To Encourage You

1 Thessalonians 2:13 “. . . the word of God, which is at work in you believers.”

We’ve all heard the term “under the influence,” which typically refers to a person’s actions being impacted by drugs or alcohol. The term carries with it the idea that whatever that person was doing, it was different than he or she otherwise would have been doing but for the chemicals that were at work in their system. Interestingly, the Bible applies that same idea to many things that influence us spiritually. It talks often about how one thing or other can influence us, in fact empower us, to do things we would otherwise not do.

One such thing is the Word of God, as stated in the verse above. It talks about the Word of God being “at work” in the believers. The actual word used for this in the Greek language in which it was written is “energeo.” We get the word “energy” from it. It comes from a root word that means “to be operative, or active.” It means “to be operative, be at work, put forth power.” We see this idea expressed to describe the Word’s effect on us in the following verse: “For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). Here the idea is how the Word acts on us. It has power to expose hidden motives, things we didn’t realize about ourselves without reading it. But in the 1 Thessalonians passage above, it speaks of how it has power to work through us. It has the ability to empower us to serve the Lord as it reveals His supernatural desires and thoughts to us, and contrasts them with our natural inclinations. It corrects our thinking about many things, and that impact on our thoughts has the power to impact our actions, if we indeed take its teachings to heart.

But then there are other things that the Bible tells us can also put us under their influence. 1 Corinthians 12:6 speaks about spiritual gifts and tells us that “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.” In other words, God, by His power, at the moment of the conversion of any believer, empowers them to uniquely serve Him with one or more spiritual gifts. It may be the ability to teach, or evangelize, or to just come along and help someone in need. God has ordained that the power He gives by His Spirit to serve Him with these gifts is then strengthened and influenced by His Word with the spiritual power He has given it.

Conversely, Ephesians 2:2 speaks of those who are “dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” Do you hear that? Here it speaks of the power of the enemy of God to influence and actually empower people to do his will. Whether people know it or not, if they don’t have the Spirit of God working in their lives, it is this evil spirit that is at work in their lives, tempting them and leading them to self-destructive thoughts and actions, i.e., “trespasses and sins,” that are evidence of their condition of being spiritually dead.

How often have you heard people talk about how they just don’t know what came over them when they did this or that bad thing, or they say that “that just isn’t me” that did such a terrible thing. The fact of the matter is, it really was them, and the fact that they did such a thing that even surprised them, was the power that the evil one had exerted on their lives.

“Under the influence:” it describes each and every one of us in a spiritual sense. So, which would you rather have, the wonderful influence and power of the Spirit of God and His powerful Word to empower you to “glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20), or the spirit of the enemy of God that empowers you to do the opposite and bring nothing but harm to yourself and others in your life? The key to whom you give that power is what you believe. But it is only to those who have put their faith in Christ that the Bible tells us the following wonderful truth “But as many as received Him, to them gave he power to become sons of God, even to them who believe on His name” (John 1:12).