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January 8, 2024
- By Ed Powell
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"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20
When we receive Christ as Savior, we have access to all He has provided for us. We possess His life and nature, we are made a new creation in Christ, and we are positionally in Christ. But there is more! A radical change takes place when Christ possesses us, when Christ has access to all of us! Paul said, "It is not I that lives, but CHRIST LIVES IN ME!" He has possession of all there is of me, the whole of my being. He is in sovereign control of my life.
When Christ possesses us, the self-imposed walls we have built around us suddenly disappear. Gone! Those thoughts that generated "our image and fostered our future" take on an entirely new perspective when Christ possesses us.
Consider how Paul looked at his tribulations after he became a believer. He could have said, "I have served God for years. I have traveled, been beaten, suffered at the hands of evil men, been shipwrecked, stoned, left for dead, falsely accused, robbed, in pain, weary, cold, hungry, thirsty, in nakedness, and in peril on every side! Why has all this come to me? It's not fair!" But there was not a word of self-pity or any complaint for the things he endured. WHY? Because Paul not only possessed the in-living Christ, but CHRIST POSSESSED ALL OF PAUL!
Paul says I want you to see that all these things that I have encountered since I became a believer have happened "unto the furtherance of the Gospel." He saw God's hand in it all. Wow! Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had such a focus of Christ in our life? I have news for you: WE CAN! We serve the same Lord, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever! It's a matter of CHRIST POSSESSING THE WHOLE OF OUR LIFE! Paul does not focus on the trials and sufferings of his life; they were but steppingstones that God permitted so that he might be "conformed unto the image of His Son." Paul says, "In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." To be "more than a conqueror" is not only to be victorious over the enemy, but to take the very elements of battle that were used against us and make them advantageous for our own use.
Let me illustrate. The printer and evangelist Dr. William Moon of Brighton, England, was stricken with blindness at the height of is career. He said, "Lord, I accept this blindness from you. Help me to use it for your glory, that at your coming, you may receive your own with great joy." Then God enabled him to invent the Moon Alphabet for the blind, by which untold thousands have been able to read the Scriptures and many of them have been gloriously saved. God did not take away Paul's thorn in the flesh; He did better. Paul mastered that thorn, made it his servant, and received the power to be "more than a conqueror." The "ministry of thorns" often has been far greater than the "ministry of thrones."
Oh that we might move to higher ground...to a new and living way...to the exciting venture of being filled with the fullness of God. From having "access to Christ" to BEING POSSESSED BY CHRIST! What a difference!
© 2007 by Ed Powell. Used by permission.
This page was reprinted by permission from: http://litmin.org/dare.php?date=2024-01-08
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