YOU WON BEFORE THE BATTLE - PART 2

SUNDAY 18 FEBRUARY 2024

With an ineffaceable emboss, and with your indelible picture engraved in His mind and palms of His hands, God wrote your name in His book of permanent victory as a result of Christ's sacrificial death, and the great atonement that was made by it, and then His unsurpassable resurrection. So He calls and sees you as victorious, which leads to victorious encounters and experiences in your life. This truth is plain and undeniable, and therefore, you don't have to struggle for victory once you understand that you were born and positioned to function in that realm in Christ. Hallelujah!

Reference: 1 John 4:4 New Living Translation (NLT)

"But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world."

Today's focus is majored on the first segment of our Scripture reference, which reads:

But you belong to God, my dear children.

This statement shows the warmth of our sense of belongingness, and Evangelist John knew that he couldn't have omitted such specification because of the level and standard of revelation he was about to introduce. Also notice that whether you are spiritually mature or you are still very young in the Lord, we are all saints born under the same circumstance - Christ's victory. Notably, the unquestionable proof of your belongingness is the Spirit of Christ.

Zero wonder, in the beginning of our referenced chapter, John the Evangelist specified the character of the Spirit of God by saying: "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world" (1 John 4: 2-4).

If you thoroughly observe the Johannine letter above, you'll never detect any connection between the spirit of the antichrist in the world, and the Spirit of God. The spirit of antichrist, which is fully operative in the world, is very contrary and untrue to the regularity and uniformity of the Spirit of God. They are opposing forces, and they have zero agreement in character and manifestations. That's the reason the world does not encourage the spread of the glorious Gospel and message of Christ. So the better we know the two kinds of spirit addressed, the more convinced we'll be in our sense of belongingness.

If you belong to God, it means that you are controlled or governed by the Holy Spirit, and thus, everything about your Christian life depends upon being rooted and grafted in the Lord Jesus Christ. To that effect, Romans 8:9 (NLT) reads, "...You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.)" If any man does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to God. Through the Spirit, we are united with Christ in spiritual privileges and we bear uncommon homogeneity, mutual identity and remarkable likeness.

If you belong to God, it also means that you have inexhaustible peculiarities of the divine nature, which are insphered and incorporated in Christ. To that effect, Petrine epistolary expression, numbered as 2nd Peter 1:4 (NLT), informed that we have the precious promises that enable us to share His divine nature. Got it? Stay tuned for part 3. Shalom!

Scripture Reading - Isaiah 43:1; John 17:9-10; Romans 1:6; 1 Corinthians 3:23.

Guided Prayer:

Heavenly Father, you named me as yours and I function accordingly. I dwell harmoniously, earnestly and believingly, on the very thoughts of the indwelling Christ, whose Spirit indwells me and possesses my spirit, soul and body, and thereby, provides the nourishment for my Christian life. Hence I have laid up the effects of your governing influence in my heart, with an earnest conviction, in Jesus' Name, Amen.