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
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