"The work of God..."

[From my journal] "Lord…continue walking me into deeper revelations of simple Truths concerning who I am in You and how that effects reality for me.

“The work of God is to believe on Him whom He has sent.”

Lord, You said this and it would appear that this is what makes entering the kingdom and receiving the blessings of Christ in God so simple and easy. NO! Notice the words of Jesus again – ‘The work of God…” Our battle that will require effort and perhaps toil even, is to believe what the Lord has told us. Ultimately the goal of the devil is to keep us from doing this.

When doubts enter my mind concerning God’s Word (which happens almost without fail every time God acts in my life), I don’t need to sit and battle with the enemy in my mind. This is what he loves to do because battling with the devil in our own mind keeps me from believing Jesus’ victory over Him already! This is why we need not the understanding of how the devil and his demons work but only what the victory of Christ looks like.”

Think about this. If we truly believed to the point that it was invariably real to us that Christ is on His throne overlooking the entirety of our lives, do you think we would sin against Him? This is the problem with lukewarm believers that James 2 is calling is out. They intellectually give ascent to something, but I don’t think is biblical belief. Biblical “belief” is to accept something you haven’t seen as a reality that leads to a change of mind, heart and life. I know that as I have walked with God longer, my faith has increased because I have seen the manifestation of His faithfulness and thus my “belief” in Him has increased greatly. This is why at the root of every attack of the devil is some measure of unbelief.

“Let me reiterate this, sometimes believing will require work! Praying to God for faith, love and hope to abound in us – this is why anyone can be used by God if the are in Christ. Satan’s power is always in the lie and sometime some junk needs to be removed in order that we may find the lie and that we need to repent of believing, and the enemy will bombard you with this junk to keep you busy with work that is thought to be God’s (i.e. preaching, prayer meetings, doing various religious duties) but have us greatly misunderstanding what is going on in our minds and hearts.”

To believe in Christ's holiness, which is manifested in His actions and words, is to be holy...that's what I'm saying. That is, identifying ourselves in Christ and not our performance is the true measure of holiness. Oh Praise Jesus!