“I have been crucified with Christ: and I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the real life I now have within this body is a result of my trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me”(Galatians 2:20)

After many years of working with thousands of Christians, I am convinced that a person cannot enjoy the supernatural life – which is a believer’s heritage in Christ – apart from the proper balance between Bible study, prayer and sharing Christ with others out of the overflow of an obedient, Spirit-filled life.

We need to be able not only to experience this great adventure with Christ ourselves, but also to share this good news with others.

A word of caution and reminder is in order at this point. We become spiritual and experience power from God and become fruitful in our witness as a result of faith and faith alone.

The Bible clearly teaches that “the just shall live by faith” Romans 1:17. However, it is equally important to know that good works are the result of faith – “trusting in the Son of God” – and unless there are “good works” there is not faith, for “faith without works is dead” (James 2:17).

Many Christians are confused on this point. They think of works (Bible study, prayer and other spiritual disciplines) as the meansto, rather than the resultsof, the life of faith. They spend much time in these activities, seeking God’s favor and blessing.

They may even attempt to witness for Christ and to obey the various commands of God, thinking that by these means they will achieve supernatural living. But they remain defeated, frustrated, powerless and fruitless.

As you are filled with the Holy Spirit – “Christ living in me” – and walk in His power by faith, the Bible becomes alive, prayer becomes vital, your witness becomes effective and obedience becomes a joy.

Question: How can people tell by your daily life that Christ lives in you?

About the Author: Dr.Bill Bright

“You need to keep on patiently doing God’s will if you want Him to do for you all that He has promised”  (Hebrews 10:36).

During a Bible study on this passage, Ted made this contribution: “Spiritually,” he said, “I’m a sprinter, not a long distance runner.”

Numerous Christians would identify with that for there is little patience, persistence and tenacity among believers. When adversity comes, many of us are prone to give up and lose our wind. That is the reason James says in his first chapter, verses 2-4, “Dear brothers, is your life full of difficulties and temptations? Then be happy, for when the way is rough, your patience has a chance to grow. So let it grow, and don’t try to squirm out of your problems. For when your patience is finally in bloom, then you will be ready for anything, strong in character, full and complete.”

You will note the emphasis on patience. All of us are faced with problems, testings, temptations, adversities and trials in varying degrees. We can determine, by our attitudes and actions, whether or not our tragedies will turn to triumph. Our heartache and sorrow can become joy and rejoicing simply by our patience, which is the ability to relax in the confidence that God rules in the affairs of men and nations. Everything is under His control. And as we walk in faith and obedience, we will be a part of His wonderful and perfect plan.

But the question may be asked, how can we increase this rare trait or gift of patience that unlocks the door to supernatural living? The answer is simple. It is found in Galatians 5:22-23 in the listing of the fruit of the Spirit, for one of the nine characteristics mentioned is patience or longsuffering.

Are you patient with your husband, wife, parents, children, neighbors and those with whom you work in the office? Or do you find yourself critical and complaining – more prone to judge than to bless?

As we more and more yield ourselves to God’s indwelling Holy Spirit, the fruit of patience is increased, along with all the other fruit.

Lord God, I invite the Holy Spirit to control and empower my life moment by moment, day by day, knowing that the fruit of the Spirit, including patience, will increase and mature in my life.  Amen.

Questions: Are you more prone to judge than to bless? What steps could you take in order to change that?

About this Author Bill Bright

Daily audio podcast: A second daily devotional, Hope Restored Along the Way, today on the Men’s Devotional Blog

Live by faith

Walking in the Spirit means living a life of faith. God created us with a capacity for experiencing a broad range of feelings. Thank God you have them. But you cannot depend on them to validate your walk with the Lord Jesus. Valid emotions are simply the byproduct, the result, of faith and obedience. While feelings have their place in out lives, God did not intend for them to be emphasized above out faith in his Word. To seek an emotional experience repudiates the command to walk by faith and is, in fact, an insult to God. Let emotions find their proper place in your relationship with Christ.

John 14:21 indicates that the most valid way to have an emotional experience is to be obedient to Christ. One of the greatest acts of obedience is to share Christ with others in the power of the Holy Spirit. Since He came to seek and to save the lost and has commissioned you to witness for Him, nothing could please the Savior more. If you want a valid, vital, exciting awareness of Christ in your experience, begin to share Christ with others as a way of life.

To walk in the Spirit, you must live according to God’s promise, trusting in the integrity of God Himself. Faith must have an object, and the object of your faith is God, made known through His Word. God has proven himself to be worthy of your trust. There are thousands of promises for you contained in God’s word, and no Christian has ever found any one of them to be untrue. When God says something, you can stake your life on it – you can know that He will not fail you.

In Romans 8:28 Paul writes, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Do you believe this promise of God’s Word? If so, you logically acknowledge the reasonableness of the command of God in 1 Thessalonians 5:18: “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Have you learned to say, “Thank You, Lord,” when your heart is broken because of the loss of a loved one? Do you thank God when tout body is wracked with pain? When you receive a letter terminating a love relationship? When you have financial reverses? When you fail an exam? When you are unemployed? Do you thank God when you are discriminated against personally, religiously, or racially?

You may say that only a fool would give thanks to God under such circumstances. Ho, not if you know “that in al things God works for the good of those who love him.” If God has commanded you to give thanks, there is a reason for it. This is one of the most exciting lessons I have ever learned – the lesson of saying “Thank You” even when things go wrong.

Before I made this discovery I used to lose my patience when things went contrary to my wishes. Closed doors would often be forced open, if necessary. If they did not open before me, I tried to break them down, I was often tense inside an impatient with other. Then I discovered what a fool I was. Tragically we injure our brothers with our impatience, our criticism, out thoughtlessness. When Christians act this way, the entire Body of Christians suffers.

But God has given you a better plan.. You can relax. You can say “Thank You” when the whole world is crumbling around you because your God is sovereign and omnipotent. He holds the world in His hands, and you can trust Him, He loves you. And He promises to fight for you.

He has commanded you to cast all of your cares upon him because He cares for you. He personally visited this world and took your sins upon Himself, and He is waiting to bless and use you. But he will not bless and use you if you are worried and unbelieving. he will not bless and use you if you complain and criticize and find fault.

Some time ago, a young woman came to our headquarters for one of our training conferences. After one of my messages, she came for counsel. Through her tears she shared how her dearest friend had been killed in an accident. They were coming home from their engagement party, and an oncoming automobile crossed the center line, forcing her off the road into a telephone pole.

The tragedy was compounded by the guilt she felt because she had been driving the car. Her heart was broken.

“What shall I do?” she pleaded.

Months had passed and she had gone to psychiatrists, psychologists, ministers and many other seeking counsel. She said, “If you can’t help me, I fear for my sanity.”

I asked her if she were a Christian, and after some discussion she said, “Yes.”

We read Romans 8:28 and I asked her, “So you believe that all things work for good?”

She said, “Yes, I believe that.”

We turned to 1 Thessalonians 5:18. She read it aloud: “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

I said to her, “Have you thanked God since the loss of your loved one?” She was shocked and could hardly believe she heard me correctly. Looking at me in disbelief, she said, “How can I thank God when I have experienced such a tragic loss?”

“You do not trust God, do you?” I asked.

“Yes, I trust God,” she insisted.

“Then why not show Him that you do?” I asked, “I know it will be difficult and may seem ridiculous at first, but will you pray and tell God that you trust Him and give thanks in everything even though your heart is breaking?”

As we knelt together, she prayed through her tears, “God I don’t understand why my dearest friend was killed, but I know I can trust You; and I do say , ‘Thank You.’”

When she said, “Thank You,” she was saying to God, “I will trust You.” The Bible says that without faith you cannot please God, and the best way to demonstrate faith is to say, “Thank You.” You may think that you hate God because you have lost a loved one, your inheritance, your money, your business or your health. You may ask, “Why did God do this to me?” But God says, “Give thanks in all circumstances.”

That young lady came to my office early the next morning literally bubbling with joy. She said, “Last might I slept without medication for the first time since the accident. And this morning when I awakened, my heart was filled with praise and thanksgiving to God. I just cannot understand it, but I know that it has something to do with what you taught me about saying ‘Thank You’ to God.”

I could share hundreds of similar stories about Christians whose lives have been transformed by learning the simple lesson of saying “Thank You” in all things.

Some years ago we had a desperate need for more than a half million dollars toward the purchase of Arrowhead Springs, the Campus Crusade for Christ International Headquarters. The future of out worldwide ministry was at stake. Because of a technicality, our financial position had taken a terrible turn for the worse, and there appeared to be no hope. The whole ministry was in danger of being destroyed and my own reputation would be shattered.

When a word came to me from a friend that the money which we had been promised was no longer available, I fell to my knees and said, “Lord, what am I to do?” I opened my Bible to look for help and assurance. And I was reminded that all things work together for good to those who love God, that without faith, it is impossible to please Him, and that the just shall live by faith. I read the command from God to give thanks in everything.

So I thanked God in spite of what had happened. I thanked Him through my tears. I thanked Him that in His wisdom and love, He know better than I what should be done and that out of this chaos and uncertainty would come a miraculous solution to our problem.

There on my knees, while I was giving thanks in spite of the disappointment I was feeling, God began to give me the genuine assurance that a miracle was really going to happen. Within ten days God provided an incredible solution to our problem – a true miracle. he demonstrated again that, when we trust Him, He is faithful and worthy of our trust.

The greatest privilege of life is to learn to trust God, learn how to walk by faith. I am still learning and am confident that one day I shall be able to trust God for infinitely greater things than those for which I am now able to trust Him. What a great opportunity is ours to walk with the King of kings every moment of every day of our lives, from the time that we awaken in the morning until we go to bed at night.

For many years it has been my practice to begin my day the night before by reading God’s Word, meditating upon the attributes and trustworthiness of our wonderful Lord before I go to sleep at night. Then throughout the nightwatches, when my subconscious mind takes over, I continue thinking about Christ. When I awaken in the morning, my first thoughts are of Him.

I usually awaken with a psalm of praise on my lips and with an attitude of thanksgiving: “Oh, Lord, I thank You that I belong to You. I thank You that You live within me, and I thank You that You have forgiven my sins. I thank You that I am Your child.

“Now, as I begin this day, and as I continue throughout the day, I invite You to walk around in my body, love with my heart, speak with my lips and think with my mind. I thank You that You promised to do greater things through me than You did when You were hereon the earth. By faith, I acknowledge Your greatness, Your power, your authority in my life, and I invite you to do anything You wish in and through me today.” Although the words of my daily prayer may differ, my commitment remains the same.

I try to begin each day on my knees as a formal act of acknowledging his lordship. I seek to begin the day walking in the fullness of His power. What an adventure awaits those who trust the Lord!

In summary, may I remind you that if you desire to walk moment by moment, day by day, in the fullness and power of God’s Spirit, you must:

1. Be sure that you are filled with the Spirit, by faith – on the basis of God’s command to be filled and by claiming His promise that, if you ask according to His will, He will hear and answer.
2. Be prepared for spiritual conflict with the world, the flesh and the devil.
3. Know your resources as a child of God. Your strength must come from the Lord. You must abide in Him.
4. Live by faith, drawing daily upon the strength of out Lord, upon his wisdom, upon His power and His lobe, giving thanks in all circumstances.

Why should a Christian desire to walk in the fullness and control of the Holy Spirit moment by moment as a way of life? There are several important reasons: to please and honor the Lord, who delights to have fellowship with His children; to enjoy a fuller, richer, more exciting life with our Savior and with other; and to be more fruitful in your witness for your Savior.

Sharing Christ with others as an expression of gratitude and as an act of obedience to the Lord is the natural result of walking in the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Since every Christian is commanded to be a witness for out Lord, not to be involved and committed is to disobey Him and would indicate that the Christian is not walking in the control of the Holy Spirit.

As you walk in the Spirit and faithfully apply the revolutionary concept of Spiritual Breathing, you too can become a member of the great multitude of fruitful disciples whom God is raising up around the world to work, to plan, to pray and to witness for Christ – to help fulfill the Great Commission of our Lord in this generation.

Self-study guide

1. How do the accounts of the following people demonstrate their walk in the Spirit?
   a. Paul – Acts 18:4-11 (See Philippians 4)
   b. Peter – Acts 3:1-26 (See Acts 4:13)
   c. Stephen – Acts 6:8-15 (See Acts 7:51-60)
2. What does it mean to you to cast your cares upon the Lord? How can you do this?
3. What does the example of the vine and branches in John 15:1-8 mean to you in your Christian life?
4. How would you describe the effects of spiritual fitness as expressed in “spiritual Breathing.” (See Romans 14:23, 1 John 1:9, 1 Corinthians 10:13; Ephesians 5:18; 1 John 5:14,15)
5. What promise does God make to you in 1 John 2:1-6?
6. List any areas of your life in which “self” is on the throne. List the areas in which Jesus is not on the Throne. What practical steps will you take this week to give Jesus Christ control of those areas where “self” is on the throne?
7. What armor used to defend yourself against the world, the flesh and the devil does Ephesians 6:11-18 describe?
8. What do these verses teach about the role of prayer in the life of the believer?
   a. Hebrews 4:15,16
   b. James 5:16
   c. 1 Samuel 12:23
   d. James 1:5
9. How can you experience the “abundant Christian life”? Does “abundant” mean that your life will be free from struggles an hardships? Explain.
10. What do these verses promise you as you trust God?
    a. Job 12:9,10
    b. Psalm 16:1
    c. Ecclesiastes 2:24-26
    d. Isaiah 40: 10,11
    e. Isaiah 41:10
11. What place do feelings have in a life of faith? What will result if you seek feelings over and above walking by faith?
12. What do these verses say about thanksgiving? What would result n your life if you failed to “give thanks in all circumstances?”
    a. 1 Thessalonians 5:18
    b. Philippians 4:11
    c. Psalm 95:2
    d. Philippians 4:6
13. How does Romans 8:28 have practical meaning in your life? What are some of the consequences of not applying this verse?
14. What does John 14:21 tell you about how to have an obedient walk with Christ?

Group discussion questions

1. Share a recent personal example of how you have applied Spiritual Breathing in your life. How has this helped your walk with God?
2. What is the advantage of teaching your children the concept of Spiritual Breathing at an early age? How can you implement this practice in your own family? How will breathing spiritually change your own family atmosphere? (If applicable).
3. In your group, share an example of an area in your life where you are likely to depend on feelings rather than faith in God’s Word.
4. The Bible says temptation comes to the Christian form the world, the flesh and the devil. Discuss how these sources particularly reveal themselves in today’s culture.
5. Relate an instance in your life in which you were especially aware that God supplied your needs. How did you give Him thanks?
6. Think of some practical way s to develop the habit of praising God. How is developing praise as a habit beneficial to your Christian walk?

Know your resources as a Child of God

If you want to walk in the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit, you need to know your spiritual heritage. You need to know how to draw upon the inexhaustible resources of God’s love, wisdom, power, forgiveness and abundant grace.

It is impossible to walk vigorously and dynamically in the Spirit without spending time, unhurried time, in fellowship with our Lord in His Word – in prayer and in personal study. You must listen attentively to Him for His directions for your daily activities and witness for Christ.

After many years of working with thousands of Christians, I am convinced that one cannot enjoy the full and abundant life, which is your heritage in Christ, apart from the proper balance between Bible study, prayer and sharing Christ with others out of the overflow of an obedient, Spirit-filled life. God calls you not only to experience this great adventure with Christ for yourself, but also to share this good news with others.

A word of caution is in order at this point. You become spiritual and experience God’s power as a way of life as a result of faith and faith alone. The Bible clearly teaches that “the just shall live by faith,” and “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” The practice of spiritual discipline and activities is the result of faith. Bible study, prayer, witnessing and obedience are vitally important, but they should be regarded as the result – the overflow – of the life of faith, not as the means of faith, though faith grows as you see the faithfulness of God through an understanding of his Word.

Paul says, “I want to remind you that your strength must come from the Lord’s mighty power within you.” Jesus Christ, the visible expression of God in whom dwells all of the fullness of the Godhead bodily – to whom all authority in heaven and earth has been given – lives in all of us who have become His children through faith in Christ. You do not have any strength in yourself. You must rely totally upon the mighty resurrection strength of our Lord through His Holy Spirit.

As a young man in college and later in business, I used to be very self-sufficient and proud of what I could accomplish on my own. I believed that a man could do just about anything he wanted to do on his own if he was willing to pay the price of hard work and sacrifice, and I experienced some degree of success. Then, when I became a Christian, I was introduced to a whole new philosophy of life that was diametrically opposed to my previous philosophy. A life of trusting in God’s power replaced by life of trying in my own power.

Now I realize how totally incapable I am of living the Christian life – how weak I am in my own strength and yet how strong I am in Christ. As Paul said, “I can do everything through him (Christ) who gives me strength.”

In John 15:4,5, the Lord stresses the importance of drawing your strength from him:

Take care to live in me, and let me live in you. For a branch can’t produce fruit when severed from the vine. Nor can you be fruitful apart form me.

Yes, I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in me and I in him shall produce a large crop of fruit. For apart from me, you can’t do a thing.

In your own strength you are helpless, spiritually impotent and fruitless; you are like a branch cut off from the vine if you try to live your own life, even as a Christian. But if you abide in Christ, and His Word abides in you, it is His life-giving power that is expressed through you and enables you to live and witness for Him.

Jesus explained the importance of a fruitful witness in John 15:8 “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

I have never led anyone to Christ and I never shall, though I have had the privilege of praying with thousands who have received Christ as a result of my witness. The new birth is the work of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, I cannot boast over much fruit or be discouraged with little fruit. The responsibility for fruit belongs to the Holy Spirit, who works in and through me, producing fruit and changing the lives of individuals. My role is to trust God and obey Him. The words of a great old hymn, Trust and Obey, express this well:

When we walk with the Lord, in the light of his Word,
What a glory he sheds on our way.
When we do His good will, he abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.

All that God expects of you is your availability, your trust and your obedience. Success in witnessing is simply sharing Christ in the power of the holy Spirit and laving the results to God. Paul writes:

I pray that you will begin to understand how incredibly great his power is to help those who believe him. it is that same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in heaven, far, far, above any other king or ruler of dictator or leader.

Yes, his honor is far more glorious than that of anyone else either in this world or in the world to come. And God has put all things under his feet and made him the supreme Head of the church – which is his body, filled with himself, the Author and Giver of everything everywhere.

The Lord Jesus commissioned the disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel, with the promise that he would always be with them. Jesus didn’t say to them, “Go into all the world, and good luck.” He said, “Be sure of this – that I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”

Our living Savior, the One whom you serve, is the omnipotent God! He is the One whom the Bible says:

…is the exact likeness of the unseen God. He existed before God made anything at all, and, in fact, Christ Himself is the Creator who made everything in heaven and earth, the things we can see and the things we can’t; the spirit world and its kings and kingdoms, its rulers and authorities; all were made by Christ for his own use and glory…For God wanted all of himself to be in his Son…In him lie hidden all the mighty untapped treasures of wisdom and knowledge…Don’t let others spoil your faith and joy with their philosophies, their wrong and shallow answers built on men’s thoughts and ideas, instead of on what Christ has said.

For in Christ there is all of God in a human body; so you have everything when you have Christ, and your are filled with God through your union with Christ. He is the highest Ruler, with authority over every other power.

If you have Christ, you have everything you need, for, as Paul writes to the church in Colosse, you are complete in Him. Do you need love? Our Lord Jesus Christ is the incarnation of love. Do you need joy? He is joy. Do you need peace? Christ is peace. Do you need patience? Christ is patience. Do you need wisdom? Christ is wisdom.

Do you need material possessions so that you can better serve Christ? They are available in Him. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and I would remind you of His promise to supply the needs of all who trust Him. Christianity is Christ, and you are complete in Him. HE will provide all you need.

A careful study of the Book of Romans, especially the first eight chapters, can have a revolutionary impact on the life of any sincere seeker after truth. Romans 6 especially reminds us of four truths:

1. We are no longer under sin’s control

Your old evil desires were nailed to the cross with him; that part of you that loves to sin was crushed and fatally wounded, so that your sin-loving body is no longer under sin’s control, no longer needs to be a slave to sin; for when you are deadened to sin you are freed from its allure and its power over you.

2. We are alive to God

So look upon your old sin nature as dead and unresponsive to sin, and instead be alive to God.

3. We must give ourselves completely to God

Do not let any part of your bodies become tools of wickedness to be used for sinning; but give yourselves completely to God – every part of you – for you are back from death, and you want to be tools in the hands of God to be used for his good purposes.

4. We must obey God

Don’t you realize that you can choose your own master? You can choose sin (with death) or else obedience (with acquittal). The one to whom you offer yourself – he will take you and be your master, and you will be his slave.

One day my wife Vonette and I were wading down a shallow stream in Yosemite Park with our two sons. Because the rocks were slippery, I was holding our five-year-old, Brad, by the hand to keep him from slipping. Suddenly Brad did slip on one of the rocks, and his feet went out form under him. He would have had a serious fall and could have been injured had I not held him firmly until he regained his balance. As we continued out walk, Brad looked up into my face with a radiant expression of gratitude and said “Daddy, I’m sure glad you saved me from falling.”

In the flash of a moment, it was as though God had spoken to me, and I looked up to Him and said, “Father, I am so glad that You have kept me from falling!” Oh, this Christian life is wonderful. It is exciting! It is filled with adventure for those who obey God and let Him control their lives – who walk with him moment by moment, day by day, allowing Him to “hold their hands.”

This personal, intimate walk with Christ, our Savior and our friend, is Christianity – not the fleshly striving, strain, labor and self-disciplining which is usually characteristic of the average, misinformed Christian. If you desire to walk in the Spirit, be sure to know your resources as a child of God so that you can say with the apostle Paul, “I can do everything through him (Christ) who gives me strength.”

Next: Live by Faith

Be prepared for conflict

The Bible explains that there are three forces – the world, the flesh and the devil – which constantly wage war against the believer. Let’s look briefly at each of these forces.

1. The world

I don’t know anyone who loves this world who has ever been used of God in any significant way. There’s nothing wrong with money and other material success. However, you must wear the cloak of materialism loosely. You must set your affection on Christ and His kingdom, not on the material things of this world. 1 John 2:15-17 warns:

Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love these things you show that you so not really love God; for all these worldly things, these evil desires – the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance – these are not from God. They are from this evil world itself. And this world is fading away, and these evil, forbidden things will go with it, but whoever keeps ding the will of God will live forever.

2. The flesh

God’s Word teaches that the spiritual Christian should be prepared for battles with the flesh. You will have conflict in your life so long as you live. There will never be a time in this life when you are free from temptation. Galatians 5:17 says:

We naturally love to do evil things that are just the opposite from the things that the Holy Spirit tells us to do; and the good things we want to do when the Spirit has his way with us are just the opposite of our natural desires. These two forces within us are constantly fighting each other to win control over us, and our wishes are never free from their pressures.

All people, no matter how spiritually mature in Christ, experience temptation and have a tendency toward sin. There is a difference, however, between temptation and sin. Temptation is the initial impression to do something contrary to God’s will. Such impressions come to all men and women, even as they did to our Lord, and are not sin in themselves. Temptation becomes sin when you meditate on the impression and develop a lustful desire which is often followed by the actual act of disobedience.

Yet this conflict is largely resolved when you, by an act of your will, surrender yourself to the control of the Holy Spirit and face these temptations in His power. Galatians 5:16 says:

Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

How do you do this? For practical daily living you simply recognize your weakness whenever you are tempted and ask the Lord to take care of the problem for you. When I am tempted, I often remind the Lord that I belong to Him and need His help. I ask him to cleanse my mind and thoughts with his blood and control and empower me with the Holy Spirit so I will not yield to any temptation.

3. The devil

Satan is a real foe – let there be no mistake about it – and we need to be prepared for conflict with him – alert to his cunning and subtle ways, as well as his obvious attempts to defeat and destroy us. 1 Peter 5:8,9 says:

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of suffering.

A young minister shared with me one day, “I am afraid of Satan.”

I said, “Your should be afraid of Satan, if you insist on controlling your own life. But if you are willing to let Christ control your life, you have nothing to fear because the Bible says, ‘Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.’

“Satan was defeated 2,000 years ago,” I explained, “when Christ in fulfillment of prophecy died on the cross for our sins. Though Satan has great power to influence man, he has only that power which God has granted to him. That is why, in the face of great persecution, the disciples could pray to God in His sovereignty and power, ‘They won’t stop at anything that you in your wise power will let them do’.

My minister friend happened to live in a city with one of the largest zoos in the world. I said, “what do you do with lions in your city?”

He replied, “We put them in a cage.”

I said, “That’s exactly what God has done to Satan. Visit the cage in the zoo and watch a lion pacing impatiently back and forth. He cannot hurt you. Even if you go up close to the cage, he still cannot hurt you if your are careful. But get in the cage, and the lion will devour you. You have nothing to fear as long as you stay out of that cage.

“Similarly, you have nothing to fear from Satan as long as you depend upon Christ and not on your own strength. Remember, Satan has no power except that which God in His wisdom allows him to have.”

The apostle Paul warns us, “Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand sage against the strategies and tricks of Satan. For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against persons without bodies – the evil rulers of the unseen world, those mighty satanic beings and great evil princes of darkness who rule this world; and against huge numbers of wicked spirits in the spirit world.”

Although Satan and the forces of darkness are dangerous foes, and you must be alert to the way Satan works, you need have no fear of him – if your life is surrendered to the Lordship of Christ, if you continue to walk in faith and obedience in the power of the Holy Spirit. Even though Satan is an expert at deceiving and inducing Christians to disobey God, you need not fear him. Remember, the Scripture says, “Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” But if you continue to be a worldly Christian, you had better be ready for some real problems in your personal life, your family and your church. There is no more dangerous and vulnerable place a Christian can be than to live outside God’s perfect will as a worldly or carnal Christian.

Next: Know Your Resources as a Child of God

Experiencing the adventure

A medical doctor approached me with great excitement at the conclusion of our  training conference. He was overflowing with joy and excitement.

“Since I have learned how to be filled with the Holy Spirit and walk in His power, the Christian life has become a great adventure for me!” he exclaimed. “Now, I want to experience this same adventure with Christ.”

Would you like to know how to enjoy what this man an millions of other Christians have experienced? You too can know the adventure of a full, abundant, purposeful and fruitful life in Christ!

If you have been living in spiritual defeat – powerless and fruitless, wondering if there is any validity to the Christian life – there is hope for you! What greater promise could Christ offer to the Christian than the assurance that he can walk daily in the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and experience an abundant and fruitful life of purpose and adventure? Here is His promise:

I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.

You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Certain basic spiritual truths, when understood and experienced by faith, bring revolutionary spiritual benefits. These proven principles can help you to be more consistent in your walk with God and be more effective in your witness for our dear Savior.

The Christian life, properly understood, is not complex nor difficult. As a matter of fact, the Christian life is very simple. It is so simple that we stumble over the very simplicity of it, and yet it is so difficult that no one can live it! This paradox occurs because the Christian life is a supernatural life. The only one who can help us live this abundant life is the Lord Jesus Christ who empowers us with His Holy Spirit.

Be sure you are filled with the Spirit

One of the most important truths of Scripture, the understanding and application of which has enriched my life as has no other truth, is a concept which I like to call “Spiritual Breathing.” This concept has been shared with millions – with revolutionary results – through our literature and various training conferences and seminars.

As you walk in the Spirit by faith, practicing Spiritual Breathing, you need never again live in spiritual defeat. Spiritual Breathing, like physical breathing, is a process of exhaling the impure and inhaling the pure, an exercise in faith that enables you to experience God’s love and forgiveness and walk in the Spirit as a way of life.

The moment you invited Christ into your life as Savior and Lord, you experienced a spiritual birth. You became a child of God and you were filled with the Holy Spirit. God forgave your sins – past, present and future – making you righteous, holy and acceptable in His sight because of Christ’s sacrifice for you on the cross. You were given the power to live a holy life and to be a fruitful witness for God.

But the average Christian does not understand this concept of Spiritual Breathing as an exercise of faith and, as a result, lives on a spiritual roller coaster. He goes from one emotional experience to another living most of his life as a worldly Christian, controlling his own life – frustrated and fruitless.

If this is your experience, Spiritual Breathing will enable you to get off this emotional roller coaster and enjoy the Christian life that the Lord Jesus promised to you when He said, “I came that they might have life and might have it abundantly.” As an exercise in faith, Spiritual Breathing will make it possible for you to continue to experience God’s love, forgiveness, and the power and control of the Holy Spirit as a way of life.

If you sin by committing a deliberate act of disobedience, breathe spiritually. Exhale by confession. God’s Word promises in John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” In the Greek, the original language of the New Testament, the word “confess” (homologeo) means to “agree with” of to “say along with.” Such agreement involves at least three considerations.

1. First, you acknowledge that your sin or sins – which should be named to God specifically – are wrong and are therefore grievous to Him.
2. Second, you acknowledge that God has already forgiven you through Christ’s death on the cross for your sins.
3. Third, you repent, which means that you change your attitude toward your sin. The power of the Holy Spirit will enable you to change both your attitude and conduct. Instead of doing what your old sinful nature – your flesh – wants to do, you can do what God wants you to do.

Now inhale by appropriating the fullness of God’s Spirit by faith. Trust him to control and empower you according to his command to “be filled with the Spirit” which actually means to be constantly and continually controlled and empowered with the Holy Spirit.

According to His promise, God hears you and grants your request because you pray according to His will. I encourage you to continue to claim his love, forgiveness and power by faith and continue to have fellowship with Him moment by moment.

You can get off your spiritual roller coaster, cease to be a worldly or carnal Christian, and become a Spirit-filled believer by practicing Spiritual Breathing. If you are breathing and inhaling by appropriating the fullness of the holy Spirit by faith – you are a Spirit-filled Christian.

You become a worldly Christian again when you develop (over time) an attitude of unbelief – when you set your heart against believing the promises of 1 John 1:9 and 1 Corinthians 10:13:

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

You do not become carnal simply by committing one sin or a dozen or a hundred sins provided that you sincerely continue to breathe spiritually. You will become worldly only when you develop and attitude of unbelief and refuse to breathe spiritually.

You can know right now that you are filled with the Holy Spirit. Through the concept of Spiritual Breathing, you can go through life assured of his fullness. Simply keep short accounts with God. Do not let sins accumulate.

If you try to live the Christian life by your own fleshly effort, it becomes complex, difficult and even impossible to live. But when you invite the Lord Jesus to direct your life; when you know the reality of having been crucified with Christ and raised with Him by faith as a way of life; when you walk in the light as God is in the light in the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus simply lives his abundant life within you in all of His resurrection power.

I’m not suggesting that the Christian who walks in the fullness of the Spirit will have no difficulties. Problems of poor health, loss of loved ones, financial needs and other such experiences are common to all people. However, many of our misfortunes are self-imposed because of our own worldly, selfish actions. The spiritual person is spared most of these self-imposed hardships. But when the problems do come, the spiritual person can face them with a calm, confident attitude because he is aware of God’s resources which are available to him to deal with adversity.

This is not simply a matter of positive thinking. We are instructed to cast our cares upon the Lord Jesus because He cares for us. The spiritual person knows the trustworthiness of God from experience. The Lord becomes the problem-solver, and the trials and burdens of this world are no longer too great for us when He is carrying the load.

This was at the heart of the apostle Paul’s moment-by-moment experience:

I have been crucified with Christ: and I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the real life I now have within this body is a result of my trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

There is a throne, a control center – the intersection of one’s intellect, will and emotion – in every life. And either self of Christ is on that throne. Let me illustrate.

I like to plan as far in advance as possible, especially for key events. But occasionally I get so busy with the many details of our worldwide ministry that an important item slips through. With a key conference just a couple of weeks away, I had just realized the need for a set of printed materials that would be a tremendous benefit to the conferees.

As I shared the urgency with the department director responsible for this need, he responded, “Bill, we’re full up already. Two weeks just isn’t enough time.” I became impatient. Couldn’t my associate see that we are in a war for men’s souls, that we must seize opportunities when they arise and not limit our efforts to 8-to-5 workdays? I made my point clear to him.

“But if we had more notice…” he protested, “There just is no way we can squeeze in such a huge job with so little time. There’s the writing, then the design and typesetting and artwork, then the printing.”

It seemed obvious that he did not share my burden for the upcoming event. I pressed my point. “Look, this is an important international conference,” I said firmly, my voice rising, “and this is no time for ‘business as usual.’ Please find a way to finish this project in time for the conference, even if you have to work around the clock.”

I could tell my colleague was frustrated. But I reasoned, We need those printed materials. Whatever it takes, we need them.

Within a few moments after our conversation, I sensed the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Yes, even in our well-intended service to the Lord, we can stumble – and in the name of godliness I had offended a dear brother in Christ. I had failed to give him and his staff the benefit of the doubt – failed to take into account the tough workload they already were facing each day. Instead of asking him to think through the possibilities with me and helping him rearrange his priorities to accommodate the new task, I had virtually ordered him to get the project done and shown little appreciation for the many late evenings his team was already devoting to their work. I had reacted impatiently rather than in a spirit of love, understanding and teamwork.

At this point I had a choice to make.

On the one hand, I could let it go. After all, doesn’t the head of a large organization have the right to ramrod projects through when necessary? Didn’t the end (the strategic international conference) justify the means (get the job done no matter what it takes)? And didn’t my associate’s hesitant attitude warrant a stern talking-to about the urgency of the hour?

By all human standards, I probably could have justified letting the incident go. But deep inside I would have been restless and uncomfortable as the Holy Spirit continued to point out the sin to me, and God would not have blessed my efforts on His behalf as long as this sin remained unconfessed. On top of that, several of my dear co-workers would have continued to hurt as a result of my calloused attitude.

On the other hand, I could deal with the problem by taking scriptural action to clear the slate. The unrest in my conscience was the Holy Spirit cross-examining me as I tried to rationalize my behavior. What I had thought was forceful leadership, He was identifying as the sins of impatience and unjustifiable anger.

I knew that taking scriptural action was the only choice I could make that would please my Lord. I confessed my sin to Him and appropriated his forgiveness.

Then came the toughest part.

I drove down to the office complex where my associate and his team were located and asked their forgiveness. We cried and laughed and prayed together, sensing a fresh outpouring of God’s love in our midst. Then we talked through our mutual needs and found a way – as teammates – to rearrange priorities and accomplish the task – on time!

That is what the Christian life is all about – just keeping Christ on the throne. You do this when you understand how to walk in the control and power of the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit came for the express purpose of glorifying Christ by enabling the believer to live a holy life and to be a fruitful witness for our dear Savior.

As I have said previously, to be sure you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you need to remember two important words: command and promise. The command is found in Ephesians 5:18,

Be filled…with the Holy Spirit, and controlled by him. (Living Bible)

And the promise is found in 1 John 5:14,15:

Ask him for anything in line with his (God’s) will. And … we can be sure that he will answer us. (Living Bible)

On the authority of God’s command you know that you are praying according to His will when you ask Him to fill you – to control and empower you. Therefore, you can expect him to fill and empower you on the basis of His command and promise provided that you genuinely desire to be filled and trust him to fill you.

Remember that the Holy Spirit already dwells within you if you are a believer. You do not have to ask him to come into your life; he is already indwelling you. Your body was a temple of God from the moment you became a Christian. So you simply say to Him, “I surrender my life to You, and by faith I claim Your fullness and power.”

Then continue to breathe spiritually, exhaling whenever the Holy Spirit reveals sin that you need to confess and inhaling as you go on walking in the fullness and control of the Spirit by faith. Some Christians breathe spiritually faster and more often than others.

Do not depend upon feelings. Tied as they are to your ever-changing circumstances, feelings are unreliable in evaluating your relationship with God. The unchanging promises of God’s Word, not your feelings, are your authority. The Christian is to live by faith, trusting in the trustworthiness of God Himself and His Word. A train is a good illustration of the relationship between fact, faith and feeling.

Let us call the train engine “fact” – the fact of God’s promises found in His Word. The fuel car we will call “faith” – your trust in God and His Word. The caboose we will call “feelings.”

As fuel flows into the engine, the train runs. It would be futile and, of course, ridiculous to attempt to pull the train by the caboose. In the same way you, as a Christian, should not depend upon feelings or emotion live a Spirit-filled life. Rather, God wants you to simply place your faith in his trustworthiness and the promises of His Word.

Feelings are like the caboose – they are important but are designed to follow a life of faith and obedience. Jesus promised all who obey Him, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” So, you can expect to have a valid emotional relationship with our Lord when you trust and obey Him. But you should never depend on feelings or seek after an emotional experience. The very act of looking for an emotional experience is a denial of the concept of faith, and whatever is not of faith is sin.

To summarize then, you can know that your are filled with the Holy Spirit by trusting in God – His command and promise – and you can go through life with that assurance.

Next: Be Prepared for Conflict

Take the step

Agape love frequently expresses itself as a flow of compassion. Jesus said, “Rivers of living water shall flow from the inmost being of anyone who believes in me” (John 7:38, TLB). Compassion is one of these rivers. It is a gentle stream of tenderness and concern for another person’s need. Such love compelled Jesus to feed the hungry, comfort the sorrowing, heal the sick, teach the multitude and raise the dead.

Most of us at some time in our lives have experienced this flow of love toward someone. Perhaps you felt it while washing dishes, working on the job, driving down the freeway or sitting in a classroom. You couldn’t explain it, but your impulse was to do something special for that person.

I encourage you to take the first step; start loving by faith and follow that flow. It is God’s compassion streaming toward the one in need. The tug of love within you means that He is filling you with Godly compassion and that He has chosen you to minister to that individual.

Ask God to manifest His tender compassion through you in some way today. As you pray, ask Him to lay someone on your heart. When you sense God’s love flowing through you to that individual, find out his need and begin ministering to that need. By following the leading of God’s Spirit, you can help those whom the Lord has prepared for His transforming touch, and you will become part of His miraculous provision. When God leads you to help someone, He will enable you to do what He leads you to do (Philippians 4:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:24).

A Japanese magazine has a picture of a butterfly on one of its pages. Its color is a dull gray until warmed by one’s hand. The touch of a hand causes the special inks in the printing to react, and the dull gray is transformed into a flashing rainbow of color.

What other things can be thus changed by the warmth of your interest and agape love? Your family? Your church? Your city? This hurting world is hungry for the touch of someone who cares – who really cares! Through God’s agape kind of love, you can be that someone.

Make a list

But what about those who seem unlikable? People with whom you may have difficulty getting along? Individuals whose attitudes rub you the wrong way? I encourage you to make a list of people you do not like and begin to love them by faith. Perhaps you will place yourself on the list. Have you thought of applying the truths of 1 Corinthians 13 to yourself by faith? Ask God to help you see yourself as He sees you. You have no reason to dislike yourself when your Creator has already forgiven you and demonstrated His unconditional love by dying for you!

If Christ is in you, you are complete because Christ Himself is perfect love, perfect peace, perfect patience, perfect kindness. He is all goodness, and He is in you!

Whenever Satan tries to attack you by reminding you of sins that you have already confessed or by magnifying your weaknesses and shortcomings, claim in faith the forgiveness and righteousness of God, and thank Him that, on the authority of His Word, you do not have to be intimidated by Satan’s accusation. Thank God that you are His child and that your sins are forgiven. Thank God that Satan has no control over you except that which is allowed by God. Then cast this care on the Lord as we are commanded to do in 1 Peter 5:7.

Perhaps your boss, a fellow employee, your spouse, your children or your father or mother is on the list of those whom you will love by faith. Pray for each person. Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with Christ’s love for all of them. Then, seek to meet with them as you draw upon God’s limitless, inexhaustible, overwhelming love for them by faith. Expect God to work through you! Watch Him use your smile, your words, your patience to express His love for each individual.

Love by faith every one of your “enemies” – everyone who angers you, ignores you, bores you or frustrates you. People are waiting to be loved with God’s love.

A homemaker who, through a long, cold winter, had seen her family through mumps, measles, a broken nose, three new teeth for the baby and countless other difficulties, reached the point where these pressures and demands became too much for her. Finally, on her knees, she began to protest, “Oh Lord! I have so much to do!” But imagine her surprise when she heard herself say, “Oh Lord! I have so much to love!” You will never run out of opportunities to love by faith.

Remember, the agape kind of love is an act of the will, not just an emotion. You love by faith. By faith, you can claim God’s love step by step, person by person.

“The fruit of the Spirit is love….” Like fruit, love grows. Producing fruit requires a seed, then a flower, then pollination, then warm sun and refreshing rains and even some contrary winds. Similarly in daily life, your love will be warmed by joy, watered by tears and spread by the winds of circumstances. God uses all that you experience to work His will in your life. He is the one who makes your love grow. It is a continual, ever-increasing process. As Paul says, “May the Lord make your love to grow and overflow to each other and to everyone else…” (1 Thessalonians 3:12, TLB).

Let love motivate you

Now, how does loving by faith motivate you to engage in aggressive personal evangelism and con­ tribute to the fulfillment of the Great Commission?

When you begin to truly love God by faith with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength and to love your neighbors as yourself, you will begin to see people as God sees them – as individuals of great worth, as those for whom Christ died. As a result, we will be motivated by the same love that constrained the apostle Paul who said, “Everywhere we go we talk about Christ to all who will listen” (Colossians 1:28, TLB).

Love, God’s kind of love, causes the Great Commission to become a personal responsibility and privilege. When non-Christians observe believers not only saying that they love one another, but also proving it by their actions, they, like their first-century counterparts, will marvel at “how they love one another” and will be drawn to receive and worship our Savior with us.

How exciting it is to have such a dynamic, joyful force available to us! And it all comes from our loving Savior, Jesus Christ, who explicitly promises in His Word all that you need. You need not guess, nor hope, nor wish. You can claim this love by faith, right now, on the basis of God’s command to love and His promise to answer whenever you pray for anything according to His will.

Why not make this prayer your own:

Lord, You would never have commanded me to love if You had not intended to enable me to do so. Therefore, right now, on the authority of Your command for me to love and on the authority of Your promise to answer if I ask anything according to Your will, I personally claim Your love – the 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love – for You, for all people and for myself. Amen.

NOTE: Remember, How You Can Love By Faith is a transferable concept. You can master it by reading it six times; then pass it on to others as our Lord commands us in Matthew 28:20, “Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you” (TLB). The apostle Paul encouraged us to do the same: “The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others” (2 Timothy 2:2).

Self-study guide

1. How would you explain the difference among eros, phileo and agape love?
2. What is unconditional love? How do you show this kind of love to others?
3. What does Romans 8:35–39 tell us about God’s love?
4. Is the depth of God’s love real to you? If so, what affect does that realization have on your life? If not, what can you do to increase your realization of His love?
5. How would you obey the command of John 13:34?
6. How do 1 John 3:16–18 and 4:16–21 define real love?
7. How could you express love in the following situations?
   a. At home
   b. At school
   c. At work
   d. At church
   e. At a sporting event
8. Why is it important to love yourself? How do you do this? What often keeps a person from loving himself? How does this affect his love for others?
9. How and why is love powerful enough to overcome prejudice, hatred, rebellion, anger, fear, or jealousy?
10. Why do you feel love? (See Romans 5:5)
11. How can you claim God’s love? Why is faith important in love?
12. What resources can you cling to when you find it difficult to love someone?
    a. 1 Peter 5:7
    b. Philippians 4:13
    c. Colossians 3:2,13
    d. 1 Thessalonians 3:12,13
13. How can you relate the promise in 1 John 5:14,15 to claiming God’s power to love others by faith? How does it relate to your own involvement in personal evangelism?
14. Make a list of people you do not like and begin to love them by faith. Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with Christ’s love for each of them. Pray for each person. Think of ways you can demonstrate Christ’s love to them this week.

Group discussion questions

1. List and discuss the characteristics of God’s love found in 1 Corinthians 13. Name a synonym for or give a short description of each characteristic. Share what each quality means to you.
2. Discuss ways in which the church as a body of Christian believers can express its love for God and one another.
3. Have each member of your group share about a person in their lives whom they consider a “neighbor.” In what way can you show love to that person?
4. Most of us have at least one weakness in our lives that we find difficult to love. Share this concern (if appropriate) with your group. How does God’s love apply to loving yourself in this area?
5. Think of an occasion when you had to claim God’s power to love your enemy. Share what happened. If there is someone in your life now who seems unlovable, what will you do this week to change that situation?
6. What are the basic elements of the command given to believers in Matthew 22:36–40? Share what each element means to you.
7. What roles do God’s command, His promise, and your will play in loving by faith? (See 1 John 5:14,15.)
8. Loving is a growth process. Share some areas in which God is challenging you to love by faith today.

Other resources by Dr. Bill Bright:

Resources for fasting and prayer:

• The Coming Revival: America’s Call to Fast, Pray, and “Seek God’s Face.” This inspiring yet honest book explains how the power of fasting and prayer by millions of God’s people can usher in a mighty spiritual revival and lift His judgment on America. The Coming Revival can equip Christians, their churches, and our nation for the greatest spiritual awakening since the first century.

• 7 Basic Steps to Successful Fasting and Prayer. This handy booklet gives practical steps to undertaking and completing a fast, suggests a plan for prayer, and offers an easy-to-follow daily nutritional schedule.

• Preparing for the Coming Revival: How to Lead a Successful Fasting and Prayer Gathering. In this easy-to-use handbook, the author presents step-by-step instructions on how to plan and conduct a fasting and prayer gathering in your church or community. The book also contains creative ideas for teaching group prayer and can be used for a small group or large gatherings.

• The Transforming Power of Fasting and Prayer. This follow-up book to The Coming Revival includes stirring accounts of Christians who have participated in the fasting and prayer movement that is erupting across the country.

Resources for group and individual study:

• Five Steps of Christian Growth. This five-lesson Bible study will help group members be sure that they are a Christian, learn what it means to grow as a Christian, experience the joy of God’s love and forgiveness, and discover how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Leader’s and Study Guides are available.

• Five Steps to Sharing Your Faith. This Bible study is designed to help Christians develop a lifestyle of introducing others to Jesus Christ. With these step-by-step lessons, believers can learn how to share their faith with confidence through the power of the Holy Spirit. Leader’s and Study Guides are available.

• Five Steps to Knowing God’s Will. This five-week Bible study includes detailed information on applying the Sound Mind Principle to discover God’s will. Both new and more mature Christians will find clear instructions useful for every aspect of decision-making. Leader’s and Study Guides are available.

• Five Steps to Making Disciples. This effective Bible study can be used for one-on-one discipleship, leadership evangelism training in your church, or a neighborhood Bible study group. Participants will learn how to begin a Bible study to disciple new believers as well as more mature Christians. Leader’s and Study Guides are available.

• Ten Basic Steps Toward Christian Maturity. These time-tested Bible studies offer a simple way to understand the basics of the Christian faith and provide believers with a solid foundation for growth. The product of many years of extensive development, the studies have been used by thousands. Leader’s and Study Guides are available.
  • Introduction: The Uniqueness of Jesus
  • Step 1: The Christian Adventure
  • Step 2: The Christian and the Abundant Life
  • Step 3: The Christian and the Holy Spirit
  • Step 4: The Christian and Prayer
  • Step 5: The Christian and the Bible
  • Step 6: The Christian and Obedience
  • Step 7: The Christian and Witnessing
  • Step 8: The Christian and Giving
  • Step 9: Exploring the Old Testament
  • Step 10: Exploring the New Testament

• A Handbook for Christian Maturity. This book combines the Ten Basic Steps Study Guides in one handy volume. The lessons can be used for daily devotions or with groups of all sizes.

• Ten Basic Steps Leader’s Guide. This book contains teacher’s helps for the entire Ten Basic Steps Bible Study series. The lessons include opening and closing prayers, objectives, discussion starters, and suggested answers to the questions.

Resources for Christian growth:

• Transferable Concepts. This series of time-tested messages teaches the principles of abundant Christian life and ministry. These “back-to-the-basics” resources help Christians grow toward greater spiritual maturity and fulfillment and live victorious Christian lives. These messages, available in book format and on video or audio cassette, include:
  • How You Can Be Sure You Are a Christian
  • How You Can Experience God’s Love and Forgiveness
  • How You Can Be Filled With the Spirit
  • How You Can Walk in the Spirit
  • How You Can Be a Fruitful Witness
  • How You Can Introduce Others to Christ
  • How You Can Help Fulfill the Great Commission
  • How You Can Love By Faith
  • How You Can Pray With Confidence
  • How You Can Experience the Adventure of Giving

• Life Without Equal. This inspiring book shows how Christians can experience pardon, purpose, peace, and power for living the Christian life. The book also explains how to release Christ’s resurrection power to help change the world.

• Have You Made the Wonderful Discovery of the Spirit-Filled Life? This booklet shows how you can discover the reality of the Spirit-filled life and live in moment-by-moment dependence on God.

• A Man Without Equal. This book explores the unique birth, life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and shows how He continues to change the way we live and think today. Available in book and video formats.

The Holy Spirit:

• Key to Supernatural Living. This booklet helps you enter into the Spirit-filled life and explains how you can experience power and victory.

• Promises: A Daily Guide to Supernatural Living. These 365 devotionals will help you remain focused on God’s great love and faithfulness by reading and meditating on His promises each day. You will find your faith growing as you get to know our God and Savior better.

Resources for evangelism:

• Witnessing Without Fear. This best-selling, Gold Medallion book offers simple hands-on, step-by-step coaching on how to share your faith with confidence. The chapters give specific answers to questions people most often encounter in witnessing and provide a proven method for sharing your faith.

• Reaching Your World Through Witnessing Without Fear. This six-session video provides the resources needed to sensitively share the gospel effectively. Each session begins with a captivating dramatic vignette to help viewers apply the training. Available in individual study and group packages.

• Have You Heard of the Four Spiritual Laws? This booklet is one of the most effective evangelistic tools ever developed. It presents a clear explanation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which helps you open a conversation easily and share your faith with confidence.

• Would You Like to Know God Personally? Based on the Four Spiritual Laws, this booklet uses a friendly, conversational format to present four principles for establishing a personal relationship with God.

• Jesus and the Intellectual. Drawing from the works of notable scholars who affirm their faith in Jesus Christ, this booklet shows that Christianity is based on irrefutable historic facts. Good for sharing with unbelievers and new Christians.

• A Great Adventure. Written as from one friend to another, this booklet explains how to know God personally and experience peace, joy, meaning and fulfillment in life.

Resources by Vonette Bright:

• The Joy of Hospitality: Fun Ideas for Evangelistic Entertaining. Co-written with Barbara Ball, this practical book tells how to share your faith through hosting barbecues, coffees, holiday parties, and other events in your home.

• The Joy of Hospitality Cookbook. Filled with uplifting Scriptures and quotations, this cookbook contains hundreds of delicious recipes, hospitality tips, sample menus, and family traditions that are sure to make your entertaining a memorable and eternal success. Co-written with Barbara Ball.

• Beginning Your Journey of Joy. This adaptation of the Four Spiritual Laws speaks in the language of today’s women and offers a slightly feminine approach to sharing God’s love with your neighbors, friends, and family members.

Used with permission. © 1971, 1981, 1991, 1995, 1998 Campus Crusade for Christ Inc.

3. You cannot love in your own strength

Just as surely as “those who are in the flesh (the worldly, carnal person) cannot please God,” so in your own strength you cannot love as you should.

You cannot demonstrate agape love, God’s unconditional love for others, through your own efforts. How many times have you resolved to love someone? How often have you tried to manufacture some kind of positive, loving emotion toward another person for whom you felt nothing? It is impossible, isn’t it? In your own strength it is not possible to love with God’s kind of love.

By nature people are not patient and kind. We are jealous, envious and boastful. We are proud, haughty, selfish and rude, and we demand our own way. We could never love others the way God loves us!

4. You can love with God’s love

It was God’s kind of love that brought you to Christ. It is this kind of love that is able to sustain and encourage you each day. Through His love in you, you can bring others to Christ and minister to fellow believers as God has commanded.

God’s love was supremely expressed in the life of Jesus Christ. You have a perfect, complete picture of God’s kind of love in the birth, character, teachings, life, death and resurrection of His Son.

How does this love enter your life? It becomes yours the moment you receive Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit comes to indwell your life. The Scripture says, “We feel this warm love everywhere within us because God has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love” (Romans 5:5, TLB). God is Spirit and the “fruit of the Spirit is love…” (Galatians 5:22). When you are controlled by the Spirit, you can love with God’s love.

When Christ comes into your life and you become a Christian, God gives you the resources to be a different kind of person. With the motivation, He also gives you the ability. He provides you with a new kind of love.

But how do you make love a practical reality in your life? How do you love? By resolutions? By self-imposed discipline? No. The only way to love is explained in my final point.

5. You love by faith

Everything about the Christian life is based on faith. You love by faith just as you received Christ by faith, just as you are filled with the Holy Spirit by faith, and just as you walk by faith.

If the fruit of the Spirit is love, you may logically ask, “Is it not enough to be filled with the Spirit?” This will be true from God’s point of view, but it will not always be true in your actual experience.

Many Christians have loved with God’s love and have demonstrated the fruit of the Spirit in their lives without consciously or specifically claiming His love by faith. Yet, without being aware of the fact, they were indeed loving by faith; therefore, they did not find it necessary to claim God’s love by faith as a specific act.

Hebrews 11:6 says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Obviously there will be no demonstration of God’s love where there is no faith.

If you have difficulty in loving others, remember that Jesus has commanded, “Love each other just as much as I love you” (John 13:34, TLB). It is God’s will for you to love. He would not command you to do something that He will not enable you to do. In 1 John 5:14,15, God promises that if you ask anything according to His will, He hears and answers you. Relating this promise to God’s command, you can claim by faith the privilege of loving with His love.

God has an unending supply of His divine, supernatural, agape love for you. It is for you to claim, to grow on, to spread to others and thus to reach hundreds and thousands with the love that counts, the love that will bring them to Jesus Christ.

In order to experience and share this love, you must claim it by faith; that is, trust His promise that He will give you all that you need to do His will on the basis of His command and promise.

This truth is not new. It has been recorded in God’s Word for two thousand years. But it was a new discovery to me that early morning some years ago and, since that time, to many thousands of other Christians with whom I have shared it. When I began to practice loving by faith, I found that problems of tension with other individuals seemed to disappear, often miraculously.

In one instance, I was having a problem loving a fellow staff member. It troubled me. I wanted to love him. I knew that I was commanded to love him; yet, because of certain areas of inconsistency and personality differences, it was difficult for me to love him. But the Lord reminded me of 1 Peter 5:7, “Let him have all your worries and cares, for he is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you” (TLB). I decided to give this problem to Him and love this man by faith. When I claimed God’s love for the man by faith, my concern lifted. I knew the matter was in God’s hands.

An hour later, I found under my door a letter from that very man, who had no possible way of knowing what I had just experienced. In fact, his letter had been written the day before. The Lord had foreseen the change in me. This friend and I met together that afternoon and had the most wonderful time of prayer and fellowship we had ever experienced together. Loving with God’s love by faith has changed our relationship.

Two gifted attorneys had great professional animosity, even hatred one for the other. Even though they were distinguished members of the same firm, they were constantly criticizing and making life miserable for each other.

One of the men received Christ through our ministry and some months later came for counsel.

“I have hated and criticized my partner for years,” he said, “and he has been equally antagonistic toward me. But now that I am a Christian, I don’t feel right about continuing our warfare. What shall I do?”

“Why not ask your partner to forgive you and tell him that you love him?” I suggested.

“I could never do that!” he exclaimed. “That would be hypocritical. I don’t love him. How could I tell him I love him when I don’t?”

I explained that God commands His children to love even their enemies and that His supernatural, unconditional agape love is an expression of our will, which we exercise by faith.

For example, the 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love is:

…very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out. If you love someone you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost. You will always believe in him, always expect the best of him, and always stand your ground in defending him” (1 Corinthians 13:4–7, TLB).

“You will note,” I explained, “that each of these descriptions of love is not an expression of the emotions, but of the will.”

Together we knelt to pray and my friend asked God’s forgiveness for his critical attitude toward his law partner and claimed God’s love for him by faith.

Early the next morning, my friend walked into his partner’s office and announced, “Something wonderful has happened to me. I have become a Christian. And I have come to ask you to forgive me for all that I have done to hurt you in the past, and to tell you that I love you.”

His partner was so surprised and convicted of his own sin that he responded to this amazing confession by asking my friend to forgive him. Then to my friend’s surprise, his partner said, “I would like to become a Christian, too. Would you show me what I need to do?”

After my friend showed him how through the Four Spiritual Laws, they knelt together to pray. Then they both came to tell me of this marvelous miracle of God’s love.

A special assistant to a former governor of California once visited our headquarters at Arrowhead Springs, and during his visit he received Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. He began to discover how to love by faith. His son had recently left home after they had an argument. Contemplating the problem, this new Christian realized that he had never told his son that he loved him. On his way home, he asked the Lord to bring his son home so that he could make things right. He wanted to express his love for him. As he neared his home, his heart quickened. The upstairs light was on indicating that the son had come home! Soon, father and son embraced, became reconciled, and established a new relationship founded on God’s forgiving love.

A young college football player, who had been raised in a community where blacks are resented, had always found it impossible to love blacks. One evening he heard me talk to a group of racially mixed students about loving by faith, especially in reference to loving those of other races.

“As you prayed,” he told me later, “I claimed God’s love for black people. Then, as I left the amphitheater, the first person I saw was a black man and he was talking to a white girl. Now that is about as explosive a situation as you can imagine for a man who hates blacks. But suddenly I felt a compassion for that black man! At one time, I would have hated him and probably would have been rude and angry with him. But God heard my prayer.”

That same evening a young black couple approached me. They were radiant.

“Something wonderful happened to me tonight,” the young woman said. “I was liberated from my hatred for white people. I have hated whites since I was a little girl. I have known that as a Christian I should love white people, but I couldn’t help myself. I hated whites and wanted to get revenge. Tonight I have begun to love whites by faith, and it really works.”

The young man added, “It worked for me, too; now my hatred for whites is gone. Thank you for telling us how to love by faith.”

Whites who have hated blacks and blacks who have hated whites have discovered God’s supernatural love for each other. Christian husbands and wives who were living in conflict have claimed God’s love by faith and miracles have resulted. Parent-child struggles have been resolved and generation gaps have been bridged through loving by faith. Disputes in working situations have been resolved. Enemies cease to be enemies when you love them by faith. God’s love has a way of dissolving prejudice and breaking down barriers.

Love is the greatest power known to man. It changed the course of the first-century world, and God is using it to bring a great revolution in the twentieth century. Nothing can overcome God’s love.

In the first century there was a wedding of love and faith resulting in a great spiritual revolution throughout the known world. Then both were lost during the Dark Ages. The realization of Martin Luther and his colleagues that the “just shall live by faith” ushered in the Reformation and another mighty movement of God’s Spirit. But there was little love. It fact, there was often great conflict.

Today, God is bringing back to our remembrance the biblical wedding of the two – faith and love. Through faith, that supernatural, divine love of God will reach out where nothing else can go to capture men and women for Christ. The love which results from that faith will captivate people everywhere so that, as we live and love by faith, we will spread God’s love throughout the world. This love is contagious, attractive, and aggressive. It creates hunger for God. It is active – constantly looking for loving things to do, people to uplift, and lives to change.

Leonard is an example. The night he received Christ as his personal Savior, his heart was filled with love, and a great change came over him. Until then he had hated everyone and everything.

Often when he came home drunk at night, he would kick his dog to get him off the porch. In the process, the dog would bark, growl and try to bite him. Reeling and rocking under the influence of alcohol, Leonard would chase the dog around a table on the porch.

Soon his wife would get into the fray. They would curse each other and fight. Eventually, he would kick the dog off the porch, scattering chairs and flower pots in all directions.

“But the night I received Christ,” he relates, “I was so filled with love that I think even the dog sensed I was different. He raised himself on his belly and crawled toward me, then lay down on the same feet that had kicked him all the other nights.”

Next: Part 4 – How You Can Love by Faith (Part 4)

Five truths about love

But what is agape love? How does this kind of love express itself? Paul gives us an excellent description:

“Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong.

It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out. If you love someone, you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost. You will always believe in him, always expect the best of him, and always stand your ground in defending him.

All the special gifts and powers from God will someday come to an end, but love goes on forever.

There are three things that remain – faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:4–8,13, TLB).”

In the next chapter the apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, admonishes: “Let love be your greatest aim” (1 Corinthians 14:1, TLB).

Let me share with you five vital truths about love that will help you understand the basis for loving by faith.

1. God loves you unconditionally

God loves with agape love, the love described in 1 Corinthians 13. He loves you so much that He sent His Son to die on the cross for you, that you might have everlasting life. His love is not based on performance. Christ loves you so much that, while you were yet a sinner, He died for you.

God’s love for you is unconditional and undeserved. He loves you in spite of your disobedience, your weakness, your sin and your selfishness. He loves you enough to provide a way to abundant, eternal life. From the cross Christ cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). If God loved those who are sinners that much, can you imagine how much He loves you – His child through faith in Christ and who seeks to please Him?

The parable of the prodigal son, as recorded in Luke 15, illustrates God’s unconditional love for His children. A man’s younger son asked his father for his share of the estate, packed his belongings and took a trip to a distant land where he wasted all of his money on parties and prostitutes. About the time that his money was gone, a great famine swept over the land and he began to starve. He finally came to his senses and realized that his father’s hired men at least had food to eat. He decided, “I will go home to my father and say, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired man’” (Luke 15:18, TLB).

While he was still a long distance away, his father saw him coming and was filled with loving compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. I think the reason he saw his son coming while he was still a long distance away was that he was praying for his son’s return and spent much time each day watching that lonely road on which his son would return.

Even as the son was making his confession, the father interrupted to instruct the servants to kill the fatted calf and prepare for a celebration – his lost son had repented; he had changed his mind and had returned to become part of the family again.

God demonstrated His love for us before we were Christians, but this story makes it obvious that God continues to love His child who has strayed far from Him. He eagerly awaits his return to the Christian family and fellowship.

Even when you are disobedient, He continues to love you, waiting for you to respond to His love and forgiveness. Paul writes:

“Since by his blood he did all this for us as sinners, how much more will he do for us now that he has declared us not guilty? Now he will save us from all of God’s wrath to come. And since, when we were his enemies, we were brought back to God by the death of his Son, what blessings he must have for us now that we are his friends and he is living within us!” (Roman 5:9,10, TLB).

The love that God has for you is far beyond our human comprehension. Jesus prayed, “My prayer for all of them [the disciples and all future believers] is that they will be of one heart and mind, just as you and I are, Father…I in them and you in me, all being perfected into one – so that the world will know you sent me and will understand that you love them as much as you love me” (John 17:21,23, TLB).

Think of it! God loves you as much as He loves His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus. What a staggering, overwhelming truth to comprehend! You need have no fear of someone who loves you perfectly. You need never be reluctant to trust God with your entire life, for He truly loves you. And the almost unbelievable part of it is that He loves you even when you are disobedient.

Even on the human level, loving parents display such love. I loved my sons as much when they were disobedient as I did when they were good. For their sakes, because I do love them, I sometimes found it necessary to correct them. So it is in your relationship with God. When you are disobedient, He disciplines or corrects you because He loves you. Hebrews 12 teaches about the love that motivates God’s discipline:

“Have you quite forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you, his child? He said, “My son, don’t be angry when the Lord punishes you. Don’t be discouraged when he has to show you where you are wrong. For when he punishes you, it proves that he loves you….” Let God train you, for he is doing what any loving father does for his children. Whoever heard of a son who was never corrected?”

“Since we respect our fathers here on earth, though they punish us, should we not all the more cheerfully submit to God’s training so that we can begin really to live?

Our earthly fathers trained us for a few brief years, doing the best for us that they knew how, but God’s correction is always right and for our best good, that we may share his holiness. Being punished isn’t enjoyable while it is happening – it hurts! But afterwards we can see the result, a quiet growth in grace and character” (Hebrews 12:5–7,9–11, TLB).

Christ’s death on the cross has once and for all satisfied the wrath and justice of God for the believer’s sin. God chastens and disciplines you to help you mature spiritually.

The early Christians endured persecution, hardships and unbelievable suffering. Yet Paul wrote to them:

“Who then can ever keep Christ’s love from us? When we have trouble or calamity, when we are hunted down or destroyed, is it because he doesn’t love us anymore? And if we are hungry or penniless or in danger or threatened with death, has God deserted us?

No, for the Scriptures tell us that for his sake we must be ready to face death at every moment of the day – we are like sheep awaiting slaughter; but despite all this, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us enough to die for us.

For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, or where we are – high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean – nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us” (Romans 8:35–39, TLB).

Such love is beyond our ability to grasp with our minds, but it is not beyond our ability to experience with our hearts.

2. You are commanded to love

A certain lawyer asked Jesus, “Sir, which is the most important command in the laws of Moses?”

Jesus replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. The second most important is similar: ‘Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.’ All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets stem from these two laws and are fulfilled if you obey them. Keep only these and you will find that you are obeying all the others” (Matthew 22:36–40, TLB).

At one time in my Christian life, I was troubled over the command to love God so completely. How could I ever measure up to such a high standard? Two very important considerations have helped me to desire to love and please Him completely.

1. First, the Holy Spirit has filled my heart with God’s love, as promised in Romans: “We know how dearly God loves us, and we feel this warm love everywhere within us because God has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love” (Romans 5:5, TLB).
2. Second, by meditating on the attributes of God and the wonderful things He has done and is doing for me, I find my love for Him growing. I love Him because He first loved me (1 John 4:19).

How could God love me so much that He was willing to die for me? Why should God choose me to be His child? By what merit do I deserve to be His ambassador to tell this good news of His love and forgiveness to the world? On what basis do I deserve the privilege of His constant presence and His indwelling Spirit, of His promise to supply all of my needs according to His riches in glory? Why should I have the privilege – denied to most of the people of the world who do not know our Savior – of awaking each morning with a song in my heart and praise to Him on my lips for the love and joy and peace that He so generously gives to all who place their trust in His dear Son, the Lord Jesus?

I was a new Christian when I proposed to Vonette, who is now my wife. Although she had been an active church member, I discovered later that she was not a Christian at that time. Imagine her distress when, in my zeal for Christ, I explained to her that I loved God more than I loved her and that He would always be first in my life. I failed to explain, nor did I even realize at the time, that it was exactly because of my love for God that I was able to love her so much. Later, before we were married, she too experienced God’s love and forgiveness and became His child.

Through the years He has become first in her life also, and because He is now first in each of our lives, we enjoy a much deeper love relationship than we could otherwise have known. Though my responsibilities in His service take me to many parts of the world and I am often away from her and our home, we both find our joy and fulfillment in Him. The times when we are privileged to be together are all the richer because of our mutual love for Him and His love for us.

The one who has not yet learned to love God and to seek Him above all else and all others is to be pitied, for that person is missing the blessings that await all who love God with all of their heart, soul and mind.

It is natural for you to fulfill the command to love your neighbors as yourself if you truly love God with all of your heart, soul and mind. If you are properly related to God on the vertical plane, you will be properly related to others on the horizontal plane.

For example, billiard balls, rolling freely on a table, naturally bounce away from each other because of the nature of their construction. But if we tie strings to several balls and lift them perpendicular to the table, the balls will cluster together.

When individual Christians are vitally yoked to Christ and related to God and are walking in the Spirit, loving Him with all of their hearts, souls and minds, they will fulfill God’s command to love others as themselves.

The apostle Paul explains:

“If you love your neighbor as much as you love yourself you will not want to harm or cheat him, or kill him or steal from him. And you won’t sin with his wife or want what is his, or do anything else the Ten Commandments say is wrong. All ten are wrapped up in this one, to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Love does no wrong to anyone. That’s why it fully satisfies all of God’s requirements. It is the only law you need” (Romans 13:9,10, TLB).

It is love for God and for others that results in righteousness, in fruit and in glory to Christ. Also, you are commanded to love others because such love testifies to your relationship with the Father. You demonstrate that you belong to Christ by your love for others. The apostle John practically equates your salvation with the way you love others when he says that if you don’t love others, you do not know God, for He is love.

John says:

“If someone who is supposed to be a Christian has money enough to live well, and sees a brother in need, and won’t help him—how can God’s love be within him? Little children, let us stop just saying we love people; let us really love them, and show it by our actions” (1 John 3:17,18, TLB).

Jesus says:

“I demand that you love each other as much as I love you” (John 15:12, TLB).

As a Christian, you should love your neighbor because your neighbor is a creature of God made in the image of God; because God loves your neighbor; and because Christ died for your neighbor. Following the example of our Lord, you should love everyone, even as Christ did. You should devote your life to helping others experience His love and forgiveness.

Jesus also said:

“There is a saying, ‘Love your friends and hate your enemies.’ But I say: Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way you will be acting as true sons of your Father in heaven….

“If you love only those who love you, what good is that? Even scoundrels do that much. If you are friendly only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even the heathen do that” (Matthew 5:43–47, TLB).

When Christians begin to act like Christians and love God, their neighbors, their enemies and especially their Christian brothers – regardless of color, race or class – we will see in our time, as in the first century, a great transformation in the whole of society. People will marvel when they observe our love in the same way people marveled when they observed those first-century believers saying, “How they love one another.”

I counsel many students and older adults who are not able to accept themselves. Some are weighted down with guilt because of unconfessed sins; others are not reconciled to their physical handicaps. Still others feel inferior mentally or socially. My counsel to one and all is, “God loves you and accepts you as you are. You must do the same. Get your eyes off yourself! Focus your love and attention on Christ and on others. Begin to lose yourself in service for Him and for your fellow man.”

God’s kind of love is a unifying force among Christians. Paul admonishes us to “put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity” (Colossians 3:14, NASB) that our “hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love” (Colossians 2:2, NASB). Only God’s universal love can break through the troublesome barriers that are created by human differences. Only a common devotion to Christ – the source of love – can relieve tension, ease mistrust, encourage openness, bring out the best in people and enable them to serve Christ together in a more fruitful way.

One mother shared that the discovery of these principles enabled her to be more patient and kind to her husband and children. “The children were driving me out of my mind with all of their childish demands,” she confided. “I was irritable with them, and because I was so miserable, I was a critical and nagging wife. No wonder my husband found excuses to work late at the office. It is all different now – God’s love permeates our home since I learned how to love by faith.”

A husband reported, “My wife and I have fallen in love all over again, and I am actually enjoying working in my office with men I couldn’t stand before I learned how to love by faith.”

Next: How You Can Live by Faith (Part 3)

“Jesus said, ‘I will only reveal Myself to those who love Me and obey Me. The Father will love them too, and We will come to them and live with them. Anyone who doesn’t obey Me doesn’t love Me” (John 14:23,24).

Millions of Christians throughout the world profess their love for Christ each week by attending church services, singing songs, studying their Bibles, attending prayer meetings, etc. Yet, all the talk in the world will never convince anyone that you or I truly love the Lord unless we obey His commandments.

How can we know His commandments unless we study His word? When we study His Word, how can we comprehend what He is saying unless the Holy Spirit illumines our minds and teaches us? It is God the Holy Spirit who inspired the writing for His holy Word through holy men. He alone can help us understand the true meaning of the Scripture and enable us to obey His commands.

Thus, the reality of Christ abiding in us is made possible through a supernatural enabling of the Holy Spirit who came to glorify Christ and through whose indwelling presence the Lord Jesus will reveal Himself to us.

Is Jesus Christ a reality in your life? If not, it is quite likely that you are not demonstrating your love for Him by studying His Word and obeying His commandments.

Bible reading: John 14:15-22

Today’s action point:
With the help of the Holy Spirit who enable me to live the supernatural life, I will endeavor to demonstrate my love for Christ by studying His word and obeying His commandments.