1 John 3:21-24 NIV
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
When you take this fifth step toward living by faith, you begin to know – beyond a shadow of a doubt - that Jesus is living in you. He sent His Spirit the moment you accepted Him, to indwell you, to be there with you constantly – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. But for some of us, it takes a while to realize that the Spirit is really there, living in us. That’s because our awareness of His Spirit really depends on us. If we fight Him or ignore Him, we won’t notice what He’s doing in us and for us. But if we are open, if we place our faith in Him, we’ll feel it and see it and know it.
If you accept Jesus as your Savior, but stop there…. if you say to yourself, "Well, great… my sins are forgiven. That means I can do what I want, and then ask for forgiveness later, and it’ll be all right!" then you’ve missed the message of the cross entirely! If you acknowledge Jesus as your Savior but not as your Lord, you will miss so many of His blessings… so much that He has for you. If you stubbornly refuse to turn over your thoughts, your actions, and your attitudes to His control, you not only miss all the blessings of living in Him, but you’ll set yourself up for a pretty miserable way of living. You won’t grow in your walk with the Lord. Except for having your sins forgiven, your life won’t be much different from what it was before you accepted His free gift.
It’s true, you will have to give up a LOT when you open yourself up to the ministry of the Holy Spirit… sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, (Galatians 5:19-21) fear, anxiety, stress, depression, and eternity in hell, to name just a few. Instead, you’ll have to put up with things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23) Which sounds better to you?
It you truly want to take this fifth step in learning to live by faith, then pray for openness to the Holy Spirit’s living in you so that you may learn and grow in the Lord daily.
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