Joel preached to a nation that had just been devastated by locusts. The economy was wrecked. The priests could not sacrifice because there was nothing to sacrifice. The farmers stood in stripped fields. And into that ruin, Joel spoke one of the most astonishing sentences in the Old Testament: I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.
Walter Kaiser Jr. notes that Joel’s Spirit prophecy — chapter 2 verses 28 through 32 — was the exact passage Peter quoted on the day of Pentecost to explain what had just happened. The wind and fire in the upper room was not a new thing. It was the thing Joel had glimpsed from the rubble of the locust plague. What had been restricted to kings and prophets — the Spirit coming on a chosen few — would now be poured out on all flesh. Sons and daughters. Old men. Young men. Servants and maidservants. The equipping of God would be given to every person in the covenant.
“I Will Pour Out My Spirit”
The day of the Lord was again more than judgment. It was a time of deliverance for all who would call on the name of the Lord… characterized by the outpouring of the Spirit of God on all flesh.
What Joel saw, and what Pentecost confirmed, is that the Christian life is not a life of self-sufficiency trying to reach God. It is a life of God’s Spirit-sufficiency working through you. The promise is not that you will figure out what to do. The promise is that the One who asks will also equip. Every task God places in your hands comes with the capacity, already poured out, to carry it.
That is the whole difference. The old question — am I enough? — is the wrong question. The new question, in the Spirit-poured-out covenant, is: has God actually asked? Because if he has asked, the equipping is not on your shoulders. Joel’s Spirit-outpouring is the guarantee that the power for the task belongs to the Giver of the task. That is not motivational. That is theological. That is Pentecost.
Most of us have been carrying around a small view of our purpose. We think it means finding the right career, matching our gifts to the right job, figuring out which of God’s many possible plans for our lives is the right one. Joel’s prophecy demolishes that. Purpose is not a puzzle to solve. It is a person to belong to. You are here — made, saved, indwelt — to give God glory through the particular who he made you to be and the particular what he puts in front of you today. That is your purpose. It was never going to be smaller than that, and it was never going to be more complicated.⁷⁸
And the same outpouring that gives you your purpose gives you the power for it. You do not have to be talented enough. You do not have to be confident enough. You do not have to be anything enough. Anything God asks of you — anything — he himself supplies the power to do, because the Spirit who asks is the Spirit who has already been poured out on you. That is not a reward for mature believers. That is the basic architecture of the Spirit-indwelt life.⁷⁹
Where have you been waiting for confidence before obedience — and what would change if you walked forward trusting that the Spirit who asked the question is already answering it in you?
Someone in your life is stuck at the gap between what God has asked and what they believe they have the power to do. They are not disobedient. They are overwhelmed. The word they need is the word Joel spoke over a nation that had nothing left. The Spirit has been poured out. They are not working with a dry cup.
Remind them what Joel saw. Sons and daughters prophesying. Old men dreaming. Young men seeing visions. Servants equipped with the same Spirit as their masters. If you live in the Spirit-poured-out era — and you do — then your friend is not underqualified. They are underinformed. Tell them what is already true about the cup they are holding.
Who in your life is underestimating the power they already have — and how could you speak Joel’s outpouring over them?
The household of disciple-makers raises people who know why they are alive and know they are equipped for it. That is the whole movement of the book you have been living inside. From Eden to Sinai to David to the prophets to Pentecost — the Spirit keeps getting poured out wider, on more people, for more of their life. You are not raising Christians who serve God from the edge of their own strength. You are raising Christians who live from the middle of his.
Teach your household what Joel saw and what Peter preached. Teach them they are here on purpose, and they are equipped for whatever is asked, because the God who asks is the God who fully supplies. That is the ground of a life that cannot be destabilized. That is the ground of a household that makes more disciple-makers.
What has God asked you to do that you have been refusing because you do not feel equipped — and what changes when you remember he promised to equip you himself?
Write down three things you sense God has been asking you to do and have been avoiding because you feel unequipped. Then write Joel 2:28 beside each one, and ask the Spirit who has already been poured out on you to do through you what you cannot do on your own.
⁷⁷ Walter C. Kaiser Jr., The Promise-Plan of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), Chapter 9: The Prophetic Era.
⁷⁸ “A+ Answers: Identity, Belonging, Purpose,” vimeo.com/kathykoch.
⁷⁹ “A+ Answer: Competence + Series Close,” vimeo.com/kathykoch.