The Holy Spirit Doesn’t Work for Us!

I remember the day when we realized that we were running the disciple-making show.

• We were curating the content, deciding what disciples needed to read and know.
• We were controlling the pace.
• We explained everything.
• We were leading.
• We were answering every question.
• We were making disciples.

And it wasn’t working. We couldn’t get more people in life-changing discipleship, and only 20% (the national average) were getting it, sticking to the deal, and seeing their lives change.

Maybe you have been there too.

Since then, God has corrected us, guided us, and refined the process. Now we are getting 95% success. And this whole “we were making” was a big part of the problem.

The Holy Spirit wasn’t working because He wasn’t in charge.

In his classic workbook, Experiencing God, Henry Blackaby writes that if we want to be productive, we should join God in what he is doing rather than asking Him to join us in what we decide to do. I’ll never forget the day God hit me over the head with one simple verse.

But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.

John 14:26 NRSV

Nothing effective happens without the Holy Spirit. We had it all backward. The Holy Spirit is supposed to be the one who,

• Curates the content,
• Controls the pace,
• Leads the process,
• Explains everything, and
• Answers every question.

That’s the big truth here.

The Holy Spirit is the one who actually makes disciples.

We were trying to get him to bless what we were doing instead of doing our part to let him do his job. The Spirit is the one who transforms. I’ll explain in a minute how we made space for Him to do his job. First, let’s take a quick look at his roles.

He Curates the Content

We can guess at what a group needs, but over the years, we’ve found we have no clue what people really need in the moment. Why? Because there are only two beings that know what any disciple needs.

• The Disciple

No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2:11 NLT

• God

You like to appear righteous in public, but God knows your hearts.

Luke 16:15

One-size-fits-all discipleship doesn’t work. But when the Holy Spirit curates the truth, raises the issue, and calls a disciple to action, there is a real possibility of transformation. We need to get out of the Spirit’s way! How? By giving them all of the content.

Yes, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the whole book—even the seemingly boring parts! You will be amazed at how the Spirit can work through the prophets and the stories of all the heroes and zeroes. Paul knew this when he wrote,

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 17God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 NLT

The Holy Spirit’s content is the entire Word of God, from which he curates exactly what the disciple needs to know, exactly when the disciple needs it. But that only works if we let the Holy Spirit control the pace and lead the process.

He Controls the Pace – He Leads

I love Jesus’ words to the core disciples, the ones he walked with for three years.

There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard.

John 16:12-13

The Holy Spirit knows what we need to hear and when we are ready to hear it. He knows our hearts, and he knows God’s heart. Allowing the Holy Spirit to control the pace and lead the transformation process is fundamental to effective disciple making.

He Teaches – He Answers Their Questions

The writer in Hebrews writes,

For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.

Hebrews 4:12 NLT

Of course, the writer, like Paul, is referring to the Old Testament. But the New Testament is the Word as well. The whole word is powerful. The Spirit really doesn’t need our words. It alone is the fuel the Spirit needs to teach, to remind, and to guide.

And when it comes to questions, the Spirit has the answers, and God has promised to answer.

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.

James 1:5-8

The Wrap

There it is. The entire revelation of our problem.

The Spirit wasn’t working in disciple making because we were trying to make him work for us instead of us working for him.

I have to be honest. The change took a lot of faith. It took a lot of trust in His promises to get out of the way. We had to entirely retrain ourselves. We had to break the habit of being the teacher. We had to trust that the Spirit could fulfill the scriptures and use everything in the book. But we found that when we got out of the way and let the disciples hear from God what he wanted them to hear, they found immediate value. They got excited. They got convicted. And they got addicted to sitting at His feet learning.

Here are a few tips that God has shared with us (part of what we call the Sustainable Discipleship Method). When it comes to getting out of the way,

1. Stop curating. Get disciples to read the whole Bible front to back.
2. Avoid studying or reading to read.
3. Don’t use any guides, workbooks, or curated resources.
4. Have disciples read weekly and highlight anything that just jumps off the page.
5. When you meet for discipleship, ask them what they highlighted, what the truth is, and how they need to adjust to the truth.
6. When you ask each question, sit quietly and let them think. Even if you know the answer. Let them hear it from the Spirit. Trust me, he will answer in the awkward silence.
7. Never share your highlights.
8. Never expand their highlights. That’s the same as curating.
   In other words, make their discipleship about them. The Holy Spirit can do this. It is his job. Work for him by getting out of His way.

There’s actually a lot of theology and brain science behind all this. And it’s only one of the seven things that God shared with us that changed everything.

If you want to learn more, reply to this email, join us at a workshop, or check out How It Works on the site. We’d love to share what God shared with us.