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Friday, December 30, 2022

Jesus in You



 

 

Jesus spoke to His disciples the night before His crucifixion. 

 

“A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:19-20, NKJV).

 

Jesus was speaking of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit that was to come with the gift of His life. It was not long until He would die so they could receive right standing with His Father. That day when Jesus was in the Father and within them was just hours away. Believing it would make all the difference in their lives.

 

Believing what we have received in Christ makes all the difference in us. The Holy Spirit assures us that God is within us. God has given us His Holy Spirit as proof that we are in Him and He in us (1 John 4:13). He has sealed us as His own (Ephesians 1:13).

 

When you come to know Christ, you have the Holy Spirit within you to assure you that Christ is within you. You don’t always feel Him. But you don’t have to feel Him to know He is in you. You know it because the Word says it is true. 

 

When we really believe in our hearts that we are in Christ and He is in us, we live in the freedom His righteousness has purchased for us. We have right standing with God. We experience the fullness of the new life He has given us. Feelings may try to tell us something different. But when doubt and fear try to claim our minds, they are defeated. We believe that greater is Christ within us than anything that comes against us (1 John 4:4).

 

Do you believe this is true? That Christ is greater within you? 

 

We have been crucified with Christ. It is Christ who lives in us. And we live by the faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave His life for us (Galatians 2:20). To experience the fullness of the new life that is ours, we have to believe what we have received in Christ. The battle to believe what we have been given is within the mind. We have the Holy Spirit to reveal God’s truth. When we allow the same faith we exercised for salvation to convince us of the new life Christ has given us, we grow to believe we are a new person. All things are new even if they aren’t felt or seen (2 Corinthians 5:17). We stand in faith against doubt—against fear—against the enemy. Christ, the hope of glory lives within us. 

 

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2, NKJV). 

 

What we believe molds us. What we believe becomes who we are. To believe who God says we are, we can’t conform to any belief other than God’s truth. We can’t allow the world or our natural minds to tell us what is true. We conform to the image that God has of us by renewing our minds with the truth of His Word. Only then are we able to agree with what God says about us and experience the plans He has for our lives.

 

Jesus is in you, and you are in Him. Do you believe it? Are you convinced of the new person He has made you—of the image He has of you—of His fruit in your life? 

 

When you believe who you are in Christ, out of your life flows rivers of living water (John 7:38). Your life produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness, and self-control. You need no law with the fruit of God's righteousness flowing in your life (Galatians 5:22-24). When you are convinced of your identity in Christ, you draw from the truth of whom He says you are. The self becomes less, and His truth becomes more. The Holy Spirit convinces you of the new person Christ has made you. You believe that God’s glory is also yours.

 

And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one.

—John 17:22-23a (NKJV)

 

Christ is in you, and you are in Him. He is your hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/12/jesus-in-you.html

 

 

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Living Your New Life in Christ


 

 

“For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:10-11, NKJV).

 

 

Jesus Christ died for our sins once and for all time. His perfect work was finished. Our sinful nature was crucified with Christ the moment we asked Him into our hearts and confessed Him as Lord of our life. We were reborn in our spirit by His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:17, John 3:6). Our sins were forever forgiven by God. 

 

If our sins are forgiven, why do many believers feel condemned when living for Christ? It is not Jesus who condemns you. It is the evil one. Christ came into the world not to condemn you but to save you (John 3:17). 

 

Struggling to keep the law without knowing who you are in Christ—without the righteousness of Christ empowering you—will condemn you.

 

“For when I tried to keep the law,” Paul wrote, “it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirement—so that I might live for God” (Galatians 2:19, NLT).

 

You live for God by faith in Christ's finished work of salvation and not by meeting the requirements of the law. You die to the dictates of the law so you might live for God. When you quit struggling to meet the requirements of the law, you quit trying to prove that you are right with God. You know and believe that Christ has made you right and new in your born-again spirit. And you keep His commandments with the righteousness Christ has given you. 

 

You have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you. The life you now live, you live by faith in Jesus, who loved you and gave himself for you (Galatians 2:20). You no longer live by the dictates of the law. You live by His grace (Romans 6:14).

 

You can’t earn God’s grace or prove yourself to Him. Christ already has proved you worthy to God. Quit living in fear that He will leave you or forsake you.

 

“For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5, NKJV). 

 

God never leaves you or forsakes you. He never removes His grace from your life. When you choose not to walk in the righteousness He has given you, you are the one who pulls away from Him. 

 

“In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13, NKJV).

 

My sister and brother in Christ, He will never leave you. After you heard and believed in Christ, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. You are forever forgiven by the grace of Jesus. 

 

“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NKJV).

 

Christ took our sins. Our sinful nature was crucified with Christ, and we were reborn by His Spirit into His righteousness. Christ has judged us holy and presented us without fault to the Father (Ephesians 1:4). We live what we believe. If we believe that Christ has made us righteous, then His righteousness will prevail in our lives. If we believe that there is something more that we need to do to earn His righteousness, then we will live our lives always struggling to meet requirements only the righteousness of Christ could meet. And Christ did meet those requirements once and for all time and set us free from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13).

 

With faith, we please God. When we believe that His righteousness is ours and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6), we live by faith and not by what the law dictates. We know our flesh may fail at times, but in Christ, we are forgiven, accepted, and loved.

 

“Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations— ‘Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,’ which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2:20-23).

 

Your flesh cannot defeat sin. Only Christ in you, the hope of glory, defeated sin. And now you live that truth by faith. When you live to keep the law, you fall from grace—not back into sin (Galatians 5:4). When you live by faith in the Son of God who died for you, you live by the righteousness Christ has given you.

 

Learn and understand and believe who you are in Christ. Trust in the finished work of Christ in your life. Believe Christ has crucified your old sinful nature and given you His righteousness. He is your new life. Live by faith in who are you in Christ, and you will defeat the flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit within you. 

 

“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NKJV).

 

 

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/12/living-your-new-life-in-christ.html

 

Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Be Free


 


 

Have you ever worn a mask to hide what you are going through? On a day when I had a broken heart, a friend asked if I was alright. I answered, “I’m fine.” I never considered that God might have sent my friend to help me in my need. I held my mask firmly in place. Perhaps, I missed the very healing God wished to impart that day. Maybe you have also missed yours. The Lord doesn’t want us to expose our pain to just anyone. But the Holy Spirit will reveal when He has sent someone we can trust. He longs for us to know when we have the freedom to open our hearts. 

 

The Holy Spirit might also be leading you to open your heart to someone who has been deeply hurt. Perhaps, you don’t want to share your own pain because opening up makes you vulnerable. Whether you have pain that consumes you or pain that is reconciled, God helps and uses you when you are willing. If you don’t let your mask down, you don’t experience freedom. You may have denied your own healing and healing for someone else.

 

We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:13–18 NIV)

 

God wants to heal our hearts, but He can’t if we hide behind self-imposed walls of protection. That “old covenant veil” says I’m not good enough to be used or helped. But Christ sets you free from the old person you were to understand the new person you are in Christ. When the Holy Spirit leads you to share with someone and you open your heart to them, you experience the freedom of the healing presence of God. You know who you are in Christ. There is nothing that separates you from Him. You have no mask before Him.

 

I don’t want to be hardened and defined by my past or any pain. I also don’t want to wear a mask out of fear I will be hurt if I open up. I want to be real and know that the Holy Spirit who encourages me to share my pain will also heal that which I have entrusted to Him. Where the Holy Spirit is, I have the freedom to be vulnerable and the faith to open my heart. In my honesty, He can bring healing to those He leads to me—and He can also bring healing to me.

 

Do you live in an “old covenant” relationship with God that never allows the Holy Spirit the freedom to reveal who you are in Christ?  With your mask down, you know His worth. You reflect His glory. When you allow the Holy Spirit to use you, you experience the fullness of His love. You live in the liberating freedom of New Covenant Grace. 

 

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

(2 Corinthians 3:17).

 

Be free.

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/12/be-free.html

 

 

Monday, December 26, 2022

He Cares for You




Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

—1 Peter 5:7 (NLT)

 

 

Wherever you are right now—whatever you face, God never leaves you or forsakes you. He is with you. He loves you. God’s very nature is love (1 John 4:8). He is good. He didn’t cause your torment and pain. The enemy is the one who kills, steals, and destroys. Fear torments, and the enemy is the one who torments. Christ came so you could have abundant life (John 10:10). When you believe in your heart that God loves you, fear doesn’t overwhelm you. His perfect love for you has the power to cast out any fear (1 John 4:18). 

 

God, who gave His own Son to die for you, wants you to give Him your worries and concerns and allow Him to fight what you cannot fight. He alone is able to save and deliver and heal. Don’t hold on to your doubt and fear—your pain and circumstances—the grief that hangs on. The New King James Version tells you to cast all your cares upon Him (1 Peter 5:7). When you cast, you throw as far as you can. Throw your problems on Jesus. Nothing can separate you from the love God has for you (Romans 8:39). Choose to trust Him. He fights your battle. He regains your health. He heals your heart. We are human and will fail. But God never fails in His love for you. Just believe Him in your heart.

 

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things” (Philippians 4:6-8, NKJV).

 

Jesus already knows your struggles. Throw them to Him and refuse to take them back. Refuse to think about things that bring fear and worry. Think about things that bring hope and encourage you. Think about Him. Choose to believe He will take care of what you can’t. His peace, which surpasses your human understanding, will guard your thoughts and your heart.

 

Jesus never tires of waiting. You get tired when you keep holding on. Cast your cares on Him. He cares for you.

 

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/12/he-cares-for-you_26.html


Friday, December 23, 2022

Peace of Mind and Heart


Peace of Mind and Heart

 

 

I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.

—John 14:17 (NLT)

 

 

         At times life is hard. Your problems can stress you until you feel shattered. You crave peace above everything else, but you can’t hide from your life. It is always with you. Some may try to drug their pain or find any diversion that provides an escape. There is no peace of mind and heart in escaping. What those in pain need is someone to encourage them and stay the course with them until they receive the peace of mind and heart Jesus promises. 

 

         Don’t ever despair. Don’t be troubled or afraid. Jesus has left you a gift—peace of mind and heart. No, your circumstances will never be perfect. This world will never give you peace. But you know that already. You have tried to make things right and failed. You have tried to make yourself perfect and realized the impossibility of that battle. You have strived and struggled until fear has claimed your heart and mind. Jesus waits for you to come to Him and give your circumstances—your despair—your fears to Him.

 

         You can’t change what has happened—just like you can never change your own heart. Only Jesus can. He loves you with an everlasting love. He has drawn you in loving kindness. He has plans for your life—plans that don’t disappoint but give you hope. The hope He gives never leads to disappointment because He dearly loves you. The world loves you only when you please it. He loves you in your pain—in your fear—in your misery—in your imperfection. He makes right what you don’t have the strength to make right. Escape is never your answer. Believing in Christ and what He promises you is your answer.

 

         Without hope, faith has no life. Allow yourself to hope. Faith gives substance to what you hope for. It is evidence of what you can’t see. Don’t despair. Don’t be troubled and afraid. Don’t give up. Learn the truth of who Jesus says you are. Learn your right standing in Him. Your Father supplies all your needs.  His arms are always open. He loves you. He has peace of mind and heart for you.

 

            Open your mind and heart to receive.

 

 

©2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/12/peace-of-mind-and-heart.html

 

 

Thursday, December 22, 2022

Once



 

 

Once Christmas was about me.

 

Once it was about things that never last.

 

Once my value was in what others thought of me.

 

Now I know my value is in Him.

 

Once I was broken. 

 

Now I am healed.

 

Once I was lost.

 

Now I am found.

 

He is my gift of new life.

 

He made His life all about me

 

So my life might be all about Him.

 

 

May you be able to comprehend what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:18-19).

 

Merry Christmas.

 

 

©2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/12/once.html

 

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Let Him Have All of You




 

If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.

—Matthew 16:25 (NLT)

 

 

What is the most important thing in your life this Christmas? Is there something or someone that you are afraid you are going to lose? Do you hold on to someone too tightly because you are afraid you will lose them?  If you try to hang on to your life, Jesus said, you will lose it. When a relationship you have with someone or what you possess is more important than your relationship with God, you lose intimacy with Him. Your understanding of who you are in Christ takes a hit. You lose your life to what you desire instead of having an intimate and open relationship with your Father.

 

“Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be,” Jesus also said. 

 

What do you treasure? If it is a person, then your desires about that relationship are foremost in your mind. If it is something you want, then the yearning for ownership outweighs anything else. Whatever your treasure becomes the desire of your heart. If you hang on to what you desire instead of what the Lord desires in you, you lose the revelation truth of your relationship with God. But if you treasure your relationship with God in Jesus Christ above anything else in your life, then the desire of your heart is what the Holy Spirit reveals to you.

 

When you give up your life for His sake, you save it. Giving up your life for Him is all about your priorities. Jesus put you first when He died on the Cross for your sins—your healing—your provision—your total restoration. You were then and still are His number-one priority. Is He yours, or do other relationships or wants or things get in the way? If you hang on to them—if you make them more important than your relationship with Him, you lose intimacy with Him. If you give up those things that pull you away from Him, you find His life. These paradoxes are real in Christ. Letting go and allowing God to be first in your life, promises intimacy with Him. Putting Christ first will save you from the ultimate bitterness of a self-focused life.

 

Peace and joy are tangible when you have a divine revelation of how much Jesus treasures and loves you. Your desire to cherish Him springs from your understanding of what He has done for you on Calvary. Learn who He says you are. Know who He is in your life. You are the ultimate desire of His heart. Let Him be your ultimate desire.

 

Let go and let him have all of you—spirit, mind, and body. 

 

“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23).


 

© Lynn Lacher 2022

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/12/let-him-have-all-of-you.html

 

 

 

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Believe with Your Whole Heart



 

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

—Hebrews 11:6 (NKJV)

 

Your faith is what pleases God. He rewards those who diligently seek Him with all their heart (Jeremiah 29:13). And persistent seeking of His truth rewards you. The truth of His Word takes root and comes alive within you. You believe without seeing because you trust your Father who has revealed Himself to you. You know His promises are true.

 

The power of the Word is realized when you believe its truth—even when what you experience is not seen, heard, or felt with your natural senses. When you take God’s truth and make it your own, it becomes the foundation for what you believe. Your attitude about your life changes. You see beyond what you experience. 

 

You cannot understand God’s Word with your natural mind. It seems foolish to you. His truth can only be understood spiritually by the Holy Spirit revealing it to you (1 Corinthians 2:14). God’s truth becomes real to you when it becomes yours. When the Holy Spirit reveals something in God’s Word, you have to choose to take possession of it and make it your own. His revelation renews your mind again until it is rooted in your heart (Romans 12:2, 10:10). Then God’s truth becomes what you believe no matter what you see or experience. Now it is your truth. It is real and powerful in your life. 

 

When you believe in God’s promises, you see what has not been seen or experienced. Believing His truth by faith pleases God, and He rewards you according to what you believe (Hebrews 11:6, Matthew 9:29). When you believe His Word, you receive its full benefit. When you don’t believe, then you don’t live the abundant life Jesus died to give you.

 

To be carnally or naturally minded is death to your faith. To be spiritually minded is life and peace (Romans 8:6). Draw a line in the sand, and choose to believe God’s promises. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God—not with just your mind but with your heart (Romans 10:17). Walk by faith and not by what you see (2 Corinthians 5:7). If you doubt, you won’t receive God’s promises (James 1:6-7). But when you believe, nothing is impossible with God (Mark 9:23). 

 

Do you believe that God rewards you when you seek Him? To receive the benefits of His truth, you believe it. Reach out believing—without doubting—and seek God’s truth with all your heart. You will find it (Matthew 7:8).

 

“You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13, NKJV).

 

The blind will see. The lame will walk. The dead will live again (Matthew 11:15). The Lord rewards those who search for His truth and believe it with their whole heart.

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/12/believe-with-your-whole-heart.html

 

 

 

Monday, December 19, 2022

Take His Truth as Your Own


 


Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be filled.

—Luke 6:21a (NKJV)

 

On Christmas Day children are usually too excited about opening presents to eat very much in the morning. You, also, may not eat very much in anticipation of what you are going to be offered for your holiday meal. You have waited expectantly for that feast, and you can't wait to be filled with its riches. This is just an earthly feast. Its riches do not last. It is there at one moment filling you to overflowing and then leaving you hungry the next. You have partaken of its earthly bounty, but it has offered no lasting sustenance. Its riches have left you deflated and without purpose. You are empty once more. Like Esau, you have filled yourself with the immediate satisfaction of a rich blessing, but unlike Esau, you do not have to miss the promise of a lasting one.

 

Jesus' feast is like no earthly one. He has prepared His table of spiritual riches that fills the most profound void in your life. His feast isn't consumed in an instant and then gone the next. His feast is forever. It is finished and, yet, everlasting. The riches of its offering are constant. When you come hungry to Christ for the feast He has prepared for you, your emptiness is satisfied. Sometimes you come seeking help in your time of need. Sometimes you come with a deep hunger for the life-changing truths of your new life in Christ. You come believing for your healing—your provision—your deliverance. You come to receive the peace and joy that overcomes your circumstances. You come just to praise Him and bask in His glory. You come. You draw from the riches of His love. You draw from the truth of His unshakeable Kingdom of God within you. You draw from His feast that never ends.

 

This Christmas come humbly to His table. Feast upon His truth in your life and receive more grace. Feast upon who Christ says you are. Feast upon His presence. Feast upon His forgiveness. Feast upon the One who created you and delights in you. Feast upon the incredible gift of His life given in unconditional love. Feast upon His finished work on grace so that you might partake of all He has for you. Feast upon your Abba Father who calls you His child. 

 

You are new in Christ. He is your way, your truth, and your life. You have right standing with God. God says, “You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter. Come and draw from my well of truth that never runs dry in your life. Come and feast and never hunger again.”

 

His feast for you came at the greatest cost of His life. Your hunger to know who you are in Christ fills you with the knowledge of your right standing with God. It is His promise for you to know and believe in the intimate relationship you have with God and to receive the inherent blessings that come with that relationship. 

 

It is Christ’s promise for you to receive what He died to give you. Take hold of the truth of His grace. And receive it as your own. 

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/12/take-his-truth-as-your-own.html

 

 

 

 

 

  

Friday, December 16, 2022

His Gift for Your Loss



 

Thank God for this gift too wonderful for words!

—2 Corinthians 9:15 NLT

 

 

If you are someone who feels alone this Christmas, I might not understand exactly what you feel. I might not understand what it means to be without a husband or children at Christmas. But I do understand the loss of someone you love. My parents passed a few years ago. The sadness you feel doesn’t have to overwhelm you. It doesn’t have to define your life.

 

Movies, television, and marketing remind you constantly that Christmas is a time for love and for families—a time for sharing presents and home. Warm and cozy feelings are their goals—along with a hot cup of cocoa to soothe and renew your visions of sugar plum sweetness. Over and over again, you are reminded that what the retail world tells you is real. And loneliness is magnified. Loss becomes greater. Despair draws you in, and you feel abandoned—adrift without hope in a world that has left you behind. The truth is you are not alone. You are not abandoned. Jesus loves you with the purest unconditional love. 

 

Jesus was not born into a world of sugar-plum sweetness. He was born in a lowly manger with little comfort because there was no room for him in the inn. He came alone, without fanfare, to offer himself to be your gift of new life. He was born to give his life with no expectation of return. His love never needed to be earned. It was freely given costing you nothing. Abandoned because of our sin, He experienced loneliness as you will never know it. And in His brokenness for you, He imparted the ultimate healing gift of His righteousness so that you might experience God's fullness and joy no matter your circumstance or pain. Jesus is the only answer to loneliness. He is the only answer to the pain of loss. He is the only answer for your life.

 

If you feel alone, you are not abandoned or alone. Your Comforter has come so you can rest in His loving grace. His heart understands, and His grace heals the loneliness you feel. He took your loneliness at Calvary, and for your pain—your loss, He rendered His life as the highest offering. His gift for you is a new life free from the pain of loss. There is no greater gift than His love, which came to heal your life and set you free from emotional bondage. Jesus blesses you with the joy of His grace.

 

When Jesus is your greatest love—when you believe His life is your life, your loss does not consume you. You know His truth beyond your feelings. You live His peace that the gift of His life has given you. You walk in His love and assurance. You might have experienced loss, but you have Him. And His grace sets you free.

 

When you believe that the grace of Jesus is more than enough—that He will never leave you or forsake you—that He is your hope of glory, your heart is healed by God’s truth instead of bombarded by feelings of despair. You walk in His newness of life unscathed by feelings of loss. His grace continually strengthens you. Your feelings become less than the joy of His presence. He is in you, and you are in Him.

 

You possess the greatest gift of all. Believe Him. Believe who you are in Christ. Praise Him for your finished work of grace. It is too wonderful for words!

 

©2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/12/his-gift-for-your-loss.html

 

 

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Out of You Will Flow



 


But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.

—Romans 15:29, NKJV

 

What a bold statement Paul made! Paul had no doubt that he would walk in the fullness of God’s grace in His life. Paul knew his position in Christ and that God’s power was his. He confidently drew strength from that truth. Do we believe that God also wants us to know His fullness and experience His power? Paul believed and acted with faith in God’s truth. When we believe what is ours in Christ and act upon it, we receive (Matthew 9:29). 

 

“If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit,” Paul wrote (Galatians 5:25).

 

Living in the Spirit is the new person you are in Christ, and it is the unchanging position Christ has given you. Walking in the Spirit is the result of knowing who you are in the finished work of Christ. It is conditional upon our minds being renewed by God’s Truth and also upon our openness to the leading of the Holy Spirit (Romans 12:2). Paul knew his unchanging position of righteousness in Christ. In allowing the Holy Spirit to guide him, he drew from the power that was his.

 

Walking in the power of the Holy Spirit is something that doesn’t happen by chance. It is a choice to allow the Holy Spirit to work through us. Some people believe the Holy Spirit turns His power on and off when He chooses. God is always available, and His power is always available. We are the ones who are on and off with Him. Often, we let our flesh determine how we feel instead of being led by the Holy Spirit. But when we choose to believe we have received the power of God’s life within us, we can have the confidence His power will flow out of us. Our responsibility is to exercise our faith and draw from the power of God within us. "He who believes in me," Jesus said, "out of his belly will flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38).

 

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11, NKJV).

 

God’s plans for us are full of hope and an expected future. When we yield and follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we can expect God’s good results. In Romans 15:29, Paul said he knew when he came to the Romans, that he would come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel. He believed that the message within Him would be received. He believed in the miracle of God’s grace revealed in the lives of those he taught and led. According to what Paul believed and expected, he received. He lived and breathed the fullness of God. Out of his life flowed the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

God wants us to believe and move in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Paul was human, too. No matter how he felt, he believed in the Resurrection power that was always within him. He believed it was Christ that lived in Him and that in his weakness Christ was strong. The faith by which Paul lived stirred him to act on what he believed.

 

No matter how we feel, we, too, must stir up the gift we have been given (2 Timothy 1:6) We, too, must draw on God’s Resurrection power from within us. And out of our lives will flow rivers of living water. 

 

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.

—Ephesians 3:20, NKJV

 

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/12/out-of-you-will-flow.html

 

 

 

 

 

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