The Overcoming Life

Spiritual Advance - The Overcoming Life

We have three enemies: The World, the Flesh and the Devil. Fortunately, our Lord has made provision for us to be “more than conquerors” (Romans 8:37) in each of these three battlegrounds. The following is a discussion regarding the spiritual applications that have been given to us to live above these enemies and prevent them from sabotaging God’s plan for our lives. This message is adapted from a teaching series I heard several years ago entitled “Spiritual Dynamics”.

Genuine contentment and being in contact with reality in the midst of the problems and hardships of life are offered to us in Christ. God wants our lives to reflect the incredible inner peace that our Lord experienced under the extreme pressures of the Incarnation. He overcame every slander, persecution, stress, and test that the world and the devil launched at Him. He pioneered a spiritual life now available to us as Church Age believers. We glorify God by learning and utilizing His plan for us.

I know this is probably an unnecessary exhortation but sometimes reminders help - it does no good to learn these truths and not apply them to our circumstances. We learn the truth so we can apply the truth. Through spiritual growth we progress from the simplest faith decisions to the ultimate motivation and meaning for our existence—obsession with the Person of Jesus Christ.

In spiritual childhood we learn complete dependence on the infallible promises of God and the irrefutable rationales of Bible truths. In spiritual maturity we sustain an intense love for the Lord and share the complete contentment that marked the unique spiritual life of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Armed with these spiritual assets we can solve life’s dilemmas.

Fellowship Maintained

Spirituality is the status of being in fellowship with God having the Holy Spirit in control of our lives. It is not dependent on pious living, penance, remorse, guilt, or confession to others. It is a system of privacy and freedom that depends solely on God’s grace. You can learn in a matter of minutes the uncomplicated procedure for gaining and maintaining spirituality and use it to pursue a lifetime of meaning, purpose, and definition.

When we sin we break fellowship with God. When we turn to Him and confess our sin, fellowship is restored. 1 John 1:3, 9 says,

“That which we have seen and heard we declare to you, so you may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. . . If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

As John points out, the issue in confession is fellowship or communion with God, without barriers, without controversy, without the Spirit being grieved by our sin (Ephesians 4:30) or quenched by our resistance (1 Thessalonians 5:19). We want to live under an open heaven walking with God. Sin cannot destroy our relationship with the Lord. God’s love never changes and He will “under no circumstances” cast us out (John 6:37), but our fellowship with Him can be broken by sin. If there was something we needed to do to restore this fellowship (i.e. penance, feel guilty, beg for forgiveness, etc.) then the spiritual life would depend on works, not grace. But confession of sin, as shown in 1 John 1:9, is simply agreeing with God regarding the particular sin which needs to be forgiven (“homologeo” – “To speak the same thing; to agree”).

This restoration of our fellowship with God is based on the same grace that saved us – an appeal to the blood of Christ. It’s His merit, not ours, that forms the basis of both our salvation and our fellowship with the Father. Guilt has no place in the Christian life. When we confess our sin God not only removes the fellowship barrier but also “cleanses us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9b) thereby removing any barriers we may not be aware of. When we are young Christians many of the sins we commit are not seen as sin to us, it takes some degree of maturity to be sensitive to all the Lord would have us avoid and He will not leave us, no matter what our spiritual age, in a place of broken fellowship through ignorance. He knows our hearts. If we agree with Him concerning what He reveals to us as sin, then our hearts are right before Him and the blood of Jesus Christ fully restores our fellowship with the Lord (1 John 1:7).

To put this in 21st century terms, ‘confession’ is simply telling God in the privacy of your heart that you agree with Him, “You’re right, Lord, what I did (or thought) was wrong.” You don’t have to feel guilty about it, or plead for forgiveness, or promise to never do it again (you will do it again, or something similar – 1 John 1:8). You simply confess it (1 John 1:9), forget it (Micah 7:19; Philippians 3:13b), and move on (Luke 9:62).

The Filling of the Holy Spirit

The biblical mandate to be “filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18) is not an order to undergo emotional ecstatics or to raise your consciousness to mystically commune with God. When you compare Ephesians 5:18-21 with Colossians 3:16-17 you can see that being filled with the Holy Spirit has exactly the same results as being “filled” with the Word of God. The Scriptures are, after all, “God breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16) and when our minds are occupied with the Word, the Spirit is directing our lives. By staying in fellowship with our Father, every Church Age believer has the privilege and opportunity of being controlled by God the Holy Spirit instead of by the flesh. The Spirit empowers us to reject the sin nature’s control of our life, learn the Scriptures, and grow in the unique spiritual life He’s given to each of us. All of us, whether newborn or mature (1 Peter 2:2) grow by prayerful study of the Word. The truths of Scripture must become our thinking in every circumstance. This is the true “Spirit-filled” life; a mind and heart saturated with the thinking of Christ and by faith living out that thinking in the power of God’s indwelling Spirit.

Faith & Inward Rest

As a growing but still immature believer, what do you do when difficulty strikes? Do you seek counsel from others, lean on your Christian friends, or just deny the existence of the problem? When we learn to cling to God’s promises until they become more real than our emotions, our experience, our circumstances, or our problems we have learned the secret of resting in Christ. As our Lord offers in Matthew 11:28-30

“Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest . . . learn of Me . . and you shall find rest unto your souls.”

There is no promise in Scripture for “rest” in circumstances. This world is, and will remain, a battle ground for the growing believer. But our souls can be at rest in the midst of the fiercest of battles if we give our troubles to the Lord and leave them there. We must let Him decide what we need and what we do not need in our lives to shape us into His image. We can trust Him fully with all things and with the outcome of our lives. There is rest and inward peace available to those who will cast their cares on Him (1 Peter 5:7). He has provided this rest for us (Hebrews 4:9-10) and we glorify Him when we trust Him.

The Grid of Grace

Pride creates problems; humility solves problems. When you grasp God’s grace and how little you deserve the inconceivable bounty He provides, your soul is humbled within. If we learn humility, the attitude for teachability, we can build a life in Grace.

A story is told of one of Napoleon’s soldiers. The doctor was seeking to extract a bullet that had lodged in the region of the heart, when the soldier called out, “Cut deeper, you will find Napoleon graven there.” Christ is abiding in the deepest recesses of our hearts and in time He will be seen in us.

The old covenant (Law) versus the new covenant (Grace) is the difference between Christ without and Christ within. God has always, from Adam on, desired and demanded obedience. Under law, men are left to their own resources to obey. Under grace, Christ in us through the indwelling Spirit becomes the Divine enablement of obedience. Under the new covenant the Lord indwells His people and if you ‘cut deep enough’ into the soul of the Christian, you will find the Savior.

Faith pleases God simply because faith rests all it’s hope on Another, on the One Who is willing and able live a holy life through us. Faith is trusting Someone else to do for us what we know we cannot do for ourselves. Faith and Grace work together to live the spiritual life and glorify God. Every command, every leading of the Spirit becomes a challenge, not to our ability, but to His; our challenge is faith.

“From the Dohnavur Fellowship in India comes this story. Various nurses had tried to interest a certain woman, but she had never been concerned about the Way. They were simply talking, she thought, and turned an unconcerned and uncomprehending face upon them till she saw Kohila nursing a sick baby. She said nothing for awhile. Then one day she said to her, ‘Why do you do it? Why do you work for this baby night and day? What makes you do it?’ ‘It is nothing in me,’ said Kohila; ‘It is the love of my Lord Jesus. It is He who gives me love for this baby.’ ‘I have heard talk of Him,’ said the woman, ‘but I thought it was only talk; now I have seen Him, and I know it is not mere talk.’ She listened and accepted Christ in truth, though she know what it would cost when she returned home. Two months after she had returned home, a strong woman, she was dead. That death for her meant the end of what she had known must come—sharp persecution for the sake of her new-found Lord; not peace, but a sword. Before her unconcerned and uncomprehending face, Jesus Christ had been evidently set forth crucified in Kohila. It is only as we embrace and live the Cross that the world sees the Crucified today. There is a sense in which Christ must be ‘lifted up’ in flesh and blood before the eyes of the world. Only thus can He still ‘draw all men.’” L. E. Maxwell, Born Crucified

The foundation of spiritual life is grace; the fruit is love. Grace was working in Kohila, freeing her to love with the love of Christ. Was she operating under ‘duty’ or under ‘law’? Was she following a checklist of rules and regulations, and now it was time to produce an act of kindness? No! Love is spontaneous, creative and free from law. Love is an issuing of Life, not a compliance with legal obligations.

The greatest act of love in history, the cross, was it mere duty to the Father’s will that took Jesus to the cross or was love (both for the Father and for us) motivating the sacrifice? “ . . . Who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20b). And what about the Father, did He feel obligated, duty-bound to provide us so great a salvation? “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son . . .” (John 3:16). Which is most likely to win your heart, an act of duty done against personal desire, or an act motivated by personal, intimate love?

As we are growing in God’s grace, much of what we do is out of duty. Our love is small and undeveloped. It is better to act out of duty than to not act at all, but actions born of law are far from the ideal and eventually those we serve in this way will sense the fact that obligation, not compassion, has been the basis of our service. At some point, in everything we do, the burden of duty must give way to the freedom of love; and that transition, that freedom, is the fruit of moving from law to grace: “ . . . the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). The One Who emptied Himself of all but love demonstrated the life of grace. Under law people are anxious, restless, busy, and self-condemned; under grace they are free to love.

The freedom to love and the obedience of faith spring from our understanding of God’s grace, and grace is something that must be learned experientially as well as theologically.