s put our faith in Him and put to death those desires that hold us back from becoming more like him.
Email Article | Print Article | Share Article | tagged Crucify, Desire, Flesh, Fruit of the Spirit, Holy Spirit, Kingdom of God Pastor Marty Tuesday, May 19, 2026 at 10:13PM Acts 1:4-8. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, May 17, 2026.
Next Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, so we are going to focus on why the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was so important following the resurrection of Jesus.
Let’ s look at our passage.
These are the last moments that Jesus is with his disciples before ascending into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. He had earlier given them the mission of taking the good news about his work of salvation to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:18-20). Yet now he makes a stipulation about this. He commands them “not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father…”
We should notice that Jesus wants us to receive this promise of the Father before we go about the mission he has given us. It is clear that he is referring to the promise of the outpouring of God’s Spirit upon all believers.
Of course, the very next words out of their mouths are about the Kingdom being restored to Israel. Is it now, Lord? Jesus tells them that the Father is not giving that information to them. They need to focus on receiving the Holy Spirit and accomplishing the mission Jesus has given them.
Notice that the Holy Spirit will give them power, and they will be “my witnesses.” There are many ways in which the Holy Spirit empowers us. One of these ways is to make us a powerful witness of Jesus. In this sense, we are a particular kind of evidence for Jesus, a personal witness.
There are a couple of ways that we are his witnesses. The first is that we are his witnesses because we give testimony about him. He is the object that we have witnessed or the content of that to which we are testifying.
The world would not know who Jesus is, what he has done, and why it is so important, without someone who knows about it going to them and telling them.
This is Paul’s point in Romans 10:13-15. He takes an Old Testament truth, “All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” and reverse engineers it. How can people call upon the Lord and be saved if they don’t believe in him? How are they going to believe in him if they haven’t heard about him? How will they hear about him if no one tells them? How can someone tell them if they haven’t been sent? Jesus is the beginning of this whole series. He sends all of his disciples to go to the world around them with the good news of his salvation.
They needed to wait because the Holy Spirit was going to be poured out on a particular day, the Feast of Pentecost. Why that day? Pentecost was a celebration for the harvest so far and the harvest to come. In this case, Jesus is bringing in a spiritual harvest of people from Israel and the nations who will hear the good news, believe, and come into his kingdom.
We are also his witnesses in the sense that we belong to him and are doing a work for him. In fact, Jesus is witnessing to others through us. This spiritual dimension to our witness should not be overlooked. It goes beyond you and me. This witness is more than what we say and do.
When we share God’s terms of salvation with a lost world, it really is the Lord Jesus working through us to draw people to himself. God can lead us, but He also works beyond us and in ways that we cannot see. I may be nobody, but some people can only be reached by a nobody who shares the greatest somebody in the universe with them. Can you be God’s nobody and trust Him to do what you cannot do? This is part of the empowering of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus truly is sending us with a task, but He is also truly working with us and through us by the Holy Spirit. The answer is not to shrink back and say that God will do it. Nor is the answer to try and do it all by yourself. We must give our all to this mission but also trust the Holy Spirit to do His part. The job is too big for us in ourselves. We need the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life to do this.
One way in which we are witnesses is by our active vocal testimony. The Holy Spirit can give us boldness to speak when we are afraid. We see this with the apostle Peter who was afraid to stand with Christ on the night of his betrayal. Later, a Spirit-filled Peter would boldly speak in the temple compound, calling his people and Israel’s leaders to repentance.
The Holy Spirit can also help us with giving us the things to say. The preaching and teaching of the apostles was written down so that we can hear these inspired words. Yet, the Holy Spirit can give us specific leading in what to say to people. We need to learn to listen to Him and boldly speak it.
The Holy Spirit can also help in the heart and the mind of the person who receives our testimony. You may feel His presence and working, but then again, you may not. The main thing is to trust that the Spirit is always helping even when you don’t see it.
There is a part of our testimony that is not so much ours, but that of the original eyewitnesses to Jesus. This cannot be reduplicated. No one alive today can give testimony to seeing Jesus. Yet, we can pass along this eyewitness testimony.
Tens of thousands of people witnessed the life, teachings, and death of Jesus. Over 500 people witnessed that Jesus was alive after his death and burial. Acts 1:3 speaks to the infallible proofs that Jesus gave to these people. Some of those proofs were simply that he was alive. Some of those proofs were that he was more than a mortal. Jesus showed Thomas the crucifixion marks on his body. They touched him. He ate fish. Jesus was not an apparition or spirit. Yet, he was more than a mortal man. He appeared and disappeared in their midst when they were locked in a place. He ascended into the heavens in front of their eyes. These eyewitness accounts were written down so that they could be verified and used to test others who claimed to have testimony about Jesus.
By the beginning of the 2nd century, the last of those eyewitnesses were dying. This is why the Bible is so important. It is an eyewitness record of those who were there. This is also why the Bible is so attacked in our day and age. The devil doesn’t like the Bible. People who love to sin don’t like the Bible. Even my own flesh turns away from these words without the help of the Holy Spirit. It is important that we have the help of the Holy Spirit to share the testimony of these Apostles contained in the New Testament.
However, you don’t have to be an eyewitness to experience the spiritual truths that Jesus has made available to us. We are the spiritual offspring of those original disciples. Just as the words and work of Jesus transformed their life, so our lives have been transformed by that as well. Salvation is not simply a legal distinction. It is a living experience where the Spirit of God transforms our heart and mind. We go from being a people in slavery to sin to being a people living out the righteousness of Jesus.
The Holy Spirit helps our witness by fueling the transformation of our lives. This personal transformation also gives zeal and passion to our testimony as well. In short, we bear witness to the saving power of Jesus. Jesus truly saves those who believe in him. He saves them from their sin and failures. Of course, we see some of that happening right now. Some of it we will see happening in the future (I’m not perfected yet). Yet, we are following the Perfect One who is the perfecter of our faith. Only you can tell the testimony of what faith in Jesus has done for you. We need to seek the help of the Holy Spirit to empower transformation from the inside out. Then, we need to share it with others.
Our witness is not just by our words. In fact, we must be careful that our life is not discordant with our words, or the words of our Lord Jesus. Hypocrisy only interferes with our ability to witness for Jesus.
In this sense, people will see our lives. Our actions and overall life will testify for us. Both verbal testimony and demonstration testimony are necessary in our lives. We cannot do one and neglect the other.
This is why the Bible records the experience and subsequent lives of those who believed in Jesus. Peter became a man with a spiritual backbone. Saul of Tarsus became a follower of Jesus who would put his life in jeopardy in order to bring the good news about Jesus to those who had never heard.
This is part of the testimony in their day and age. Yes, they said things, but their actions and lives powerfully underscored these words. When Stephen was stoned for giving testimony to the Lord Jesus, it may have scared some people away from following Jesus. Yet, he was only the first of many who gave testimony with their lives that Jesus was worth losing your physical life. They faced persecution, torture, and death. When Saul of Tarsus became a Christian, it shocked everyone. Some Christians feared that it was a ploy to discover who they all were. Unbelievers believed that he had gone mad. However, no one could counter the claim that Saul of Tarsus was no longer who he used to be. The evidence of his life before and after spoke volumes about the kind of man he used to be and who he became once he believed upon Jesus.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 says, “9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
There is real power working in this. Many of these Corinthians used to be caught up in various types of sin. If Jesus had remained in the grave, we would not be reading these words today. If no one’s life was ever transformed by these words and the Holy Spirit who works through them, we wouldn’t be here today.
A transformed life is our biggest testimony. It is God’s will for you to be transformed by the truth of His Word and the power of His Holy Spirit. Thus, we need to expect this, desire this, pray for this, and cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He empowers this in our lives.
We need to pray for the Spirit’s leading in our daily lives. What are the ways in which I need to be transformed to become more like Jesus? Only a person who is in the Bible, in prayer, and wrestling with their sinful flesh by the help of the Holy Spirit can give testimony of a life that is being transformed.
May God help us to rest in His gracious work of transformation in our life and to know His peace day by day.
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