From the series: Empowered — Discovering and Developing Your Spiritual Gifts
There is a theological assumption so deeply embedded in the way we think about Jesus that most of us have never stopped to question it. It goes something like this: Jesus healed people because he was God. Jesus taught with authority because he was divine. Jesus cast out demons and raised the dead because he had access to divine power that we simply don’t.
It sounds reverent. It sounds orthodox. And it lets us off the hook entirely.
But it isn’t what the New Testament actually teaches.
The Assumption We Need to Lose
The Gospels are unanimous on this point: Jesus did not conduct his earthly ministry by drawing on his divine nature independently of the Father and the Spirit. He operated as a Spirit-empowered human being — fully submitted, fully dependent, fully anointed — showing us what Spirit-filled humanity actually looks like.
This is not a radical claim. It is the explicit claim of the New Testament itself.
Jon Thompson, in his landmark work Convergence, puts it with arresting clarity:
“Jesus did not rely on His divinity to do ministry. Instead, He laid aside divine prerogative and showed us what it means to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit… He is the model of a truly spiritual life.”
Sit with that for a moment. Jesus is not primarily our Saviour who did what we could never do. He is also our model who did what we are being invited to do. The incarnation is not just rescue — it is demonstration. Jesus lived as he lived in order to show us how to live.
What Kenosis Actually Means
The theological term for what Thompson is describing is kenosis, drawn from Philippians 2:6-7 — Paul’s breathtaking summary of the incarnation:
“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”
Kenosis does not mean that Jesus stopped being God. It does not mean his divine nature was inactive or absent. It means that in his incarnate ministry, Jesus voluntarily chose not to operate from independent divine prerogative. He set aside the unilateral use of his divine attributes and stepped fully into the limitations and dependencies of human existence.
N.T. Wright, in Jesus and the Victory of God, frames this with characteristic precision:
“Jesus believed himself called to do and be what, in Israel’s scriptures, YHWH had promised to do and be. But he would do this not by being a distant, detached deity, but by becoming human and accomplishing this task as the Spirit-anointed Messiah.”
This is the extraordinary claim at the heart of the Gospels. The one who is fully God chose to accomplish his mission as the Spirit-anointed Messiah — which means his ministry is not a category entirely its own. It is the model for ours.
The Gospels Won’t Let Us Miss This
The Gospel writers are not subtle about this. Luke, in particular, goes out of his way to show us the Spirit’s role in every phase of Jesus’ life and ministry.
At his baptism: “The Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove” (Luke 3:22).
In the wilderness: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Luke 4:1).
At the launch of his public ministry: “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:14).
At his inaugural sermon in Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18).
This is not incidental detail. Luke is making a theological argument: the entirety of Jesus’ ministry — his teaching, his miracles, his compassion, his confrontations — flowed from his anointing by the Spirit.
Matthew confirms it: “If it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28). Jesus himself traces his power not to his divine nature but to the Spirit.
John’s Gospel deepens the theological frame. Jesus says: “The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work” (John 14:10). And earlier: “For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit” (John 3:34).
Jesus ministered from a position of total dependence and unlimited anointing. Not divine bypass — divine dependence.
Three Streams, Held Together
Jon Thompson argues that Jesus embodied what he calls “convergence” — the perfect integration of three essential streams of Christian life and ministry that we almost always pull apart:
Word — He taught the Scriptures with authority and truth. His teaching wasn’t performance; it emerged from deep immersion in Israel’s story and the Father’s revelation.
Spirit — He operated in the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit. Healing, deliverance, prophecy, miracles — these were not departures from his normal ministry; they were the normal expression of it.
Sacrament — He lived in deep communion with the Father through the spiritual practices that shaped his inner life: solitude, prayer, fasting, worship. “Very early in the morning, whilst it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35).
These three streams flowed together in Jesus without contradiction or competition. He did not choose between biblical depth and spiritual power. He did not trade communion with the Father for effective ministry. He held all three — because all three belonged together.
Thompson’s diagnosis of the contemporary church is sobering: most churches lean heavily into one or two streams whilst neglecting the third. Some prize biblical teaching but are suspicious of spiritual power. Others pursue supernatural experience but have shallow scriptural roots. Still others emphasise liturgy and sacramental practice but lack both depth and power. Jesus held all three. He is the model.
From Intimacy to Ministry
Here is the most important thing that Chapter 3 of Empowered draws out — and it is the thing most likely to be missed in our rush to do something with our gifts.
Jesus’ authority came not from platform. It came from intimacy.
Jon Tyson, in Beautiful Resistance, captures what made Jesus different:
“Jesus resisted the pull of hurry, fame, and power, staying anchored in the Father’s love and the Spirit’s leading. That’s why his authority had weight — it came from intimacy, not from platform.”
The hours in Gethsemane. The forty days in the wilderness. The pre-dawn retreats to solitary places. These were not interruptions to Jesus’ ministry — they were the source of it. Everything that flowed outward into healing and teaching and transformation had its origin in what was cultivated inward in the Father’s presence.
John Mark Comer names the implication plainly: “Jesus’ life is not just something to admire, it’s something to imitate. His way of life is the template for human flourishing.”
Cambridge theologian Sarah Coakley adds a crucial clarification about what this means for spiritual authority:
“The Spirit’s work in us, as in Christ, is not about the assertion of power, but about the transformation that comes through vulnerable openness to God. True spiritual authority emerges not from grasping after divine prerogatives, but from the kenotic pattern of self-offering that Jesus modelled.”
This is the correction our age desperately needs. We have confused anointing with gifting, platform with authority, confidence with power. Jesus shows us a different way entirely: authority grows from surrender, power flows from dependence, gifts are most alive when they are rooted in love.
Curtis Thompson frames the contrast sharply: “We grow into the likeness of Christ not through anxiety or performance, but through the joyful awareness of the Father’s presence and the Spirit’s work in us.”
Our gifts were never meant to be managed or performed. They were meant to be released — from a place of rest in the Father’s love, carried by the Spirit’s anointing, offered in the kenotic posture of self-giving that Jesus modelled from first to last.
What Jesus Models for Us
If Jesus is the model — not merely the exception — then his life becomes a set of concrete invitations.
He models radical dependence on the Father: “The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing” (John 5:19). Jesus did not operate from accumulated spiritual capital. He lived moment by moment in attentive response to the Father. That dependence is not a limitation we should outgrow. It is the posture we are being invited into.
He models empowerment by the Spirit: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil” (Acts 10:38). The Spirit is not a supplement to our natural gifts. He is the source of our supernatural ones. The anointing Jesus carried is the same anointing he has poured out on his people.
He models the integration of disciplines and gifts: The one who healed the sick and raised the dead also rose before dawn to pray in solitude. The disciplines were not what earned the gifts — they were what kept the channel clear. Prayer, rest, Scripture, fasting, Sabbath, community — these are not alternatives to Spirit-empowered ministry; they are its foundation.
Our Call to Follow
Following Jesus into this Spirit-empowered life means reshaping not just what we do but how we approach it.
It means practising humility — understanding ourselves as vessels, not sources. Our gifts are not competencies we have achieved. They are graces we have received. The moment we begin to take credit for what the Spirit is doing through us, we have already begun to lose it.
It means embracing dependence — genuinely needing the Spirit’s presence and power, not just hoping for it. This is not passive resignation. It is the active, daily discipline of asking, seeking, opening ourselves to be filled. “We require daily filling by the Spirit” is not a pious sentiment. It is a practical reality.
It means adopting Jesus’ rhythms — prayer, solitude, Sabbath, worship, generosity — not as religious duties but as the practices that create the conditions in which the Spirit can work most freely. Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong reminds us of the global scope of this:
“The Spirit’s gifts are not limited by culture, race, or social status. When we follow Jesus’ model of Spirit-dependence, we discover that God’s power works through the most unlikely people in the most unexpected places. The Spirit blows where it wills, empowering the global church for mission.”
And it means living in community — because spiritual gifts are discerned, tested, and developed within the fellowship of the body, not in isolated self-assessment.
Dallas Willard’s definition of discipleship is worth returning to here: “Discipleship is the process of becoming who Jesus would be if he were you.” This is not a call to clone Jesus’ personality or replicate his specific actions. It is a call to embody his character and his approach to ministry — dependent, Spirit-filled, rooted in intimacy, given for others — in the unique context and calling that is yours.
The Promise That Makes It Real
Jesus’ resurrection didn’t just vindicate him. It opened the door.
After his resurrection, he appeared to his disciples and said: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:21-22).
The commissioning is not accidental. It follows the pattern exactly. He was sent as the Spirit-anointed Messiah. He now sends his people — and he breathes the same Spirit into them. Paul makes the connection explicit in Romans 8:11: the same power that raised Christ from the dead now lives in everyone who belongs to him.
This is not wishful thinking. It is the explicit promise of Jesus himself.
The question is not whether you have access to what Jesus had. The question is whether you will follow his model — the dependence, the intimacy, the surrender, the rhythms — that allowed what he had to flow.
Because what Jesus modelled was not the exception to human life. It was the possibility of it.
This post is drawn from Empowered: Discovering and Developing Your Spiritual Gifts by Paul Benger. Available on Amazon.
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