You Can Expect Persecution

If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. — John 15:19

We should not think it is strange to be persecuted. We can expect it when we live for Jesus.   “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12.)   We can rejoice in any persecution we receive when we live for Jesus (Colossians 1:24). The Lord will be with us. When we stand before Him one day, He will reward us.   Persecution is an indication that those persecuting you are under conviction. When they realize they are not living what your words or actions are advocating, they become defensive. They believe that you are the source of their conviction. If you understand this, their anger becomes much easier to handle. They are not just mad at you. They are under conviction. When the Gospel is shared in the power of the Holy Spirit, there will be either revival or rebellion, but not indifference.   When we are persecuted, Satan will try to convince us that the strife is all our fault. He will try to convince us that we are wasting our time, that the rejection is too much, and that we will lose those we love. If the enemy succeeds and we give up, the pressure is off those who desperately need the love of Jesus. Jesus suffered continual rejection and persecution. Yet, we know that the problem was not with Him. The problem was with those who rejected Him. Jesus said to forgive them. They didn’t know what they were doing.   Jesus makes it clear that persecution is an inevitable part of living a godly life. If our Savior, who had no sin, was rejected, then certainly we will be rejected, too. We don’t need to over-analyze any rejection. Don’t feel guilty or condemned when persecution comes. The Word of God strips people of the masks that they have hidden behind. It exposes sin in the heart that only the grace of Jesus cleanses. The Word will either stir faith in hearts to believe in the saving grace of Jesus, or it will stir anger because you had the boldness to share the truth of God’s love.   How will they know Jesus if they haven’t heard? You have the truth of His Word to share, and you have His life that is your testimony to His faithfulness. You can expect persecution for His sake, but it will not crush you. You have the grace of Jesus to love them. Rejection will not stop you. Persecution will not stop you. Jesus is the answer.   Jesus loved us so much that He gave Himself so we should not perish but have eternal life. Jesus did not come to condemn us, but to save us with the undeserved gift of His life (John 3:16-17).    Your life is a message of His love! Don’t let persecution discourage you! Live and share the love of His grace!     www.lynnlacher.com/2023/10/you-can-expect-persecution.html

 

 

The Vision of Your Hope

 

 

 

“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13, NKJV).

 

 

Hope is having a positive mindset. It is envisioning what God has promised you in His Word. Hope engages your senses and captures your thoughts to believe God’s promise (2 Corinthians 10:5). Hope brings to life in your mind a picture of the vision God has given you. 

 

God is the God of vision. Without God’s vision, we perish (Proverbs 29:18). The Holy Spirit wants to fill you with all joy, peace, and faith in believing His promise. Exercising your faith produces a vision—a mental picture—of His promise. This verse says that it takes the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish this. You cannot do this on your own human effort (John 6:63). Those who have little hope limit the Holy Spirit’s ability to renew them in the spirit of their mind with the truth of God’s promises.

 

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life”

(Proverbs 13:12).

 

Since this proverb is true, we need to be sure our hopes are from God and are realistic. If they aren’t, we are setting ourselves up to have a “sick heart.” We are setting ourselves up for disappointment and questioning if God loves us. We need to be sure the hopes we have are godly. When godly hopes are realized, they become a tree of life. We need hope and the life it brings when we realize those hopes. But we need to guard against the sickness that comes to our hearts by false hopes that are never realized.

 

Romans 15:13 speaks specifically of acting out of your faith. Faith is a noun. Believe is a verb. Believing is faith in action. When you envision and believe in the godly hope that is yours in Christ, your faith is alive. Your faith is operating in the way God designed it. Remember James clearly said that faith without works is dead (James 2:20). For your faith to be put into practice, joy and peace are present in your life. A person without joy and peace can have faith, but if they don’t believe, their faith lies dormant. 

 

Faith is the substance of the things hoped for (Hebrews 11:1). Romans 15:13 says you are to abound in hope. Hope is a distinct trait of those who believe in God. If you believe what God promises you in His Word, hope, joy, and peace have precedence in your life. Doubt may come against you, but the Holy Spirit has given you the power to hope and envision God’s promise. You are not like people without God who are vain in what they imagine and envision (Romans 1:21). You have hope to imagine and envision the promise God has shown in His Word. Your hope abounds when you exercise your faith to believe your promise. When you believe what God says in His Word, you are filled with His joy and peace. 

 

Faith is your evidence of God’s promise (Hebrews 11:1). You can trust the faith Christ has given you. You can live by it (Galatians 2:20, KJV). 

 

What has God promised you? What do you hope for? If it is for your health, God promises you will prosper in health just as your soul prospers and is renewed by the Word (3 John 2, Romans 12:2). When your mind is continually renewed by the Word, your mind dwells on God’s promise of health. You have hope. And when you plant His Word by faith in your heart, you believe. When you believe in God’s promise of health, you have joy and peace concerning your future. Your old life has been crucified with Christ, and putting on your new life, you believe.

 

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which 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, KJV).

 

Have hope. Exercise the measure of faith you received from God (Romans 12:3). Envision the promise God has given you. His Word is Spirit, and it is Life (John 6:63). Live by the faith Christ has given you. The promises of God are yes and amen (2 Corinthians 1:20).

 

 

© 2023 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2023/10/the-vision-of-your-hope.html

 

 

 

 

Faith and Good Works

 

Why did Jesus tell the rich young ruler that the way to have eternal life was to keep the commandments? There are many Scriptures that make it clear that no one can be justified in the sight of God by keeping the commandments (Habakkuk 2:4, Romans 3:20, 10:3-13, 11:6, Galatians 2:16, 3:1-3, 7:14, Ephesians 2:8-9, Titus 3:4-7). Jesus knew this man could not justify himself by keeping the commandments. However, this young ruler didn’t know that he couldn’t. He thought there was some good thing he could do to purchase eternal life for himself (Matthew 19:16).

 

God’s commandments (the Law) were never given for the purpose of being able to save us. Their purpose was to reveal to mankind his sinfulness and his inability to save himself (Romans 3:20 and 7:13). The Law was perfectly good and man was not. Man would give up at some point in despair attempting to justify himself and finally trust in a Savior (Galatians 3:21-25). I think that this was what Jesus used the commandments for in speaking with this man. Jesus knew His death on the cross was the only thing that would accomplish eternal life for this man. This rich young ruler either needed to keep the Law perfectly or he needed a Savior.  Perhaps, Jesus was trying to reveal to this rich young ruler the futility of trusting in His own ability to keep the Law.

 

Just as faith in the finished work of Christ gives us eternal life, works complete the Christian life. Faith without works is dead. Consequently, works without faith are dead. There are two kinds of works. One work is born of our faith in Christ, and the other work is born of a need to win God’s love and approval. One way is with the guidance and strength of the Holy Spirit, and the other is with our own strength. The first surrenders to the righteousness of Christ. The second works to prove its own righteousness. 

 

We can only come to God on Christ’s work for us. Our works are not the way to God. Jesus is the only way and the truth and the life. If we feel unsure of God’s love for us, we will try to work to win it. When we believe God loves and accepts us as His own, we will work out of the joy of our salvation. We will not strive to win God’s love.

 

Some people work for God striving for His acceptance, hoping if they please Him that He will forgive or heal or bless them. They strive to feel His love because they believe they have to win it. “If I do this for God,’” they say, “He will love me more.” 

 

Jesus gave the greatest love that loved us more. There was no more love He could have given. Knowing that God loved us first is crucial to receiving His love. It is God’s love revealed in Jesus that saved us. It is God’s love revealed in Jesus that purchased our right to have a loving relationship with God. If you believe God loved you first before you ever loved Him, you are free to receive His love. You know His love and acceptance. You know your worth to God is not based on anything you do but on the righteousness of His Son.

 

Only the love of Jesus perfectly fulfilled the Law (Romans 13:8-9). His love is summed up in one commandment. Jesus commands us to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love others as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40.). When we believe in our hearts that God loved us first before we ever loved Him, we can love with Jesus’ love. We can love those who don’t love us. We can love with His love because we are assured of our standing in Christ. The love of God calls for our response. When we allow Him to love through us, His love cannot be contained. What we do for others is born of the Holy Spirit in us. 

 

The Law that Jesus told the young ruler he must keep to receive eternal life was fulfilled in Jesus' perfect love on the cross. God’s Law is not waiting to be fulfilled in Christ’s love. It was fulfilled in Christ. We can be saved in Jesus and not know His love fulfilled in us. As we learn who we are in Christ, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind. When we choose to put on the new man created by Jesus in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:23-24), good works are born out of our faith and trust in God instead of ourselves.

 

There are many Scriptures that say faith in what Jesus did for us is what saves us. But James also says a person is justified by works and not by faith alone (James 2:14-26). Good works are the evidence that we have been justified by faith. The faith that saved us will result in good works through the power of the Holy Spirit. But we have to say yes. Stewardship is our response to the love of God. If there are no corresponding works to our faith, then it is not the saving faith God has given us in Christ. 

 

Jesus knew that this rich young ruler could never attain righteousness by keeping the Law. Jesus knew eternal life would only come through His finished work on the cross. 

 

 “I do not set aside the grace of God,” Paul said, “for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain” (Galatians 2:21). 

 

If righteousness comes through what I do for Jesus, then His death was in vain. And His death was not in vain.

 

Lord Jesus, I want the love you have for me to be realized in my life. Continually fill me and teach me who I am in your perfect work of grace. Let nothing be about me. Let my work for you never rest on me. I surrender to you. Let it be you alive in me.

 

 

© 2023 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2023/10/faith-and-good-works.html

 

 

  

His Promises

 

 

 

For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.

—2 Corinthians 1:20 (NKJV)

 

 

A promise is a vow that someone will do what they say. In 2 Corinthians 1:20, Paul makes a clear statement that God does what He says. The promises of God are assured because the Word says God cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18). If God were to break His Word, this world would self-destruct. This world is only held together by the power of God’s Word (Hebrews 1:3).

 

God’s Word is absolutely trustworthy. His promises are true and faithful (Hebrews 10:23). He doesn’t say something in His Word and then means something different. When God makes a promise in His Word, He is faithful to do it. 

 

David wrote in the Psalms that God magnifies His Word above His own name.

 

“I will worship toward Your holy temple, and praise Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; for You have magnified Your word above all Your name” (Psalms 138:2, NKJV).

 

The name of the Lord is all-powerful. At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue shall confess He is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11). If God’s name is the name above all names and His Word is magnified above His name, this gives us great assurance that the Word of God is absolutely true and the promises He has made are guaranteed (Psalms 19:7-13). 

 

We believe in God’s Word. We should never judge God’s integrity and the validity of His Word.

 

In 2 Corinthians 1:20, Paul spoke about the faithfulness of God’s promises because he had told the Corinthians he was coming back to see them and he hadn’t yet returned. Paul didn’t want them to believe he didn’t keep his word. If the validity of Paul’s personal word was questionable, then what he had shared with them about Christ would also be questionable. Paul told the Corinthians that his word was as good as the Gospel he had preached to them. He didn’t want them to judge the validity of the Gospel he shared.

 

We honor God when we believe His Word. We honor God when we believe in the truth of His Word and allow its integrity and validity to transform us. Then we can live the truth of His Word, and the faith God has given us makes a difference in our actions and reactions (Romans 12:2-3).

 

The faith God has given us is the substance of what He has promised. It is evidence of what we haven’t seen (Hebrews 11:1). Without faith, we cannot please God (Hebrews 1:6). With faith, we please God and envision His promises fulfilled. We believe He is trustworthy so we believe what He promises is trustworthy. 

 

Praise you, Lord, for your Word and for your promises! They are yes and amen, and they are ours. Open our spiritual eyes and ears and understanding. Holy Spirit, teach us to believe and take ownership of who we are in your grace. We trust in your promises. We trust in your Word.  

 

It is through the knowledge of your Word, that we learn everything that pertains to life and godliness.  It is through the knowledge of you, Lord, that we believe your exceedingly great and precious promises. Through these promises, we may be partakers in your righteousness—having escaped the corruption for which this world lusts (2 Peter 1:2-4).

 

Your promises in God are “yes and amen.”   

 

 

 

© 2023 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2023/10/his-promises.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Priceless Perfect Peace of God

 

 

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.

—Isaiah 26:3 NKJV

 

Nothing is constant in life. You may feel peace when life is good and experience fear when life is uncertain and hard. But you don’t have to live by what you feel. Fear doesn’t have to control you. 

 

Jesus gave you peace with God through His blood which was shed for you (Colossians 1:19-20). As a born-again believer, you have become God’s righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). His peace is yours (John 14:27). You are at peace with God in Jesus. Your standing with God is perfect peace. His perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). He has overcome fear’s power to control you (John 16:33). He has overcome your roller-coaster ride of feelings. 

 

For you to know God’s peace, you have to believe that God’s peace is yours. You have to trust God above anything else. To trust Him, you must believe in the infinite value of His love for you and the costly value you are to Him. He paid His life for you. He will hold you safely in His perfect peace when your mind is on Him. He will keep you in His perfect peace when your mind has been renewed by His Word. You will be transformed to believe the peace He has given you (Romans 12:2).

 

The only constant that will keep you in God’s perfect peace is to know the truths of His love for you. God hasn’t given you a spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). You have the power to believe that the One who died for you certainly takes care of you and your concerns. You have the mind of Christ that lives by faith and not by feelings (1 Corinthians 2:16). But if you don’t believe the truths that the Word reveals, you will not experience His peace. When you are at peace in your relationship with God, you believe in the infinite value He has placed on your life. When life is difficult, you have no reason to doubt Him. 

 

 

Never trust your feelings. They will betray you. They always change. Trust God and the unchanging truth of His Word. His words are spirit and life (John 6:63). God asks you to look beyond what you feel—what your natural mind says is true—and believe what He says is true.

 

You receive faith by hearing the Word of God and being renewed in the spirit of your mind (Romans 10:17, Ephesians 4:23). Faith requires you to trust in the truth of God's Word beyond what you experience or feel. When you allow the Word to teach you what is true instead of letting your feelings tell you what is true, you are renewed by God’s truth. The Word transforms the way you think (Romans 12:2), and you begin to trust God’s Word rather than how you feel.  When you continually focus your mind on the truth of what God says instead of what you feel, you experience the power of His faith over your feelings. Your feelings will eventually be controlled by His truth. 

 

“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. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you (Philippians 4:8-9, NKJV). 

 

God guards your mind and keeps you in perfect peace when your thoughts are on Him instead of what is happening or what might happen in your life. Don’t dwell on personal problems you have or might have. Your natural mind will run havoc with feelings of fear. Dwell on things that are true and just and pure and noble and of good report. Being spiritually minded is life and peace (Romans 8:6).

 

Do you believe in your value to God? He didn’t pay for you with mere gold or silver, which lose their value.  It was the precious blood of His Son, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God (1 Peter 1:18-19). His blood never loses the value of its power.

 

You were costly to Him. You are priceless to Him. And He has given you His priceless peace. You choose to make His peace your own. You choose to exercise your faith and trust in the priceless and precious blood of Jesus. And when He is your truth, your way, and your life, you trust Him. Your mind stays upon His truth and you believe it in your heart.

 

Your world is always changing. You will never find peace in this world, and you will always have feelings come up that try to steal your peace in Christ.  You may go through things that are beyond your control, but when you know that Jesus has overcome the world, His peace guards your heart and mind.

 

“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” (Philippians 4:6-7).

 

 

© 2023 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2023/10/the-priceless-perfect-peace-of-god.html

 

 

 

 

Righteousness in Christ

 

For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

—Matthew 5:20

 

 

In Luke 8:9-14, Jesus tells a parable of a Pharisee and a publican. This parable gives an idea of the outward standard of holiness that the Pharisees practiced. This Pharisee didn’t cheat, steal, or commit adultery. He tithed and fasted two times every week. In Matthew 5:20, Jesus wasn’t saying that we must do these outward standards of holiness to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Instead, Jesus was exposing the religious leaders’ outward appearance of self-righteousness. He begins to explain in Matthew 5:20 through Matthew 6:18, that God looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).

 

Jesus saw their hearts, and He sees our hearts. The Pharisees and scribes had performed the visible acts of compliance that the many laws and traditions instructed, but in their hearts, they were still of the devil (John 8:44). Outwardly, they were clean, but within their hearts, they were full of all uncleanness, hypocrisy, and iniquity (Matthew 23:25-28).  

 

The Pharisees, like many today, were unaware that achieving right standing (righteousness) with God comes through merely receiving His forgiveness by faith. They were trying to earn salvation by their acts of righteousness. We all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). No one can fulfill God’s Law but Jesus Christ. We can’t earn our salvation by our acts of righteousness. 

 

But we are called to live a holy life! The difference is found in the motivation of our hearts. Our motivation to live a righteous life is not found in how well we comply with the Law. Jesus Christ had no sin but He became our sin so we could have a right standing with God. Holiness is the fruit of God’s righteousness in us (Romans 6:22). Our motivation to live a holy life is found in our relationship with God in Jesus Christ. To live a righteous life, we must submit to God and put our faith in what Jesus has done for us (Romans 9:31-10:4, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 3:11-12, 5:4-6). Not in our own works.

 

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain” (Galatians 2:20-21).

 

Righteousness doesn’t come through anything we do. It doesn’t come through what we practice. Righteousness only comes through the grace of God alive in our hearts.

 

“Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:22).

 

Flee from sin! Pursue the righteousness of the Lord not in your works, but in the heart of your relationship with Him! The works will come, and they will be good and flowing out of a pure heart that has been changed by His grace.

 

© 2023 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2023/10/righteousness-in-christ.html

 

 

 

 

Fight the Good Fight

 

 

 

Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold of eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

—1 Timothy 6:12 (NKJV)

 

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17). We fight the good fight of faith with the knowledge of the Word of God and by believing and declaring the truth of who we are in Christ.

 

“Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God” (1 Corinthians 15:34a, NKJV).

 

The enemy battles us from within our minds with lies—with deception—and twists Scripture to deceive us. He tempts us to believe things contrary to God’s truth. We must know the truth of God’s Word and what Christ has given us. The temptation to sin rises in the mind. We must wake up to the knowledge of the righteousness we have in Christ to fight the enemy. We must lay hold of eternal life and confess the faith that we received when we were saved. 

 

“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7, NKJV). 

 

Don’t submit your thoughts to the lies of the enemy. Don’t give him any power in your life. When you submit your thoughts to God, you resist the enemy. 

 

The enemy flees from the righteousness of God. We fight sin from the position of God's righteousness Christ has given us. When we submit to God, we submit our thought life to Him. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin with the righteousness that He has given us in Christ. Winning those battles in the mind can only be won by the Holy Spirit convincing us of our right standing in Christ. 

When we understand how to fight sin from a position of righteousness, then we can understand how to fight the battle for our promises from a position of victory in Christ.

 

Many believers don’t have knowledge of God in regard to the righteousness Jesus purchased for them. When you know the power of the righteousness Christ has given you, the Holy Spirit fills you with spiritual wisdom in your knowledge of Him (Ephesians 1:17-18). Awake to the righteousness Christ has given you. Allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the Word to you. Jesus has won the total and final victory over hell, sin, sickness, death, and the enemy! 

 

You fight the good fight of faith from a position of victory. You never fight with an attitude of defeat. Take hold of the promises that are yours in the assurance of the new life Christ has given you. Have you confessed and declared your hope to others? Well, keep confessing and declaring the truth of God’s promises. And hold fast to the confession of your hope without wavering, for God who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23). 

 

How do you fight the good fight of faith and hang on to your promise when you are battle-weary? Take hold of the promise God has given you. Stand and trust Him. Take up the shield of faith with which you extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one (Ephesians 6:16). Know the Word. You can’t stand and trust God if you don’t know His Word. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God in your heart (Romans 10:17). 

 

“For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them” (Mark 11:23-24, NKJV).

 

Do you have to see God’s promise to believe it? Believing is trusting that when you pray your promise is already yours. It may be a long time before you experience your promise. But you fight the good fight of faith. You keep taking the truth of God’s Word at its full value by faith. You take His promise as your own. When you speak to your mountain——when you pray believing, Jesus says in Mark 11:24, your promise will come to pass.  

 

“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).

 

As unfathomable as it is with your natural mind, believe by faith that your sinless Lord became your sin, so you might become God’s righteousness. That is God's Good News which seems almost too good to be true. But it is true. Believe in the promise God has revealed to you in His Word. His promise is true. When you pray from your position of right standing in Christ, nothing will keep you from receiving what God has promised. When you believe in God’s truth, you are able to stand and fight the good fight of faith—declaring what you believe in God’s realm is true for you.

 

 

© 2023 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2023/10/fight-good-fight.html

 

 

 

 

An Excerpt from Smith Wigglesworth

An Excerpt from

“Ever-Increasing Faith”

—Smith Wigglesworth

 

 

Smith Wigglesworth was an evangelist in England who greatly influenced early Pentecostalism.  He was born into a Methodist family in 1859 and died in 1947. The Holy Spirit gifted him spiritually with the gift of healing. This is a short excerpt from his sermon “Concerning Spiritual Gifts.”

 

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When a man is filled with the Spirit he has no conception of what he has. We are so limited in our conception of what we have received. The only way we can know the power He has given us is through the ministration and manifestation of the Spirit of God. 

 

Do you think that Peter and John knew what they had when they went up to the temple to pray? They were limited in thought, and limited in their expression. The nearer we get to God the more conscious we are of the poverty of the human and cry with Isaiah, “I am undone, I am unclean.” But the Lord will bring the precious blood and the flaming coals for cleansing and refining and send us out to labor for Him empowered by His Spirit.

 

God has sent forth this outpouring that we may all be brought into a revelation of our sonship—that we are sons of God, men of power, that we are to be like the Lord Jesus Christ, that we are to have the powers of sonship, the power to lay hold of that which is weak and to quicken it. The Baptism of the Spirit is to make us sons of God with power. We shall be conscious of our human limits, but we shall not limit the Holy Spirit who has come to dwell within. We must believe that since the Holy Ghost has come upon us we are indeed sons of God with power. Never say that you can’t. All things are possible to them that believe. Launch out into the deep and believe that God has His all for you, and that you can do all things through Him who strengthens you.

 

Peter and John knew they had been in the upper room, they had felt the glory, they had been given divine utterances. They had seen conviction on the people. They knew they had come into a wonderful thing. They knew what they had would be ever increasing and that it would be ever needful to cry, “Enlarge the vessel that the Holy Ghost may have more room within.” They knew that all the old things were moved away and they had entered into an ever-increasing knowledge of God, and that it was their Master’s wish that they should be filled with the Spirit of God and with power every day and every hour. 

 

The secret of power is the unveiling of Christ, the all-powerful One within, the revelation of God who comes to abide within us. As they looked upon the crippled man at the Beautiful Gate they were filled with compassion. They were prompted by the Spirit to stop and speak with him. 

 

They said to the lame man, “Look on us.” It was God’s plan that the man should open his eyes with expectation. 

 

“Of silver and gold we have none. But we have something and we will give it to you. We don’t know what it is, but we give it to you. It is all in the name of Jesus.” And then began the ministry of God.

 

You begin in faith and you see what will happen. It is bidden from us at the beginning, but as we have faith in God He will come forth. The coming forth of power is not of us but of God. There is no limit to what He will do. It is all as you believe in God. 

 

So Peter said, “Such as I have I give to thee: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” And the man who had been in that way for forty years stood up, and began to leap, and entered into the temple walking and leaping and praising God.

 

 

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Stand by Faith in the True Grace of God

 

 

By Silvanus, our faithful brother as I consider him, I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God in which you stand.

—1 Peter 5:12 (NKJV)

 

 

Peter said that his letter emphasized the true Gospel of the Grace of God. The true Gospel of Grace does not demand our right standing with God. If it did, the work of redemption would place the work of holiness upon us. The Gospel of Grace is God’s gift given to those who believe by faith in the finished work of Jesus. It is nothing we do. It is all He did. Right standing with God only comes through faith in what Jesus did for us. We are encouraged in this verse that it is the true Grace of God in which we stand. 

 

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:1-2). 

 

Being justified—having a right standing with God—is peace. We can only stand in the true Grace of God—we can only stand in His peace—when we believe that Jesus gave us a right standing with God. We can only live His righteousness when we believe we have received His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). When we truly know without a doubt that we have peace with God, then we have His peace. We choose to stand strong in His peace. We let God fight because we know He will. We put on His armor that by right-standing is ours. And having done all God has empowered us to do, we stand (Ephesians 6:13).

 

True Grace teaches us to deny ungodliness and to live soberly and righteously (Titus 2:12). True Grace also teaches us that it is only by His righteousness we live and have our being (Acts 17:28). When we believe our right standing with God through the Grace of Christ, we live out of that truth. We rest in the peace of our relationship with Him. 

 

Faith comes out of our being (Acts 17:28)—out of knowing who we are in Christ. Jesus took our sins to the cross so we might have a right relationship with God (Ephesians 1:4). Faith comes from knowing we have peace with God. Having peace with God is the only way we can walk in faith. Otherwise, we are going to try to do something to get God to do something for us. We cannot tempt God (Matthew 4:7). 

 

When we believe Jesus’ work is complete and our identity is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21), we trust God more than ourselves. We know without Him we are nothing. As we grow in the knowledge of His Grace, we lay down our doubts—our fears—and rest in Him. We trust His love for us more than we trust the desires of our flesh. We know that when we walk by faith, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).

 

You have access by faith to God’s Grace. Know who you are in the finished work of Christ, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (Romans 5:2). Live in the peace of knowing your right relationship with God, your Father. Where you have peace, you have faith. 

You cannot stand by faith in your own ability. That is self-righteous. You cannot rest in your own peace. You have no peace in your circumstances or your own feelings. You have to stand by faith in the Grace of God that has removed all barriers to His presence. 

Choose your right relationship with Him.  Choose His truth. Choose His true Grace that empties you to receive all of Him. And rest in His peace.

 

© 2023 Lynn Lacher

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