An assignment was given to some of us brothers who are learning to serve and coordinate in the Lord's move here in India. I took this privilege to study the word and learn to interpret it using the ministry. The entire exercise is with the view of learning to handle the word with the goal of becoming a proper minister of the word. May the Lord perfect all the brothers to learn our lessons thoroughly well and be equipped with the word. The study question is below with my study answers.
How are these verses related to the "Discipline of the Holy Spirit" which produces the "Ministry of God’s Word" in us?
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28
The good here is related to our gaining more of Christ, to our having Him wrought into our being, that we may be transformed metabolically and may eventually be conformed to His image, the image of the Son of God (v.29), that is, we may be wrought into full sonship. This is the discipline of the Holy Spirit that we may be constituted as the word of God.
However, for the Holy Spirit to have His free way to work into our being, we need to cooperate with His operation. Therefore, the phrase, "to those who love God". Only when we love God, we care for God's desire, and we will be willing to coordinate with Him in whatever way He pleases to deal with us.
For this, the Holy Spirit is carrying out His work of disciplining through all things that work together for good.
Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Ephesians 5:17
The will of the Lord is for Him to work Himself into us, to be our life and our life supply, and to become Him in life and in nature but not in the godhead. For this, He has been working Himself into us using the environment, the afflications and sufferings we seem to have been going through. Amidst this transforming process, we must realise it is the will of the Lord and simply submit to the Holy Spirit. In our cooperation with the will of the Lord, we will give Him the full freedom to do whatever he wanted to do in us; to constitute us as the minister of His word. Otherwise we would be foolish, wasting our time and the Lord's.
Giving thanks at all times for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to our God and Father. Ephesians 5:20
At all times for all things are all the works of the Lord in gaining us for His purpose. Having been fully aware of the Lord's work, we must always give thanks to God our Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For the word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12
Through the constitution work of the Holy Spirit into our being, the word of God will operate in renewing our mind, transforming us into His image to the extent that there is a clear distinction between our spirit and our soul. Our spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit will permeate and saturate our soul with all its faculties transformed; the mind being renewed to become the mind of Christ, the emotion being dealt with to love only the Lord Jesus as first and best love, and the will being subdued to be submissive yet pliable becoming one with the will of the Lord. This discipline of the Holy Spirit will constitute one to be a minister of the word in the ministry of the New Testament.
The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah, searching all the innermost parts of the inner being. Proverbs 20:27
The God-created spirit of man in man is used by the Lord through His works in the outward objective environment to enliven, confirm, and strengthen the inner light. Thereby, through such an inner shining, the Lord will carry out His works of sanctification and purification, issuing in His constituting the man He worked upon, to be a man of God, a man of the word, or in a new testament sense, a minister of the New Testament.
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