THE BELIEVER’S ULTIMATE STRENGTH IS IN CHRIST!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

WEDNESDAY MAY 01, 2024.

SUBJECT: THE BELIEVER’S ULTIMATE STRENGTH IS IN CHRIST!

Memory verse: "But If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you." (Romans 8 vs 11.)

READ: Romans 6 vs 4 - 6:

6:4: Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ were raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

6:5: For if we have been untied together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 

6:6: knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

INTIMATION:

The believer’s oneness with Christ is the source of his ultimate strength. He is recreated in Him, and has a perfect union with Him. That new man has taken the place of the old man. There is a vital, and absolute union between his spirit and the Spirit of Christ. It is as vital as the branch is vital in its union with the vine. You bear Him, and He bears you.

The believer can enjoy his new life in Christ because he is united with Him in His death and resurrection. The believer’s evil desires, his bondage to sin, and his love of sin died with Christ. Now, united by faith with Him in His resurrection, he has unbroken fellowship with God and freedom from sin's hold on him or her.

Many don't understand this freedom from sin. The power and penalty of sin died with Christ on the cross, where He nailed it, disarmed all principalities and powers, and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it (Colossians 2 vs 14 - 15).  The believer’s "old man," his sinful nature, died once and for all, so he is freed from its power. The "body of sin" is not the human body, but our rebellious sin-loving nature inherited from Adam. 

Though our body willingly cooperates with our sinful nature, we must not regard the body as evil. It is the sin nature in us that is evil. And it is this power of sin at work in our body that is defeated when we embrace Christ. We are now conscious of sin, and try to avoid it. And even when we fall into sin, we regret it. 

God does not take the believer out of the world or make him or her robot; he will still feel like sinning, and sometimes will sin. The difference is that before the recreation, the believer was a slave to his sinful nature, but now he can choose to live for Christ. His conscience pricks him when he desire to sin, or when he sins, and consequently, he  desires to confess, and incidentally ask for forgiveness.

God has made the believer what he is through Christ, and he recognizes what he is and gives place to the new thing. That way he glorify Him. Never demean yourself in negative confession. When you do that you rob Him of the glory in His finished work in you, and you give place to the adversary's dominance. You must never do it. You must get used to being what you are in Christ. 

Though it is hard for many Christians, who are used to magnifying weakness and failure, instead of magnifying their union with Christ, and their utter oneness with Him. They are used to glorifying the devil when confronted with negative circumstances by attributing it to him—the defeated foe. Instead of commanding the circumstance in the Name of Jesus to succumb to their inherent authority in their union with Christ, and their dominion over Satan and his cohorts.

Remember Psalm 23, "The Lord is my Shepherd (that is Jesus); I shall not want." In personalizing it now the prophecy is turned into reality. I boldly say, "I do not want. He kept me to live in the midst of fullness instead of in the desert place. I am drinking deeply of the water of life, the drink that satisfies. I am walking in the green pastures of His fellowship. I am enjoying the fruitage of His wonderful love life. I am one with Him, His ability is my ability. I am with Him, and thrive in His strength. With Him I can do all things."

Visualize yourself in Him. It is always a struggle to get away from the old pictures that you had before in your mind, the old sin nature that has dominated your mind, especially out of the early teachings of sin and the consequences of it. Break away from such thoughts by waging a battle day by day against such thoughts. Now enter into the victory of the battle that is won in Christ. 

Now look at this, "What would you do if sin had never been?" As a believer, your focus should be on this question. Why? Because this is the picture you ought to see. The Father acts toward the believer as though he had never sinned. The Father acts as though sin had never been as far as he is concerned. When He recreated you He forgot all about your past. Why? The new creation has no past. It is a "now creation." This is the victory. There are no theories here that cast a dark shadow over the past life, but they are all wiped out. Now we are in the Beloved.

Beloved, now we are the sons of God, (First John 3 vs 2). He is our Father, and He cares absolutely for us. First Corinthians 1 vs 9 states, "God is faithful, by whom you were called into fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord." Let us personalize it: "My Father is faithful to me. He has called me to come and walk with His Son, to live with Him, to carry on the Son's work in His absence. He has called me to fellowship with Him." 

Fellowship means eating together, bearing up under pressure together, drinking from the same cup. He has called me to drink with Jesus, to live with Jesus, to share with Jesus in the saving of lost men and the building up of the Body through the Word.

Prayer: Abba Father, thank You for the privilege of sonship, haven made me one with Christ. Give me the grace to live like Him in delightsome obedience to You, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!