I had coffee with a new friend recently and, as often happens, when we talked about this ministry, she asked the question, “Have you always been a writer?”
My usual response is, “Well, I’ve been told I write a decent Christmas letter, but no, I’ve never really been a writer until now.”
I’m pretty quick to give credit where credit is due when it comes to anything I write. So, I said, “God writes through me.” It’s one of the pillars of this ministry. I experience first-hand what that means and have written often about how amazing it is to be used of God that way.
Then she said, “You probably feel like the authors of the Bible.”
Wait a minute! Hold your horses! My first reaction was that I absolutely did not feel like them because they were writing what would become the inspired Word of God – the Holy Bible. I have always put those authors in a completely different category. And to a great degree, still do.
But that comment certainly made me think more deeply about what she said. Did I have anything in common with those inspired authors from so many centuries ago?
After mulling that over in my mind for a while, I decided that I did have one thing in common with them.
God’s Holy Spirit.
That’s right. The God who inspired those holy scriptures so long ago is the same God that speaks to us today. He is never changing. “For I the Lord do not change…” Malachi 3:6.
The God of creation, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is the God who speaks to me and through me in 2024.
Does that stop you in your tracks, and give you pause? It sure did for me. But I had to land on what I know is true about God, and not be hindered by my own “smallness.” That’s not the measure of what God can do. He is.
The scripture in Romans 8:11 speaks to this same kind of power being given to us as believers.
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
The power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power that lives in the hearts and souls of believers. That’s also one of the Bible’s mind-blowing statements! I believe 100% that it’s true. It’s just hard to wrap my limited human brain around it.
Have you had circumstances in your life when you felt God “speaking” to you? Even without an audible voice, have you felt a clear nudging or urging in a certain direction, or to a specific decision?
Or perhaps you’ve been the recipient of that when a friend reached out to you at the perfect time because God told him or her to do so.
When we experience this either directly or indirectly, there is guidance brought by the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit that inspired the authors of the Bible.
How often do we deeply ponder the incredible power available to us through God’s Spirit? I know I don’t do that nearly as often as I should, or as God deserves.
This just underscores in a powerful way the undeniable fact that God is our strength and provider in all our efforts. He is the one who gives us our successes – especially when we feel we have zero strength of our own.
Going forward, I will acknowledge the writing God does through me as inspired, but pray that I can also recognize him as the same source of inspired writing each time I open up my Bible.
All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable
for teaching, reproof, correction,
for training in righteousness.
2 Timothy 3:16
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