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Good Morning! If you are a Christian, you want to live your life in victory. No one wants to be defeated. Unfortunately, some may feel or actually be so defeated in their Christian life that they actually believe it is the best they can do. Others believe that occasional victory is their only hope in life. Not every Christian considers victory to be a daily, consistent and sustainable realistic goal; much less a reality. This ought not to be! Christ promised an abundant life. Why must anyone who is unwilling be forced to accept a redundant Christian life?

The answer, I conclude is a lack of faith. Not in depth, but in duration. When our faith wavers, it simply ceases to be exercised in the face of difficulty. It's still there, as are all the other remaining eight fruits of the Spirit, but we choose to disobey its prompting and enter into our self righteous doubt or occasionally our unrighteous unbelief. This is not "of faith", so it "is sin" and it does not "please God".

It is God's goal for each of us to SUSTAIN our walk IN Him during the most difficult portions of our life. It is at particularly difficult times in life that the depth of our relationship IN Him is truly recognized. We may be convinced of our deep abiding relationship IN Him, but when our hearts are exposed through a particularly difficult circumstance, we realize we usually have abandoned the leadership of the One we love so much.

If we are developing a close, intimate and abiding relationship IN Christ, then we possess the prerequisite necessary to live victoriously. The Bible promises that if "we know Him", then we possess the "power of His resurrection".

Thus, in order to maintain a vibrant and victorious walk with the Lord, it requires only one act from us: submission. Submission by my soul to the prompting of my spirit as illuminated by His Spirit grants empowerment and empowerment guarantee's victory!

Submission of course is followed by our obedience to the Prompting. This act on our part to the Acts on His part is how we can know that we are living our life "IN Him."

Let's look at a simple verse in the Bible. They always seem to explain things so much easier than we can. In I John 2 we read a very powerful and precious promise. I have dissected and defined it so that I could understand it better:

1 Jn 2:3, 4, 6 "And hereby we do know that we know him," Hereby means "by here". Or, that is to say "right by here is the answer". The answer to what? The answer to whether or not we know Him. Thus, we see in these passages we are going to find the answer to whether we have an intimate, personal and dynamic love relationship with Jesus Christ. So what's it take to know if we know Him? Our next phrase tells us.

"And hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments." So we see that obedience to Him is proof of intimacy with Him. If we won't keep His commandments John tells us in the next phrase that we DO NOT know Him. We may know a lot about Him and He may know us (the prerequisite for salvation) but our walk is too weak to obey. We don't know WHOM we claim to know. If you say you do but are unwilling or even unable to obey, God concludes and communicates through John that you are a liar. Look, see: "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar." Ok, enough said. We can argue with ourselves but we cannot argue with the Word.

But notice what John teaches next. He actually begins to explain what will take place if we will #1. develop a dynamic relationship and #2 simply obey Him. This is what will take place:

"But whoso keepeth his word (obeys Him), IN him verily is the love of God perfected:". Now what does that mean? It means that to know Him is to obey Him. To obey Him is to love Him. To love Him is to love others! Knowing Him empowers us to meet our commitments to the commandments! If we know Him, faithful obedience will remain prevalent in our life. That obedience in its duration will perfect the first of the nine fruits: love. It is the only fruit that God says He perfects. That word perfects means "to accomplish".

What's that saying? If we know Him, we will obey Him, if we obey Him, His love will be accomplished. When we are empowered by Him to love God and others we experience the contentment of the victorious Christian life. The victorious Christian life is not merely manifested in my ability to overcome worldliness. It is more purely manifested in our "accomplishment of His love". God doesn't use unclean vessels. If your lifestyle is right living but in your own power, you will not express His love. You may have victory over vice, but Christ hasn't been give access to your life!

If your lifestyle is wrong, then you can be sure that God's love will not permeate from your life either. It is as He purifies us of our wrong thinking that we find victory over our actions and then our thinking and actions begin to manifest the love of God.

He closes with this challenge: "hereby know we that we are IN him. He that saith he abideth IN him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked."

So, then that begs the question. How did He walk? The answer is simple, "Be ye therefore followers of God (submissive obedience). . . And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us. . ." (Ephesians 2)

God is love. Do you know "about what" I mean or do you know Who I mean?

A PRAYER FOR TODAY: "Dear Father, please help me to focus on the development of my relationship to you. I recognize that to know You is to love you. To love you is to love others and to love others is to take the focus off of me and place it on the needs of the whole world. I need this type of love to be accomplished IN me, by you. Lord, I pray that I will obey your simple promptings to cast down negative thinking that manifests itself in selfish soul control. Please empower me to do so as you have promised to do. I pray this in the blood stained name of Jesus, Amen!"

A QUESTION FOR TODAY'S MEDITATION: "Is Christ real to me? If so, why is He? If not, why not?