The Word of God gives us three major relationships that God sustains with man:
1) God for us.
2) God with us.
3) God in us.
Under the Old Covenant, men only enjoyed the first two relationships described. However, there could be no defeat when a man knew that God was for him and with him. Throughout the Old Testament, you hear God saying, Fear not for I am with you and I am your God. In Isaiah 41:10, we find one of the most comforting scriptures in which God shows His concern for His people:
Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
God for us guarantees success. Once you know that God is for you then you become utterly fearless. The Apostle Paul reveals this glorious truth by his writings in Romans 8:31-39:
31What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? 32He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? 33Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. 34Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, 39nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In order to live a victorious Christian life, you should have a revelation of God’s desire for you to have His ability. There should never be any area in the life of a believer that finds him without God’s ability and the assurance that the Father is watching over him and meeting every need in every crisis. The Word says in John 1:16, And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. In Colossians 2:9-10, we find, 9For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 10And ye are complete in him…
Once you invite the Holy Spirit to make His abode in you, then you should immediately begin to develop a God-inside consciousness. He is as close to you as your very breath. In fact, you become wall-to-wall Holy Ghost. In 2 Corinthians 6:16, you find the Apostle Paul reminding us that ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
How can we be defeated?
As you develop a God-inside consciousness, you become aware that you are linked up with the Father, and it will create within you a sense of superiority over every situation. The Apostle Paul had this kind of awareness as he wrote these words:
…11for I have learned to be content (satisfied to the point where I am not disturbed or disquieted) in whatever state I am…12I have learned in any and all circumstances the secret of facing every situation…13I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me…]
Philippians 4:11-13 (AMP)
In this we see the very heart of Christianity – the ability of God to reproduce Himself in us through the Word so that in our daily walk we live like the Master.
For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). It is important that you realize God is at work within you even as He worked in the life of Jesus. During Jesus’ earthly ministry, He continued to say to the religious people, I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works (John 14:10).
In John 14:12, Jesus went on to say, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
This may be a little difficult for some of you to grasp at first, but nevertheless, Jesus Himself said it; therefore, it must be so.
Can you imagine what would happen in your community if every believer would allow the Father to work in them to do His good pleasure? I believe it is time for every member of the Body of Christ to begin to depend entirely upon the Greater One who lives within us and allow Him to have complete control of our lives. When this takes place, we will no longer let our hearts be troubled, neither will we have reason to fear because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4).
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