For a long time, we have had an IQ test that measured a person’s intelligence quotient. The higher the IQ, the greater their intelligence was. This measurement was often seen as the deciding factor of how successful a person could be.
Just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you’re right. “Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, ‘He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.’” (1 Corinthians 3:18-19 NLT).
In recent years, there has been a shift towards looking at a person’s EQ (emotional quotient). Several studies have shown that EQ is more important than IQ in a person’s success. How we are socially matters because how we treat people matters.
Treat people better than they deserve because that is how God treats you. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32 NIV).
I would tell you that both IQ and EQ are important, but only in the natural realm and only for the temporary success of a person, as measured by man, while we live here on Earth. It is not that they don’t matter, but their importance is limited by a very short time.
If it doesn’t belong in heaven, then it doesn’t belong in you. “Set your mind and keep focused habitually on the things above [the heavenly things], not on things that are on the earth [which have only temporal value]” (Colossians 3:2 AMP).
There is a much deeper and more important measure of men and women, which is their SQ, their Spiritual Quotient, and the degree to which they are able to operate in their spiritual life. The measure of your spiritual maturity is your spiritual quotient.
God has worked salvation into you, but it is up to you to work it out. “…work out your salvation [that is, cultivate it, bring it to full effect, actively pursue spiritual maturity] with awe-inspired fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12 AMP).
Too many teach in error that we all have an equal filling of the Holy Spirit once we have been saved in Christ Jesus. They teach to the meager level of their own experience, which lacks even a hint of the power of the Holy Spirit.
Stop living the half-baked Christian life and thinking that it is good enough. Good enough for what? “May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the [Holy] Spirit [Himself indwelling your innermost being and personality]” (Ephesians 3:16 AMPC).
You can have a growing level of spiritual maturity with the Holy Spirit. It is not limited by the abilities you have but by your willingness to surrender to the Holy Spirit that He will reign in you. You’re the limit of your spiritual quotient.
So long as your focus is on what you can do, the Lord won’t help you. “Then he [the angel] told me, ‘This is the message from the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘You will not succeed by your own strength or by your own power. The power will come from my Spirit,’ says the Lord of heaven’s armies’” (Zechariah 4:6 ICB).
If you want to grow in your spiritual life, then you must surrender your natural life. You must stop relying on that clever IQ that you use for planning and understanding and instead throw yourself helplessly into what only faith can take hold of.
The greater the yielding to the Holy Spirit, the greater the filling of the Holy Spirit. “Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is…be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:17-18 NKJV).
If you want a higher spiritual quotient, you must surrender your EQ self to the point that you no longer look to others to be admired or to be liked but only look to God that you would be His. Your spiritual life doesn’t need two cents of your EQ in the kingdom.
The more you’re surrendered to the Lord, the more He will change you. “Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my guilt and iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right, persevering, and steadfast spirit within me. Cast me not away from Your presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:9-11 AMPC).
Our spiritual life matters for all of eternity. Yet, too many of us spend all of our time trying to be a little smarter with our IQ or a little more likable with our EQ. What you invest in now will determine what you will reap, temporarily or eternally.
Temporary things can never satisfy eternal longings. “He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God]—yet man cannot find out (comprehend, grasp) what God has done (His overall plan) from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 AMP).
The crazy thing is that as clever as we can be and as socially pleasant as we can muscle through for an hour or two, it isn’t worth one nickel compared to the power and the results that can flow from a man or woman filled with the Holy Spirit.
There’s nothing you can’t accomplish once the Holy Spirit fills you. “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” (Acts 1:8 NKJV).
Stop squandering all that God has for you, only holding on to the natural gifts of IQ and EQ that He has given you and ignoring the spiritual power that is sitting right in front of you. Get down on your knees right now and surrender your life to the Holy Spirit.
Don’t let the limit of your life be you. “Glory belongs to God, whose power is at work in us. By this power he can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20 GW).
Blessings to you always,
Paul Balius
The world will peddle a strange spiritual quotient. The natural man will hold up a false spirituality that has no power and no holiness from which it can stand. Beware of the false spirituality in our day, especially that which is sometimes preached in our churches. Beware of the messages “having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!” (2 Timothy 3:5 NKJV).
It ought to be well nigh overly obvious to one and all that you, Paul, have a very high SQ, for which we give the God of all grace all the glory He infinitely deserves. Deeply, I appreciate you, beautiful, beloved brother, for your surrender to His superscendent Splendor, thus your arch availability both to Him and to us.
Thank you, my Brother, all glory to God with however high we go, be it an inch or a mile, for it is His strength and His wisdom that will get us there. The Holy Spirit can help anyone willing to let Him.
This is excellent. We need to invest our time, our lives, in our spiritual quotient. If we invest most of our time in our IQ or EQ, our spiritual life will suffer. The more we die to self, the more the Holy Ghost can flow through us and be a powerful witness to those around us.
We are tripartite: body, soul and spirit. We can spend our time developing our body or our soul (the intellect) or else we can spend our time in the Presence of God. When we spend time in the Presence of God, this breaks up demonic bondage in our body and soul and it also takes down strongholds in the heavenlies (principalities and powers of darkness). The Lord wants us to be spiritual warriors. The real battle is spiritual warfare. When the Holy Ghost Fire falls, strongholds are broken and we become freer and more powerful in Christ.
Amos 1:4: “But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Benhadad.”
Thank you for such a good word! How much each of us needs to read what you have written here and then apply it to our lives simply by allowing the Holy Spirit to have free reign in us!