COMMENTS
Well, I mentally scratched the “Freedom in Christ” topic off
my list and returned to 2 Peter. I read
the same passage for three days, but God didn’t speak. At that point, I started to wonder if I was
supposed to be doing something other than 2 Peter! Then last night, He spoke. We’re not yet finished with Freedom in
Christ, after all.
NOTES
The Bible
teaches us that when we accept Jesus Christ into our lives, we receive the gift
of the Holy Spirit. We are then God’s
possession. Therefore, with the Holy
Spirit indwelling us, Satan can’t possess us because we belong to God.
In 2
Corinthians 5:17 God talks about what happens when we come to Christ:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the
old has gone, the new has come!”
I love the
exclamation point at the end of that promise ;-). When we accept Christ and receive the Holy
Spirit, we are no longer who we were before.
We’re new! I witnessed that in an
extraordinary way when my husband became a Christian at the age of 62. He changed so dramatically that all of us who
had known him for years were stunned. A
man doesn’t change that much that quickly unless God has touched his life.
I tell you
that in order to make a point.
Sometimes, God works quickly; and a sin we have dealt with is just no
longer a temptation to us. God just
removes it, with little or no struggle on our part. It’s wonderful when God works that way. However, in His divine wisdom, sometimes He
allows us to fight a battle. Maybe we
need the confidence and strength that is developed only in combat with the
enemy. Maybe God has another
purpose. But I suspect that if we each
take a close look at our lives, we’ll see that some victories come easily; and
some are difficult.
If the
battles you fight are just skirmishes, the Spirit has probably overcome your
issues relatively easily. However,
sometimes we give Satan a “hold” on us in certain areas of our lives. This is NOT Satanic possession, but it IS an
area of particular weakness—a stronghold and a battleground. When we face these situations, stronger
action must be taken in order to obtain the victory. This is when we pull out the “tools”, the
weapons that we discussed in recent posts.
The
important thing to remember is that our victory, whether won easily or with
great struggle, is always in the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. He deserves all the glory, all the honor, and
all the praise. It is through Him and in
Him that we are truly free.
