I have several friends who don’t like to be told something is impossible. They take it as a personal challenge to do the thing you tell them can’t be done. Of course, this is doing it for themselves. They want to know if they can’t do it. And often times everyone finds out they can.
There is something about the human spirit that makes us want to do things that are hard and considered impossible. We went to the moon as Pres. Kennedy said, because it was hard. Human beings like to be challenged. And when someone says you can’t do it, that’s the thing you want to do.
Holiness is a different animal, though. It doesn’t count on our willpower or how hard we try. It relies on our ability to be obedient to the Holy Spirit. It relies on listening to what he tells us to do. It relies on surrender and sacrifice.
Our only action is to listen and obey. But that doesn’t mean we have it easy. Learning to listen to the Holy Spirit takes quite a long time. Even when you think you have heard him properly, sometimes that’s not the case.
We don’t have to do everything ourselves. He is our guide. The Bible is the roadmap. He speaks to us as we read Scripture. Sometimes he speaks to us through wise counsel from other Christians. He also uses our conscience to speak to us.
Once we hear his voice, we must obey whatever he tells us to do. Obedience isn’t easy either. Even though we are redeemed new creatures in Christ, we sometimes still want to go a different way. Perhaps the Holy Spirit wants us to do something we think is too hard to do. We would rather do something else.
This doesn’t mean that we’ve lost our salvation. It just means that the thought patterns of the world are in the background of our lives. We live in a sinful world and just like we get dirty if we roll around in the mud we retain the wrong mindsets from time to time. That’s why Paul tells us to have a renewed and transformed mind regularly (Romans 12:1-2).
Our fight is not against flesh and blood or against temptation and sin. Our fight is on the battlefield of the mind. We need to be renewed in our thought processes. I am convinced that most of our problems as Christians happen because we think the wrong thoughts and act on those wrong thoughts.
We have the wrong perception of spiritual warfare, the spiritual and physical realms, and how God has set up things to work. We pray for things we already have. We beg God for victory over temptation and sin when we are supposed to be dead to sin.
We must get a God sized vision of our identity in Christ. We beg like slaves when we are his children. We act like the prodigal son who wants to ask his father to work as a slave when he is already his son.
How do we live a victorious life? We already have it. Jesus already paid and won the victory at Calvary. We just need to live it out. We overcome by the blood of the lamb and by the word of our testimony (Revelation 12:11). His blood has already been shed for us. And the word of our testimony is what he has done for us then and now.
As I said, it’s about the mind. Jesus already won the victory. We only need to walk in it. I know it sounds so simple, but many Christians are not living the victorious life so we have misunderstood how to do it.
We walk in victory by living what the Scriptures say. We walk in victory by living out who we are in Christ. We walk in victory by listening to and obeying the Holy Spirit. Try thinking more about what would please God instead of how to defeat temptation and sin in your life.
Ignore temptation because you are dead to its desires. Walk in the Spirit and you won’t gratify the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). What are some other steps we can take to walk in victory with Christ? Leave a comment and tell me what else you do to walk in victory.
