Have Faith

 

 

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

—Hebrews 11:1, 10:23 (NKJV)

 

 

What do you believe that you can’t see? What do you confess that you haven’t received? Hebrews 10:23 says that when we hold on to confessing God’s promise with unswerving hope, God is faithful. We must hold fast to our trust and faith in what Jesus did for us, without wavering (James 1:6-8). The reason we can remain constant in our faith is that our faith is in Jesus and not in ourselves. Jesus never changes. Our feelings always change. Jesus, who is the Word (John 1:14), never changes. He is always the same.

 

When we speak what we feel as truth, we confess what is felt by our senses. But when we speak the truth of the Word—no matter how we feel or what our circumstances—we confess the truth of the supernatural realm of God. We speak the power of God’s unseen over what is seen. 

 

The world says to be afraid. God has not given you a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7) The world says you are sick and have no chance of healing. God says that by His stripes you were healed (1 Peter 2:24). The world says your needs won’t be met. The Word says He supplies all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ (Philippians 4:19). If you really believed the Word, wouldn’t you confess His truth instead of what the world says or what the enemy says about you? Wouldn’t you believe the Savior who died for you over the enemy who attempts to steal, kill and destroy your life?  

 

Walking by faith and not by sight is believing in the unseen truth of God over what you see or feel. The Holy Spirit guides you into all of God’s truth—into the unseen of God’s spiritual realm that fills you with every spiritual blessing (John 14:17, 16:13, Ephesians 1:3). Not knowing and spiritually understanding the Word keeps you from receiving what Christ has given you. The truth of your identity in Christ needs to be known and understood over what the world or any other person says. You have the mind of Christ to understand His truth (1 Corinthians 2:16). And when you allow His truth to renew your mind, you believe in your heart (Romans 12:2). And when you believe by faith in God’s Word, you sow His Good News in your heart, and you reap its good benefits.

 

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17, NKJV). 

 

Faith and the Word of God are interchangeable. You can’t have faith without hearing the Word, and the Word can’t be heard without it building your faith. Faith has no power without the Word. An alive faith comes by hearing the Word and not by just having heard the Word in the past. 

 

Faith pleases God (Hebrews 11:6). When you appropriate (take) by faith what Jesus has given His life for you to have, it pleases Him. And God rewards those who diligently seek Him with the revealed truth of His Word. You seek God, and you receive His Word (John 1:1, Matthew 7:8).

 

“Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed (Isaiah 53:1, NKJV)?

 

The work of Jesus is finished. It is perfect. God’s Word is settled in heaven. It is the final authority, and it is perfect (Psalm 119:89). When you take the report of the Lord—His Word—at its unfailing value—when you believe it by faith, you receive its unseen truth. When you confess its truth, that truth arises from the abundance of what you believe in your heart (Matthew 12:34). You receive according to what you believe (Matthew 9:29). If you believe and confess what is not God’s truth, then that is what you receive. But if you believe and confess His truth, you profess the finished work of Jesus—the unseen realm—into your life.

 

Allow the Holy Spirit to teach you God’s Word (John 16:13). It is His good report. Be renewed by His truth again and again (Romans 12:2). Hear His truth in your heart. Believe it. Hold fast to it (Hebrews 10:23). Speak life to it (Proverbs 18:21). When you believe His good report, you have the power of His final Word that sets you free (John 8:32).

 

Has His truth been revealed to you? You have the grace—the finished work of Jesus—living inside of you. Have faith in God’s report for your life.

 

Faith is when you stop believing what you see and begin to see what you believe.

—Kathryn Kuhlman

 

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/10/have-faith.html

 

By Faith

 

 

This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”

—Romans 1:17 (NLT)

 

 

The Good News of the Gospel tells us that we are made right with God through faith in Christ. Faith in His finished work of salvation is the only way to have a righteous life. We can’t earn it. It has already been earned. Without faith in the finished work of Christ, we have no hope. 

 

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God,” Paul wrote (Romans 10:17, NKJ). 

 

Faith comes from hearing the Word. You were made right with God when you believed the Gospel in your heart (Romans 10:10). You accepted its truth by faith and knew you were forgiven. Do you still know you are loved or have problems in life shaken your assurance? “Having heard” the Word in the past doesn’t build your faith now. You have to “hear” the Word again and again to renew your mind (Romans 12:2).

 

When your problems and the enemy’s attacks and lies convince you that God doesn’t love you, you will strive to win God’s love back. But He has never left you or stopped loving you. There is nothing you have to do to earn God’s love. He has loved you from the beginning of time and will until the end of time. He accepted you as His own when you believed in Jesus. The righteousness of Christ lives in you, and you live in Him. Forgiveness is a state of grace. You didn't earn it then, and you can't earn it now. 

 

Quit struggling to win God’s love. It is tiring trying to win something that is already won. Believing who you are in Christ is the only way to be convinced of His love for you.

 

Paul knew how to rejoice when he ran into problems because He knew who He was in Christ. 

 

“We can rejoice, too,” Paul wrote, “when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love” (Romans 5:3-5, NLT).

 

When we believe that God already has the answer to our problems, we praise Him. Those problems develop strength of character instead of overwhelming us because we know they are overcome in Christ. We have hope and great confidence in God. We know that He first loved us (I John 4:19). And that His work of salvation in us doesn’t lack a thing. It is complete, thorough, and finished. Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see (Hebrews 11:1). The hope God has given us never leads to disappointment! When we know and believe that what we need is already ours, we live by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthian 5:7)! And when we believe, no enemy—no lie—nothing has any power to come against us.

 

Do you want to live life to the fullest? His life in you is lived by faith. When you believe in your heart that you are completely new and lack nothing in Christ, what you see and feel doesn’t determine who you are. The righteousness Christ has given you determines who you are.

 

When Christ died for mankind, He died for the whole world. His finished work is a state of grace that is true for eternity. We enter into that state of grace when by faith we accept Christ’s perfect and complete payment for our sins. And we are sealed in that state of grace by the promise of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13). 

 

The Holy Spirit reveals who you are in the Word. Renew your mind with God’s truth (Romans 12:2). Believe in the finished work of Jesus in your life! Know who you are in Christ. Faith will fuel you. Your mind will be flooded with the love of the Holy Spirit, and you will know that the love of God fully dwells in you. 

 

“I have glorified You on the earth,” Jesus said to His Father. “I have finished the work which You have given Me to do (John 17:4, NKJV).

 

When you believe you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21)—when you believe that the work is already done (John 17:4), you stand strong in God’s power through each problem in life knowing He has already taken care of it. You see God’s finished outcome. And you choose to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). 

 

When we exercise faith to believe in God's promises, He is pleased (Hebrews 11:6), and we experience results according to what we believe (Matthew 9:29).

 

The just—those who are righteous—live by faith. It is by faith we received the righteousness of Christ. And it is by faith in our right standing with God that we live. From the beginning of our salvation until the moment we leave this world, we experience God's greatest blessings when live by faith in the finished work of Christ.

 

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/10/by-faith.html

 

 

 

The Word is Spirit and Life

 

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”

—John 6:63

 

You can’t make yourself a new person—no matter how much you may try. Only Christ gives new life. You can’t heal yourself and destroy the pain in your heart—no matter how much effort you make. Only the finished work of Christ heals you and gives you abundant life (2 Corinthians 5:17, 2 Peter 1:24, John 10:10). 

 

Jesus is the Word, and He is life. The Word speaks life, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives life to the Word. It is the Holy Spirit that reveals the Truth of God’s Word (John 16:13). Your natural (carnal) understanding profits you nothing. Your natural mind can’t discern the Truth of God’s Word. To try to understand the Word with your natural mind does not give life. But to understand the Word with the spiritual mind Christ has given you convinces you of the new life that became yours when you were born again (1 Corinthians 1:14). To be carnally minded speaks death to the Word's ability to make a difference in your life death but to be spiritually minded speaks life and peace (Romans 8:6). 

 

When we allow the Holy Spirit to renew our minds with the Truth of God’s Word, we plant the incorruptible seed of His Truth in our hearts (Romans 12:2, 1 Peter 1:23). When our minds are continually renewed by the Truth the Holy Spirit reveals, we believe it in our hearts. We believe that what God says is true over any circumstance—over any feelings that arise. We believe His Truth over the opinions of anyone else. To receive the Truth of the Word, we must believe that Truth in our hearts. When we believe in God’s Truth, we receive life and peace.

 

What did we receive when we were saved? We received the perfect and finished work of grace. It is the finished work of Jesus and the power of the living Word of God that forgives, heals, and delivers. The Word is what changes us. The Word is what heals us. The Word is what delivers us. The Word provides all we need according to His riches in glory (Philippians 4:19). When the Word is heard and received with our spiritual mind, we believe by faith in the new nature that Christ has purchased for us. We are transformed and changed (Romans 10:17, Ephesians 4:23).

 

“However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come,” Jesus told His disciples, “He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come” (John 16:13, NKJV).

 

The carnal mind is hostile to God’s Truth (Romans 8:7). But the Holy Spirit guides you into the Truth of God’s Word that cannot be understood by the natural mind. The Truth of God’s Word is understood in the heart when the mind has been transformed.

 

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16, NKJV).

 

All Scripture is breathed by God. And what God says in His Word is Truth. It beneficially teaches and guides you—it corrects and instructs you in the righteousness you have received in Christ so that you may not be lacking in your understanding but complete in Him. The Word is His life in you that equips and prepares you to be what He desires.

 

You believe the Word by faith. It is near you—in your mouth and in your heart (Romans 8:8). The Holy Spirit speaks life to you, and when you plant God’s Truth in your heart and allow Him to teach you, you experience the power of His living Word. And you never get enough of it.  His Word is your life, and you want His Truth to teach you everything that is true for you. You want His Word to breathe His life into you.  

 

Is this your deepest desire? The living Word is breathed into you by the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who gives life to the Word. And when you believe the Word in your heart, you receive its life. You have the mind of Christ so that you can understand and believe and receive (1 Corinthians 2:16).

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/10/the-word-is-spirit-and-life.html

Confidence in Our Father

  

 

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 guaranteed because the Word says God cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18). If God were to break His promises—if He were to break His Word, this world would destroy itself. This world is only held together by the power of God’s Word (Hebrews 1:3).

 

God’s Word is absolutely trustworthy. All His promises are true and faithful. He doesn’t say something in His Word and then means something different. If God has promised you something, 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 greater than 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).

 

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. 

 

People judge what we say by our integrity. What we do always speaks louder than what we say. If we lack personal integrity, we lose the respect of others. When we have integrity, we honor God. Our lives worship him.

 

+++

 

Dear Father, you magnify your Word above your own name. We honor you when we believe in the truth of your Word and we allow your truth to transform our minds. We then live the truth of your Word. Our faith then makes a difference in our actions. 

 

Your promises are yes and amen. They are guaranteed. You are faithful to live up to your Word. Lord, help us to live our lives with integrity—faithfully living up to the promises that we make. We want to glorify you in everything we do so that your revelation of grace is received in the lives of others.

 

When we know the truth of your Word, we believe everything is new in us. Holy Spirit, challenge us not to live on the edge of your grace. Reveal yourself to us and in us. When we believe in our hearts we are reborn in your righteousness—when we take ownership of the new identity that you have given us, we believe who you say we are in your Word. When we believe we have right standing with you, we are free to come to you with anything. Our vision changes. The perspective of what we naturally think then becomes your spiritual perspective.

 

The faith you have given us is the substance of what you have promised. It is evidence of what we haven’t seen. By faith, we envision your promises already fulfilled before we experience them. We believe you are trustworthy so we believe what you promise is trustworthy. We know we shall receive what you promise because we believe. 

 

Praise you, Jesus, for your grace! We are no longer in debt! Praise you for your Resurrection life in us! Praise you 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 rest in your promises. Our confidence is your faithfulness.

 

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/10/confidence-in-our-father.html

 

 

A Positive Expectation of Good

 

 

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

—Proverbs 13:12, NKJV

 

 

All of us have expectations in life. Some expectations are spoken and some aren’t. Whether spoken or not—conscious or subconscious, our expectations form our lives. An expectation can be described as strong anticipation, and it can be either positive or negative. Hope is a resilient and positive expectation of good. Without hope, the heart becomes sick with despair. With hope, you trust God for what He has promised you. You exercise the faith that is yours to believe.

 

We are either positive in our outlook or negative. Some people expect to never have enough money, to always fail, to have problems, or never be well. And some of these same people declare that they are believing God for their promise. But a negative outlook keeps them from exercising their faith to believe. Your views of life, of God, and of yourself are always found in your expectations. And your expectations will either kill your faith or encourage it. You cannot believe the promises of God at the same time you are expecting a life of failure and defeat. 

 

If faith is the substance of hope (Hebrews 11:1) and hope is strong anticipation of something good, then it is impossible to believe the truth of God’s promises when you live with negative expectations. If your expectations in life are negative, faith has no fertile soil to take root in your heart and grow. This is why what you think in your heart is so important. As you think you are in your heart, you are (Proverbs 23:7). A negative outlook is a death to faith. A positive outlook is the heart of Holy Spirit faith.

 

“For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things” (Matthew 12:34b-35, NKJV).

 

What you speak comes out of the abundance of your heart—either that which offers no hope or that which gives life. When you are negative in your expectations, your heart overflows with things that speak fear and despair. When you are positive and believing God, you are full of hope and good expectations. 

 

Hopeful expectations are powerful when the Word of God is believed in your heart. Without knowing who you are in Christ, you cannot have hope in the promises Christ has given you. God has given you victory in Christ. You realize His victory when you believe His promises are true. 

 

Come against the negative expectations that steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). Be renewed by the Word (Ephesians 4:23). Put on the hope Christ gives (Ephesians 4:24). Let it flourish in your heart and change your perspective. The hope Christ places in your heart brings forth life. 

 

Your promise is fulfilled in Christ. When you believe that Christ Himself is the fulfillment of your desire—the completion of what you have hoped for, you know you have received life! His promises are yours, and they are yes and amen (2 Corinthians 1:20).

 

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/10/a-positive-expectation-of-good.html

 

 

Jesus Christ 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 assures believers that God is within them. God has given us His Holy Spirit as proof that we are His. We are in Him and He is in us (1 John 4:13). He has sealed us as His own (Ephesians 1:13).

 

When you receive Christ as your Savior, you receive the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit to assure you that Christ is in you. You don’t always feel His presence. 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 of His grace. We know the power and the authority His resurrected life has given us. Feelings will always try to tell us something different. But when fear, pity, bitterness, jealousy, greed, hatred, or any other destructive emotion tries to claim our minds and hearts, we have Christ’s power to defeat them. God is greater in us than any lie of the enemy 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). Do we live by His faith instead of our emotions? 

 

To experience the power of God in our lives—to have His wisdom to know and understand the new life that is ours, we have to believe the truth of what we have received in Christ. The battle to understand 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 the emotions the enemy uses to destroy us. We know that Christ, the hope of glory, lives in us (Colossians 1:27). 

 

“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 feelings 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.

 

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

 

You can’t overcome your feelings with your own strength. You can’t produce the fruit of the Spirit in your life. But when you believe who you are in Christ, His life within you has the power to produce joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness, and self-control. You need no law with the fruit of God's righteousness 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.

 

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)

 

The glory that God gave Christ is now also ours. Christ, the hope of glory, lives in us. It is no longer we who live, but Christ. When we believe this truth, we live by the faith of Christ who died to give us everything we need to experience His abundant and fruit-filled life. We have received the perfect and finished work of Christ to overcome the lies of whom we once were.  We have His power to experience the new life that He has given us. It is our choice.

 

Fear not. He has redeemed you. He has called you by name. You are His (Isaiah 43:1).  He chose you, and now you choose to believe Him. Christ is in you. He is your hope of glory. 

 

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/10/jesus-christ-in-you.html

 

 

 

 

He is For You

 

If God is for us, who can be against us? 

—Romans 8:31

 

God is for you. Nothing that comes against you can stand against the power of God. 

 

No weapon formed against you shall prosper,
And every tongue which rises against you in judgment
You shall condemn.

This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,
And your righteousness is from Him.

—Isaiah 54:17

 

Whether from the enemy or from another, you have God’s power to condemn every lie which comes against you in judgment. This is your heritage in Christ. Your righteousness is in Him.

 

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

—Ephesians 6:10-13

 

My friend in Christ, exercise the power you have in the Lord. Stand strong in the authority you have in Christ. Use the whole armor that He has given you to stand against the lies and wiles of the enemy. Put on the whole armor of God, and condemn all that comes against you. Withstand unwaveringly in the righteousness that is yours. Christ’s authority is your heritage. 

 

Death and life are in the power of the tongue. 

—Provers 18:21

 

What you speak is either life or death. Lies are the judgments the enemy uses to defeat you. Speak death to the lies he brings. Condemn them. Don’t believe them. Believing them gives them power in your life. Instead, choose to believe the truth of the righteousness Christ has given you. God’s truth gives you power. Christ has given you abundant life. Speak life to what is yours in Christ and death to the lies which come against God’s truth (John 10:10).

 

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

—John 6:63

 

Your words gain you nothing. Your words have no power. It is God’s Word that you speak that exercises the authority you have been given. His words are spirit and they are life. His Word is your truth. It is your power. Plant it in your heart. Renew your mind with its truth. Speak His Word and His life into every circumstance—every decision—everything that rises to condemn you. 

 

You are victorious because Christ was victorious for you. His work is done, and your new life in Him is the result. And no weapon has the power to take away the new life you have inherited in Christ.

 

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, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

—Ephesians 1:13-14

 

Your guaranteed new life is what Christ has purchased for you. You are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. God gives you the ability to choose. Speak His life. God is for you.

 

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/10/he-is-for-you.html

 

 

 

His Perfect and Priceless Peace

 

 

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. Christ’s peace has overcome fear’s power to control you (John 16:33). He has overcome your roller-coaster ride of feelings. His peace is yours (John 14:27). For you to experience His peace, you have to believe in the infinite value of God’s love for you and the priceless value you are to Him.

 

The only constant that will keep you in perfect peace is to believe how much God loves you and what His love has given 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 He takes care of you and your concerns. You have His love that gave His Son to die for you (John 3:16).) 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. You can believe that every spiritual blessing is already yours in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). 

 

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 4:23-24). 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). 

 

“For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Romans 8:6, 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 mind will run havoc with feelings of fear. Be spiritually minded—see the things that He promises as yours. Believe in the blessings of God, and experience life and peace.

 

Do you know 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).

 

You are priceless to Him. And He has given you priceless peace. You choose to make His peace your own. You choose to exercise your faith and believe in what the priceless and precious blood of Jesus has purchased for you. And when your mind stays upon His truth and you believe it in your heart, you will know His perfect peace.

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/10/his-perfect-and-priceless-peace.html

 

 

 

Died Once for All

 

“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).

 

 

Jesus Christ died once for all sins one time. His perfect work was finished. The person you once were—the sinful nature you once had—died the moment you believed and declared Jesus to be your Savior. You were reborn in your spirit as a new person with a new nature by His perfect work of grace (2 Corinthians 5:17, John 3:6). It was not just the act of sin that was crucified with Jesus. The greatest exchange took place the moment you asked Jesus into your heart. Jesus, who had no sin nature, took your sin nature so you might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

 

Why do many believers struggle to live the life they have received in Christ? If we have been reborn as a new person in Christ, why do the residual effects of our sinful nature keep trying to claim us? Why does the temptation to sin always raise its ugly head? If Satan is defeated, why don’t we walk in the victory we have received in Christ?  

 

The battle is within our minds. We must believe that Christ is victorious over sin once and for all. We must be convinced that in Him we are dead to sin. We must believe in the new life He has given us. When we continually focus on the righteousness that is ours in Christ—when we focus on what our new born-again nature has given us—when we focus on “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 (Philippians 4:8),” we conform to these truths by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). We believe the righteousness that Christ has given us is greater than any temptation which tries to claim us. We come to believe that Christ “bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24, NKJV).

 

However, when we focus more on our sins and failures—when we focus more on the “old person” that rises to come against us instead of focusing on the new life that is ours in Christ, we give power to the lies of the enemy. The residual effect of the “old person” strengthens. The way to get rid of the residual effect of the “old person” is not to focus on our sins but on our Resurrected new life in Christ. According to Romans 6:11, we are to count on the fact that our “old man” is dead—that we are “indeed” or “undeniably” dead to sin. We are to “reckon” that our new man is alive in Christ and wants only those things that please God. 

 

When we renew our minds with the truths of the new person we are in Christ, our flesh will fall into line more easily with the “new person” He has made us. We will reflect the “new person” that the Holy Spirit has birthed within us.

 

“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).

 

Christ took our sins. Our sinful nature was crucified with Christ, and we were reborn by His Spirit into new life. 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. But 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 that only Christ could meet. And we will focus on the “old person” who can never live good enough.

 

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 in the new life Christ has given us. Our flesh may fail at times, but in Christ, we are forgiven. We live by faith in His grace. We know that falling from grace is trying to earn the righteousness that only the perfect work of Jesus could earn (Galatians 5:4).

 

Our flesh has no power to defeat sin. Only Christ defeated sin. Only the righteousness He has given you, defeated your sin. And now you live that truth by faith. When you live by faith in the Son of God who died for you, you live by the righteousness Christ has given you. You live by the power of His righteousness, knowing and believing in Christ, you are forgiven. 

 

 

Believe that Christ has crucified your “old person”—your sinful nature—and given you His new life. Believe all your old is gone, and you are the righteousness of God in Christ. Live by faith in who are you in Him. By the truth of His righteousness, you will stand in His power and more easily stand against the temptation of the flesh. Walking in His righteousness alone brings victory.

 

“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 the faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20, NKJV).

 

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/09/died-once-for-all.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Love of God for You

 

 

 

Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

—Romans 8:33-34 (NKJV).

 

 

Even before you knew Him, God chose to love you (1 John 4:19). You responded to His gift of love on Calvary, and He delivered you from the power of darkness and moved you into the Kingdom of His beloved Son (Colossians 1:13-14). God is your Father. You are no orphan. You belong to Him (Romans 8:15). 

 

Christ has destroyed the works of the enemy (Hebrews 2:14). The enemy has no power over you (Luke 10:19). No one has any authority to condemn you—not satan or the opinions of men. God is the one who validates and justifies you (Romans 8:33).

 

Not only is your sin crucified and buried with Christ. Everything about you is delivered from the power of darkness. You are reborn and raised with Him in new life (Romans 6:1-4). You are whole and new in His Grace. Your spirit has been reborn with the Spirit of the living God (John 3:6). You are a new person with a new lineage (2 Corinthians 5:17). 

 

The enemy will try to tell you that you are the same—that you will never receive the promises of God, but the love of God says differently. God is the author of life (John 14:6), and the enemy is the author of death (John 10:10). You are delivered from the enemy’s clutches. You are saved, forgiven, healed, delivered, and complete in God.

 

Jesus Christ, who was dead and then raised to life, now sits at the right hand of God interceding for you (John 17:20). Jesus doesn’t beg for His blood to be enough for you. Jesus knows what the gift of His life accomplished—that it was enough. He pleads His own blood for you. He presents you clean to the Father and reminds Him that the work of the Cross is finished—that His blood was enough.

 

Jesus doesn’t intercede for you out of weakness. He intercedes with God with the power of Resurrection Life. Neither do you need to beg God out of your weakness, because in your weakness, Jesus is strong (2 Corinthians 12:9). Jesus has given you authority over anything or any lie that comes against the Resurrection life He gave His life for you to have (Luke 9:1, 10:19). 

 

Your prayers remind God that Jesus has made you clean and whole with the gift of His blood for you. When you believe in God's love for you, you praise Him for the forgiveness of sins, healing, and the abundant life His Son bought. You don’t need to beg God for His love and provision when He has already given His life for you to be made new and complete in Him. Praise God for all He has done (Hebrews 13:15). You have victory because Jesus was victorious. 

 

“Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else” (Romans 8:32, NKJV)?

 

It is so important to understand that God’s true nature is love (1 John 4:8). You are loved. God loves you so much that He did not even spare the life of His Son. And if He let His Son die for you, what else would He keep from you? He already gave you the most exorbitant gift. Nothing else can surpass it. God would never give you the life of His Son, and then hold back the gifts Jesus died for you to have. Why would He hold back what you need to live? He feeds and takes care of the birds of the air (Matthew 6:26) and clothes the lilies of the field (Matthew 6:28-29). Are not you more important than these? Why would God hold back your forgiveness, your deliverance, your provision, or healing?

 

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:35,37, NKJV).

 

Nothing separates you from the love of God. You fight the power of darkness with the overcoming power of God's Resurrection love. You fight sin. You fight sickness. You fight fear. You fight hardship and persecution. When you know how much God loves you, you fight every lie that comes against you with the Truth of God’s Grace. In all these lies, you are more than a conqueror. Every sin, symptom, sickness, emotion, feeling, and attack of the enemy is defeated. You more than conquer the enemy with a revelation of God’s love. Your salvation is thorough, and it is enough. You are forgiven of sin and healed through and through with His miraculous Grace.

 

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39, NKJV).

 

Are you persuaded—are you convinced—that nothing that comes against you—no circumstance—no power of darkness—no lie—nothing in all creation can separate you from the love of God you have received in Jesus Christ? Nothing can separate you from the power of God's love. When you believe this Truth—that you are secure in Christ’s finished work of grace—you are convinced of God's love. You live the confidence that His love gives you. You persevere and believe in what you are promised.

 

Hold on to God’s Truth, and claim the promises of your new life in Christ. He is the Lord who completely restores—your healer of sin and sickness and fear and grief and the pains of life. God’s will for you is living life in the fullness of His love and grace. Persevere and believe by faith. God supplies all that you need according to His riches in glory (Philippians 4:19). God lacks nothing. You receive from the bounty of His overwhelming love for you.

 

“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).

 

 

© 2022 Lynn Lacher

www.lynnlacher.com/2022/09/the-love-of-god-for-you.html