Colaborers with God

Colaborers with God

The greatest Christian movement that the world will ever see will take place when Christians realize they are colaborers with God.

At the present moment, much of the church does not recognize the power they possess through the Holy Spirit living inside of them.

Unknowingly, many Christians ask God to do things sovereignly that the Scripture shows us is our responsibility. 

The Bible never indicates that God will save our city, neighborhood, or family members without us. However, the Bible does tell us to pray for God to open the hearts of unbelievers as we have opportunities to share the gospel with them. 

Simply put, God wants to use people to reach their world. There is no plan B. No angels or spiritual force will mystically come down from heaven to do our job. We are the people chosen and empowered to fulfill the Great Commission. 

Paul tells the church at Corinth, “For we are co-workers in God’s service…” (1 Corinthians 3:9 NIV). We are more than robots because God committed his mission into our hands. He did not do this because he cannot fulfill his mission without us, but he chose to accomplish his mission through us for reasons that we cannot comprehend. 

The early church father Saint Augustine put it this way: “Without God we cannot; without us, He will not!” 

This saying encapsulates two biblical truths in one statement. On the one side, we see the truth of God’s sovereignty – Without God, we cannot. On the other side, we see our responsibility – Without us, He will not! This paradoxical truth has caused great division throughout church history as denominations try to unravel this mystery. 

We should not err by embracing one side of this truth while ignoring the other. A group of English Baptists in the 1700s held so tightly to the sovereignty of God that they did not want to evangelize for fear that they would preach the gospel to people whom God did not elect for salvation. 

More recently, some teachers in the hyper word of faith movement went to the other extreme by claiming mankind is responsible for what takes place in life based on what type of things they claim.

Our job is not to untangle the mystery of God’s sovereignty and our responsibility, but God gave us a Great Commission to fulfill before he returns (see Matthew 24:14). While we are not capable of making the Holy Spirit move, we are capable of restricting him. Paul said, “Do not quench the Spirit.” (1 Thessalonians 5:19). 

As colaborers with God, we are chosen to be his hands and feet in this world. We cannot wait for the world to change or for God to change the world. He has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit inside of us. Our job is to respond to his leadings.