The Christian life is the grace life. It's a life of living in the deserved unmerited, unearned favor of God, not trying to achieve, earn or deserve the favor of God, but realizing that you've already got it. It’s really all about learning to rest, relax and receive when he's freely offering you – that's the Christian life. And it's much easier than religion has made it out to be. Amen! Christianity is much easier than religion has made it out to be. I think that's a profound truth. I just want to meditate on that for the next hour…but today is I want to continue talking about how God destined us and has created us to reign and rule in life.
I've already looked at a couple different scriptures just to show us that we can reign and rule in life, but you know, we need to realize that it's not automatic. Yeah, we cannot reign and rule automatically just because we're Christians. And we can't reign and rule by our own ability and our own wisdom, our own willpower, our own discipline – we're not going to overcome anything by willpower. You might be able to do it for a while, but you know, that's not true victory. I want to start off in Galatians 2:20, and I'm reading from the passion translation. It says, my old identity has been co-crucified with the Messiah and no longer lives for the nails of his cross crucified me with him and now the essence of this new life is no longer mine for the anointed one, Jesus, lives his life through me. We live in union as one. My new life is empowered by the faith of the son of God who loves me so much that he gave himself for me and dispenses his life into mine.
In order to live in victory we need to see ourselves as having been crucified with Christ. The moment that you receive Jesus, you are identifying in his death and you're saying, I died when he died. You know, my sinful nature is now gone and I'm risen with him to a new life?! A life of righteousness, of perfect right-standing before God, not based on my performance, but based on my faith in him and what he's done for me. And so, you know, that's what Galatians 2:20 is saying. It's showing us that because we have the life of God in us because he's living in us because we've got his faith in us – we cannot lose! God only knows victory and as His Children we should only know victory as well! Our DNA only knows victory.
The reason most people are not living in victory is because they're trying too hard. If you're trying to live the Christian life, then you're trying too hard and you probably going to suffer for it. We aren't called to live the Christian life in our own power and in our own strength. When you have an understanding of God's grace – that he's not holding your sin against you and that he is good towards you, irrespective of your performance and that he loves you and accepts you and blesses you, not based on your performance, but based on what Jesus did for you, and all you need to do to experience it as put your faith in him – when you come to that revelation and that understanding then the power of God’s grace in you will kick into motion in your life and cause you to live in victory, cause you to overcome the devil, temptation of sin and sickness and all sorts of things, including lack, and you will start to live the abundant life. You will start to reign and rule in this life. You will start to be happier than you've ever been before.
The Bible says to taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8). The problem is that we intellectually know that God is good, but we haven't experienced it. “Tasting” and “seeing” is an experience. God wants you to taste and see his goodness, which means it's a tangible experience. He doesn't just want you to know his goodness in your head, intellectually, he wants you to know it experientially. God wants you to experience the height, the depth, the breadth, and the length of his love for you, which is without any condition. All you need to do to experience that unconditional love is just surrender!
Ask for a revelation of it and as you study the word seek to understand more of his love, and allow the Holy Spirit to impact your heart with that love. And as you do, it starts to produce fruits in your life where you start to live like Jesus, more accidental than you ever did on purpose. You will start to rise up and live in victory because you know that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. The more we understand and experience his love, the more we start to live in victory.
Faith works by love. That word love in Galatians 5:6 is agape, which means, God's kind of love. Faith works by God’s kind of love. The more we understand God's kind of love for us, how much he loves us, that his love for us without condition, then we will start to live in victory more and more. The more we start to have faith working in our lives. And faith is not something you strife for because as you focus on his unconditional love, how much he loves you, then you start to operate in faith as a natural by-product of an encounter with his love; of a revelation of his love. And this will cause you to reign in life, to rule over sickness, to rule over lack, to rule over the effects of Adam and to start to rise up and live in the inheritance that Jesus bought for you.