Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (NLT)
When we try to be holy without the power of the Holy Spirit, our work to live holy becomes self-effort. It becomes self-righteous. Our work to change defeats us. Only the God of peace can make us holy in every way. We cannot see God as the Old Testament God of law and judgment. God became the God of peace when Jesus died to pay our debt and opened the way into His presence. Now we can run to Him with our failures. The Holy Spirit empowers the change in our minds only He can make. He guards our spirits which received His righteousness when He saved us—our souls which He renews with His power—our bodies which live what renews in our minds.
When the multitudes miraculously received food, the only necessary work Jesus told His disciples was to believe in God who had sent Him. Believe in God! Belief is a powerful tool. It is the faith that Jesus changed us when we accepted Him into our hearts. He exchanged His righteousness for our sins. Is there any greater love than this grace? But for us to believe that we received His righteousness, we must be renewed in the spirit of our minds.
This is our part —to surrender our spirits, souls, and bodies entirely to God's grace working in our lives. He sanctifies us completely. He calls us continually to come to Him—to rejoice with Him—to feast in His presence. Jesus is the fullness of joy, and any work that flows from that fullness is His! Only He changes us. He is faithful! He can't turn away from His grace on Calvary. It is finished and completed for all time.
Believe in Jesus. He believes in you and died for you. Believe in who He says you are—not the failure you think you are. See yourself as Jesus sees you. You will know the greatest joy that once you were a sinner, but Jesus has forgiven you with love beyond anything the natural mind can grasp. And you will be changed in the spirit of your mind. His power will renew you. His grace will transform you. You will have a revelation of the precious price of Jesus' love. And you will never be the same.
© 2019 Lynn Lacher
www.lynnlacher.com/2019/05/believe-in-him.html
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