Spirit-filled Jesus

But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own authority. But He will speak whatever He hears, and He will tell you things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will receive from Me and will declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine. Therefore I said that He will take what is Mine and will declare it to you.

– John 16:13-15 MEV.

As Christian leaders and counselors from a range of backgrounds ministered to us, the variety of what they taught us thoroughly blessed us. I believe this has ignited a new understanding on how to best help people, gleaning from all that the Holy Spirit says in the Bible without being limited to one tradition and its emphasis on one paradigm for helping people.

We came to appreciate each approach and grieve the pride and cynicism that often divides these biblical insights into warring camps. To be truly helpful we need to be deeply Spirit-led. The Holy Spirit knows exactly how someone is suffering and what the solution is.

Every honest pastor and Christian leader reaches a point where they realize the same truths taught in the same way bring the same incomplete results. Who in your immediate world would bring a new biblical perspective to your struggles as a follower of Jesus?

There’s a good chance you stand on one side of various theological, methodological, and relational divides, and the help you need is right on the other side. Ask people who aren’t in your tribe for practical wisdom drawn from real ministry. Invite them to tell you their case histories of real change. Let them enthusiastically draw out their biblical emphasis and challenge yours. Why? Because every problem you face isn’t a nail, and every solution doesn’t require a hammer.

When you suffer, it is essential to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you why you are suffering and how you can be growing. Your suffering is so expensive that you should not waste it on sin, folly, or rebellion. Instead, you would be better served to invest it by reflecting on Jesus’ suffering for you so that you can become more like Him.

But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own authority. But He will speak whatever He hears, and He will tell you things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will receive from Me and will declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine. Therefore I said that He will take what is Mine and will declare it to you.

– John 16:13-15 MEV.

As Christian leaders and counselors from a range of backgrounds ministered to us, the variety of what they taught us thoroughly blessed us. I believe this has ignited a new understanding on how to best help people, gleaning from all that the Holy Spirit says in the Bible without being limited to one tradition and its emphasis on one paradigm for helping people.

We came to appreciate each approach and grieve the pride and cynicism that often divides these biblical insights into warring camps. To be truly helpful we need to be deeply Spirit-led. The Holy Spirit knows exactly how someone is suffering and what the solution is.

Every honest pastor and Christian leader reaches a point where they realize the same truths taught in the same way bring the same incomplete results. Who in your immediate world would bring a new biblical perspective to your struggles as a follower of Jesus?

There’s a good chance you stand on one side of various theological, methodological, and relational divides, and the help you need is right on the other side. Ask people who aren’t in your tribe for practical wisdom drawn from real ministry. Invite them to tell you their case histories of real change. Let them enthusiastically draw out their biblical emphasis and challenge yours. Why? Because every problem you face isn’t a nail, and every solution doesn’t require a hammer.

When you suffer, it is essential to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you why you are suffering and how you can be growing. Your suffering is so expensive that you should not waste it on sin, folly, or rebellion. Instead, you would be better served to invest it by reflecting on Jesus’ suffering for you so that you can become more like Him.

I admit that at times I have wished there were another way. I wish we could go online and shop for character, punch in our credit card information, and have it delivered to our house along with the rest of our Amazon order. But that is not how the Christian life works. When Jesus says to pick up our cross and follow Him, He is inviting us to suffer with our Savior so that we can become like our Savior. Often our healing from suffering begins by forgiving those who hurt us.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and so we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also boast in tribulation, knowing that tribulation produces patience, patience produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

– Romans 5:1-5 MEV.

It has been rightly said that the greatest ministry comes from the deepest pain. Jesus’ greatest ministry came from His deepest pain. The same is true of you and me. Your greatest ministry comes from your deepest pain.

Suffering not only sanctifies you to make you like Jesus, but it also sends you out into the suffering world to minister like Jesus. Your experiences, lessons learned, and empathy gained through suffering are the very things that make you a better minister. What suffering have you endured? How has it changed you, taught you, and improved you? How can you use your suffering to serve others who are suffering?

After roughly two decades of teaching, I took a break for healing and learning during the most difficult season of life for my family and me. As Grace and I met with godly ministry couples, professional counselors, and deeply spiritual leaders to process what we had been through, every meeting was markedly different and yet incredibly helpful. Each person asked very different questions, saw things from very different angles, and provided very different biblical insights and points of view.

In each meeting I took notes to help me remember what God was doing for us through these wonderful people. Within months I had filled numerous notebooks. After I had met with multiple people and considered things from various perspectives, I started putting it together. I realized they alloffered biblical, godly, wise, helpful, and necessary counsel. Had we been ministered to from only one perspective, there would have been much we missed and a lot misdiagnosed.

During this time out of ministry set aside to learn and grow, I noticed various Christian leaders had a paradigm by which they saw my problems and through which they offered solutions. Each had obvious biblical moorings, and it seemed that various teams, tribes, and traditions had one predominant paradigm through which they ministered to Grace and me. We found it unbelievably beneficial that instead of sitting in the “helper” seat, we were sitting in the “helped” seat.

Every prudent man deals with knowledge, but a fool lays open his folly. A wicked messenger falls into mischief, but a faithful envoy is health. Poverty and shame will be to him who refuses instruction, but he who regards reproof will be honored. The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul, but it is abomination to fools to depart from evil. He who walks with wise men will be wise, but a companion of fools will be destroyed. Evil pursues sinners, but to the righteous good will be repaid.

– Proverbs 13:16-21 MEV.

The first key to healthy relationships is to accept that not everyone is Spirit-filled, wise, responsible, teachable, or a good investment of time and energy. We must determine which category we are in and invite wise people who love us enough to tell us the truth to help us see ourselves more clearly.

Every one of us has at least some areas of our lives that are foolish, if not even evil. We are all works in progress.

Wise + foolish = parental relationship

Irresponsible people seek out overly responsible people and dump their responsibilities on them. You know you have picked up a relationship like this when you are doing for someone things they should be doing for themselves.

Wise + evil = distant relationship

When an evil person seeks to build a close relationship with a wise person, the wise person maintains the distance.Aided by the discernment of the Holy Spirit, Jesus kept His distance from evil people, and we should do the same.

Foolish + foolish = codependent relationship

When two foolish people come together in a close relationship, they multiply their folly.Jesus was friends with foolish people and even attended their parties but only to help make them wise. He never acted foolishly or sinfully.

Foolish + evil = abusive relationship

Foolish people are often gullible and vulnerable. Because they do not deal with reality or have much of a plan for their lives, they are easy prey for evil people. Sadly, foolish people allow this kind of abusive relationship to continue for far too long and pay a steep price.

Evil + evil = dangerous relationship

When two evil people come together, they are like two barrels on a gun. If you get in front of them, you are likely to get shot.United by their common goal, when two evil people come together, they make it their life’s mission to do the same thing as the devil—steal, kill, and destroy.

Wise + wise = healthy relationship

When two wise people walk humbly together, they make the good times twice as good and the bad times half as bad, as the old saying goes. Proverbs 13:20 speaks of this kind of relationship saying, “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise.”

How about you?Which of the six kinds of relationships do you most commonly find yourself in?

When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of the evil man, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness; who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perversity of the wicked; whose ways are crooked, and who are devious in their paths. Proverbs 2:10-15 MEV.

– Proverbs 2:10-15 MEV.

Some people have a hard time thinking that a professing Christian can be evil, but the Bible is painfully pointed. For example, in Acts 5:3 Peter says of one church member, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit…?”

Evil people do not cause harm unintentionally as fools do. Instead, evil people intentionally plot harm, scheme to bring pain and destruction, and feel vindicated in doing so because of their hurt, self-righteousness, or corrupt nature.

The way to respond to an evil person is with nothing—the exact opposite of our response to a wise person. Draw near to a wise person and run from an evil person. Give more information to a wise person, and no information to an evil person. Deal directly with a wise person, and let the cops and lawyers deal with the evil person.

A wise person can be influenced toward godliness, and a fool can perhaps be brought toward wisdom after they have sat in their mess for a while. But the evil person has to be considered hopeless apart from a dramatic intervention from God—one that does not involve you, because there is little to nothing you can do. An evil person might not be beyond God’s ability to help, but they are probably beyond your ability.

At this point you separate, protect yourself, and establish a definite ending to the relationship with no contact or information going forward.

Evil people live by the power of demonic forces to harass and harm. Because of their demonic empowerment, they are far more powerful when seeking to cause harm than they otherwise are in normal life. Evil people who move into ministry leadership become wolves who strike the shepherd in an effort to scatter the sheep. Evil people require a professional relationship with someone trained to deal wisely with their issues.

The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel: To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity; to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion—a wise man will hear and will increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel, to understand a proverb and the interpretation, the words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. 

– Proverbs 1:1-7 MEV.

Foolish people are not necessarily less intelligent or less educated. However, they are unteachable, defensive, unyielding, arrogant, irresponsible, and prone to make excuses for themselves and wrongly blame others when things go poorly. Sadly, if we are honest, everyone is foolish in areas and seasons of our life. None of us is immune to folly.

But people who are primarily foolish have an ongoing pattern of folly that infects and affects most if not all of their lives. Rather than changing, they want everyone and everything to change to accommodate them. Efforts to correct and instruct foolish people result in a fight or flight response where they fight back or run away. They have low empathy and tend to see themselves as both morally superior to others and a constant victim.

When dealing with a foolish person, you tend to have the same conversation over and over, and to them it sounds like nagging. The more you address the areas a foolish person keeps making the same error, the more conflict and disagreement ensues, and the relationship deteriorates.

The way to respond to a foolish person is with less—less time arguing, less frequently having the same conversation, less being on the defensive trying to get them to come around and take responsibility for their own life. This response sharpens through consequences and boundaries. Proverbs 1:7 provides a reason when it says “fools despise wisdom and discipline.” Because a foolish person will not change but instead plows ahead in the same direction of destruction, the best thing to do is to impose consequences and limit the ability they have to harm themselves and others.

A foolish person pushes their responsibilities and the consequences of their folly onto responsible people, and the best thing to do is push the responsibilities and consequences back onto them.

A foolish person lives by the power of the sinful flesh (our sinful human nature). A foolish person will waste what you give them because they do not embrace it. They are like a bucket in which the bottom has rusted out; anything you pour into it just spills onto the ground. Peter started out as Jesus’ most foolish disciple. Jesus helped Peter move from foolish to wise by rebuking him and inviting him to change. Jesus knew Peter was foolish and asked Peter to walk with Him toward wisdom.

The people answered and said, “You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill You?” Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you all marvel. Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision, you circumcise a man on the Sabbath day (although it did not come from Moses, but from the Patriarchs). If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath day, so that the Law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry at Me because I completely healed a man on the Sabbath day? Do not judge according to appearance, but practice righteous judgment.” 

– John 7:20-24 MEV.

Wise people are not the most intelligent or educated, but they are humble, godly, teachable, open, and responsible. These people meet reality and life’s demands by changing their actions and attitudes as needed to align with what is true and good. They welcome correction, invite others to teach them, and you can build a growing relationship with them by being honest.

Wise people also have empathy for others and consider more than just their own desires and feelings in a situation. Because of these character traits, there is always hope for a wise person to grow. The time you spend with them, instruction you give to them, and investment you make in them is worthwhile because they personally mature and your relationship grows and flourishes. Proverbs 9:8–9 means this by saying, “Correct the wise, and they will love you. Instruct the wise, and they will be even wiser. Teach the righteous, and they will learn even more” (NLT).

The way to respond to a wise person is with more—more time, more discussion, and more information—because they are a good investment of time and energy. A wise person lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. You can trust a wise person and enjoy a personal relationship them.

We all have had the painful experience of someone wrongly judging us or not understanding us, and as a result, our relationship with them suffers or is severed. Additionally we all have had the painful experience of thinking we knew someone and trusting them, only to find—much to our misery—that they were not the person we thought they were.

Jesus came to earth in large part for the sake of relationship, but even devout religious leaders were foolish or evil in dealing with Him. In John 7 they sought to kill Jesus rather than have a relationship with Him because they wrongly judged Him. Jesus then rebuked their poor relational wisdom, saying, “Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly” (v. 24, NLT).

To properly deal with people and have any healthy relationships, you must have the discerning wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of God knows people better than anyone, and He will help you have healthy relationships. God wants you to be wise and seek wisdom so that you can know how to handle foolish and evil people.

Forsake foolishness and live, and go in the way of understanding.” He who reproves a scorner gets shame for himself, and he who rebukes a wicked man gets hurt. Do not reprove a scorner, lest he hate you; rebuke a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser; teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.

– Proverbs 9:6-9 MEV.

Thomas, Susan, and Harold all grew up in the same home. Their father was an angry man who had allowed bitterness to infect his inner life as well as his outer life. On the worst days this dad would have too much to drink. Like a grenade with the pin pulled, he exploded over the slightest issue with anyone in the family. His wife and kids would run from the room because sometimes he would hit his children. As the three children grew up, they each responded very differently.

Thomas became just like his dad. When he married and had kids of his own, he sadly carried the sins of his father into his family. People feared him, but no one respected him.

Growing up, Harold decided he would be the funny one and try and make jokes and lighten the mood when his dad would start to rage. He never learned to deal with problems, but instead turned everything into a joke and made light of serious things. As an adult, Harold avoided doing hard things, and instead just acted foolishly. Always the life of the party, he could not hold a job or have a serious conversation and became the stereotypical happy drunk who ignored reality. Harold became foolish. Lots of people liked him, but no one respected him.

Susan met a girl at school whose family were Christians. As a teenager Susan started hanging out at her friend’s house a lot, and before long they were picking her up on Sundays to attend church with them. Then Susan met other kids her age and families. As Susan observed other families, the unhealthiness of her own family grew obvious.

Over time she learned to forgive her father as God had forgiven her, and she decided to attend college and get a counseling degree. Today she is a mother with a healthy family and a licensed Christian counselor who helps abused children.

From this family, we learn that your experiences in life do not determine who you become. Instead, how you choose to respond to your experiences determines who you become.

As our kids grow up, we tell them to treat everyone the same. Perhaps that’s not a good thing. The truth is, we need to treat different people differently. People decide how we treat them by how they behave.