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You’re Not Who You Think You Are

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I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

My heart hurts for the body of Christ. We’re going to church and doing our best to put on the joy of Jesus. But the vast majority of believers I encounter aren’t living out the victory God promises in His Word. We feel crushed under the weight of oppression, and sometimes our lives seem more marked by defeat than the lost we’re trying to save.

Something’s wrong with that picture, if you ask me. Very wrong.

You and I are supposed to be living, breathing, shining examples of what the power of God can do in a life. So what’s keeping us from the inheritance scripture claims is ours?

I can offer a guess. I think it’s the same thing that kept the Israelites from theirs.

So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. Hebrews 3:19

Simple unbelief has sabotaged Christ’s church and kept us in a state of perpetual defeat.

Please don’t misunderstand me. It isn’t that we don’t believe in what Jesus did for us on the cross. The problem is we’ve misunderstood how to apply it to our lives right now. We rejoice over future promises, but we’ve allowed an unseen enemy to convince us that we can’t really expect to see the promises of God’s Word realized in this lifetime.

And that’s where we find ourselves caught, beloved. Stuck in limbo because we believe the wrong words. We’ve allowed the enemy’s whispers to override God’s Word, and we don’t even realize it’s happening.

An idea has penetrated much of the church. It claims we will never be free from the destructive power of our flesh until Christ returns. I’ve heard it often. I’ve even believed it. But I have to ask, dear one. Where did it come from?

You see, when I look at God’s Word, I can’t find those words. Instead, I find these.

  • Romans 8:37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
  • Galatians 5:24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
  • 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

It seems to me those promises aren’t written in a future tense. According to these scriptures, the new isn’t something we have to work hard to achieve; it’s already here. My flesh has already been crucified— along with its passions and desires. And I am already more than a conqueror.

And Romans 6:6-7 adds this promise.

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Here’s the truth, dear one. Your old self—your sin nature— was crucified with Jesus on that cross. It died with Him. Once you put your faith in Him, you received the victory Christ gained. Now sin’s power over you is nothing but a lie.

But here’s the problem: We believe the lie. We believe that our flesh still has power, and we continue to live as the people we used to be.

Beloved, our belief in its power gives it life.

What if you and I determined today to simply take God at His Word and believe what He says? What if we chose to trust Jesus when He tells us our flesh is dead because He conquered it?

You see, we give that crucified nature life every time we choose to trust it—every time we simply do what we’ve always done because we believe that’s who we are. After all, history has proved it.

But faith isn’t about basing our beliefs on what we see. It’s about trusting what God’s Word says.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1 NIV

And God’s Word says that my sin nature was nailed to the cross with Christ. It’s been crucified. That sinner isn’t who I am any more, regardless of what my actions have indicated.

Beloved, God is asking us to take Him at His Word and become who He made us to be. Will you choose today to believe Him?

“… to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Ephesians 4:22-24

Only renewing our minds will enable us to become the new creation the cross empowers us to be. God beckons us to believe the truth so that His grace can empower us to live it.

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32

Empowered in the Wilderness

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Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Luke 4:1 NIV

I imagine the wilderness isn’t high on your list of places you’d like to visit. It certainly doesn’t top my list. Give me oceans, lakes, or mountains with bubbling streams any day.

Yep. I’m a water girl. Something about the way the light glistens atop it stirs my soul. I love its sound, the feel of it on my skin, even the coolness in the air as you get closer to it. Water refreshes in so many ways—which makes the wilderness pretty unappealing.

So I find it surprising that the very first place the Holy Spirit led Jesus after His baptism was the desert.

Does it surprise you too? I mean, Scripture teaches that we’re supposed to follow the Spirit to abundant life. So why would He lead Jesus straight into the desert?

Verse 2 tells us what happened there.

 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. Luke 4:1-2

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun to me. The wilderness offered Jesus confrontation from the evil one and an empty belly. Conditions like that tend to defeat most of us. We wallow in our misery and assume that God has abandoned us.

But that’s not what happened to Jesus. Verse 14 describes Jesus at the end of His wilderness adventure:

 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.

Did you catch it, dear one? Jesus entered the wilderness under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and He left that wilderness empowered by the Spirit. Notice the Spirit never left Him. But what happened in the wilderness moved Jesus from simply following the Spirit to operating in His power.

Could it be that our own treks into the desert hold that very same purpose? What if our testing in the wilderness holds the key to igniting the power of the Spirit within us?

Listen, dear one. God wastes nothing. Nor does He allow or ordain anything for our lives that He can’t bring great good from. Jesus needed His wilderness experience to fulfill His purpose. If He didn’t, God never would’ve led Him there.

You and I spend our lives trying to avoid the desert. We want to head straight into our Promised Land that flows with milk and honey, endless provision, and rest. But we fail to realize that we’ll never make it into our Promised Land without traveling through the desert. God uses the wilderness to strengthen us in His Spirit so that we can defeat the enemy camping out on our inheritance. We will need to conquer the enemy to take our ground.

So what must you and I do to become empowered in the wilderness instead of defeated by it? We do what Jesus did. We must choose to stand on truth when faced with the enemy’s temptations.

When Satan challenged Jesus to take the easy way out and turn a stone into bread to end His hunger, Jesus replied, “It is written: Man does not live on bread alone” (Luke 4:4).

Over and over, each time Satan tempted Him, Jesus quoted Scripture to refute him.

Beloved, you and I are not strong enough to defeat the enemy on our own. But when we choose to challenge him with God’s truth and stand on His Word, something beautiful happens. The Spirit within us perks up. He rises within us to give us the strength we need to remain standing.

Unfortunately most of us don’t exit our wilderness experiences victoriously. When the Spirit leads us into the desert, instead of drawing on His strength to stand against the enemy’s fiery darts, we succumb to them. We allow the enemy to govern our thinking instead of standing on truth. We feel defeated and remain that way because we haven’t ignited the Spirit within us by choosing to claim and believe the truth of God’s Word.

Many of us even prolong our stays in the wilderness by allowing the enemy’s lies to control our thoughts.

What if you and I learned to do what Jesus did? What if we chose to respond differently in the wilderness? What if we determined to stand on Truth instead of bowing to the enemy’s lies?

I think we’d find what Jesus found. Each time we exercise faith by standing on truth when we don’t feel like it, the Spirit will equip us in our need. We will become stronger and stronger in Him. And when it’s time to exit the wilderness and head toward our destiny, we won’t just follow the Spirit. We’ll go in the power of the Spirit. And we’ll be equipped to claim our ground.

Kind of sheds new light on James 1:2-4, doesn’t it?

 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

That’s the point of the wilderness, beloved. God doesn’t want you leaving any of your blessings behind.

Week 9: Finishing Strong

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It’s here! Our last day of study together. More than anything, I pray that you have grown closer to Jesus. HE IS everything, and growing your relationship with Jesus is the key to receiving every blessing He poured out for you from the cross. He died so that you could have life more abundant. I sincerely hope you have begun to discover that abundance!

Click here to print the prepared note sheet for this video.

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Your Assignment

Your journey through Tested by Fire may be over, but your journey with Jesus has just begun. He desires to lead you into your inheritance and bring forth gold, silver, and costly stones from your life. Are you ready to let Him?

Take some time to read through this Prayer of Commitment. I suggest you print it out and keep it in your Bible. Use it as part of your daily prayers to help you remember what it is that God wants to do with your life and help you stay on the path He has set for you.

Dear one, God wants to do amazing things in and through you. If each of us will cooperate with Him, we will see something marvelous occur. We will witness the rise of Christ’s church! As we become one with Him, we will become one with each other, and Jesus will see the fulfillment of His prayer that night in the Garden of Gethsemane.

“I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” John 17:22-23

Could ours be the generation that sees this accomplished? It’s time the world discovers that Jesus is exactly who He says He is.

I’m game. Are you?

Blessings, dear one.

Embrace Your Everlasting Father

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“ . . . And He will be called . . . Everlasting Father . . .” Isaiah 9:6

Happy New Year, dear one! I pray that 2014 brings you closer than ever to Jesus and that you fully experience what He died to give you. I hope to.

We have spent the last couple of weeks peeling away the outer wrappings of some of the gifts God gave us in Jesus. I pray that as you discover afresh the valuable contents, your heart will be drawn to dig even deeper. We have barely scratched the surface! But as you pursue an intimate relationship with the Son of God, His gift of the Wonderful Counselor “will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I [Jesus] have said to you” (John 14:26).

One of the Holy Spirit’s jobs as our Counselor is to teach and reveal the deep things of God to each of us. Remember,

“We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” 1 Corinthians 2:12

God desires for you to know your inheritance, dear one. He never empties; He fills!

Today we peer at the third name of God associated with Jesus’ birth in Isaiah 9:6. Christ opened the way for us to know and experience God as Everlasting Father. Recall the familiar words of John 14:6:

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Jesus is our only way to know God as Father. To belong to the Father, we must know and belong to the Son. John 14:7 adds these words, “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.”

Beloved, God desires for you to know Him intimately as Father.

Perhaps that thought doesn’t offer you much comfort. The stamp of sin on this broken world leaves many painful relationships in its wake. But regardless of the images the word father may bring to mind, allow yourself to contemplate the ideal dad.

Strong . . . Protector . . . Compassionate . . . Loving . . . Merciful . . .

Dear one, God is the Father you’ve always longed for.

“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

Scripture paints a picture of God as the Father who will never leave, no matter how bad things get. And unlike our earthly fathers, Mighty God is always strong enough to save us from the messes we’ve made. Nothing, however, thrills my heart like the words of that last sentence. “He will take great delight in you.”

Haven’t you longed to be the object of someone’s delight? To know that you, above all else, are their greatest source of pleasure and joy? That’s exactly what Scripture teaches about your heavenly Father. God takes great delight in you.

Whether or not we can draw the image from our own childhood experience, we can all conjure up a picture of a doting parent cradling a beloved child, quieting restless cries with loving murmurs and whispered songs. Images of a mother flow more freely, yet the sight of a father assuming that role brings a special tenderness to the heart. Strength choosing to display itself through gentleness moves us.

And that’s exactly how your heavenly Father feels about you.

Picture it, dear one. Has it occurred to you that God desires to hold you in His capable hands and rejoice over you with singing? Longing to quiet you with His love, He yearns to gently lift you into His lap to still your restless heart with tender songs.

Yet many of us squirm and pull away from Him like rebellious toddlers, refusing to allow Him the joy of simply being with us. We have stuff to do, after all. Who has time to merely sit and be held?

Indeed. We have become far too busy scampering after our dreams to spend any time with our Father. And wonder of wonders, the God of the universe has given us the freedom to choose.

But our choice comes at a cost. Our refusal to still ourselves in His presence blocks the flow of His grace. We’ve robbed ourselves of the power we desperately need.

Most of us miss the blessing of God’s commandment in Psalm 46:10,

“Be still and know that I am God.”

We get so busy trying to make things happen in our own lives, we forget that God has asked us to be still, believe, and let Him work on our behalf.

What if you and I chose to alter our thinking as we begin 2014? What if we began to believe that God Himself is our true blessing? What if we sought cherished moments of intimacy with our heavenly Father through Jesus instead of merely seeking the gifts that come from His hands?

God intended to make Jesus the “firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29). If you have put your faith in Jesus and committed your life to follow Him, you also are a child of God and a recipient of every blessing that comes with it.

Strength… Compassion… Love… Provision… Protection… Mercy… Forgiveness…

Take up your inheritance, dear one. Your Father will fight for you. You need only to be still (Exodus 14:14).