HOW TO HAVE IT ALL TOGETHER

I just read a great article by Charles Stanley.  He tells the story of his early life as a Christian. For many years he felt he was on a roller coaster...up one minute, down the next. He didn't enjoy his relationship with Christ and he felt more like a failure than a success. 

When he struggled to follow Christ, he would end up feeling like he couldn't measure up to His expectations. But all that changed when he began to grasp one simple truth: "Christ lives in me," he said. 

Many Christians think that the power to live the Christian life is given to us from above, but that's not true. Our power to overcome any struggle is released from within us, through Christ's indwelling presence. "He is the source of our nourishment and growth," Stanley said. 

You may wonder how Jesus can be seated at the Father's right hand in Heaven and be dwelling inside you at the same time. The answer is found in John 14:16-20.  "Before returning to His father, Jesus explained to His disciples that He was leaving them but would send the Holy Spirit as a Helper who would abide in them forever," Stanley explained. 

God knows we have limited strength without Him. He knows that we are inadequate to live the Christian life Stanley says. The Holy Spirit empowers us to do what we can't do through our own effort or natural abilities.  

While some people see relying on God as a weakness or a crutch, they fail to see the strength that God gives. God promises in His word to make you adequate for anything He has called you to do. 
(I Thess. 5:24).

Think about that for a moment. We have a strength available to us, a strength that comes from One so powerful that He spoke the universe into existence. Wow! Who wouldn't want to take advantage of that? How foolish of us to think that we don't need that. 

When a task seems beyond my ability or my suffering seems unbearable, God is my strength (2 Cor. 12:9-10). If I need understanding or guidance, I can find it through Christ ( Col. 2:3). 

The most profound sentence in Stanley's article, the one statement that made me pause and read it again was this. "The reason so many believers feel weak and inadequate in their walk with Christ is because they rely on their feelings instead of the truth of God's word. Feelings fluctuate, but faith anchors our soul and reminds us that Christ is our life no matter what challenge we're facing or how we have failed."

I can relate to this article because I have often felt that I dont measure up to what God expects of me. I don't spend enough time in prayer, don't spend enough time reading my bible, don't respond the way I should to adversity, don't do enough for God, don't have the strength I should have, ... and on and on it goes. 

Stanley says I don't have to try to live up to any expectations. All I have to do is believe that God is my life, submit to His leadership, and rely on His strength. I don't have to try so hard to improve myself. I don't have to be as perfect as Jesus. As long as I have an open and willing heart to Christ's indwelling presence, then I'm doing everything God expects. Beyond that, the pressure is off.

 The moment I accepted the Lord's offer of a saving relationship with Him, I was given the strength of the Holy Spirit. How many times have I ignored that strength and tried to figure things out on my own? How many times have I listened to the world when I should have been listening to God? 

This is why we have nothing to fear if we have the Holy Spirit. The headlines that you read about impending war, a new world order, economic collapse, tyrannical government, etc, are not supposed to scare us. If we were looking outside ourselves for the strength to carry on, then yes we would be scared by these things. 

But God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. We can overcome fear with the Holy Spirit's help, we can be empowered by the Holy Spirit's strength, and we can rest assured that we have a sound mind because God promises it in His word.  

If I have accepted Christ, then Christ lives in me. I can stop looking outside myself for the strength to carry on. I can stop trying so hard to measure up. I can stop beating myself up for not having it all together. If Christ lives in me, I do have it all together. 

With so many advantages to having the indwelling presence of Christ through the Holy Spirit, why would anyone refuse it? That's the most baffling question of all.