Great Expectations

GUARDING THE MIND

Do not accept anything that does not belong to you. The enemy is an expert at presenting thoughts to your mind and suggesting that they are yours. 

Many an earnest believer, walking in Christ and surrendered to His will, has been tormented by evil thoughts that come to mind. It is quite natural to think that they must be our thoughts if they have come to our mind, but this does not necessarily follow. 

It is Satan’s business to destroy the believer in any way that He can. If he cannot entice him to sin voluntarily, he will deceive him into thinking that he has sinned, and thus cause him to decide that it is impossible to live a holy life before the Lord, in the expectation that the believer will give up any attempt to be holy and abandon the stand he has taken. 

If God has said, “Be ye holy; for I am holy,” (1 Peter 1:16) we may be sure it is possible to live a holy life; not in our own strength, but by taking the stand before God that has been offered to us. Jesus paid the full price for our righteousness. He has invited us to surrender ourselves completely into His hands and know that it is no longer we who live, but that it is He who is living in us. And He is righteous. While we are thus united to Him it is no longer upon us that God is looking, but upon Him. In Gal 2:20 Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Praise be to the Lord for such a wonderful redemption! 

Is it any wonder that He has warned us that the neglect of such a glorious and costly salvation carries with it a terrible penalty. (Heb 2:3). We are not judged guilty because we have sinned, but because we have refused to accept His way of deliverance from this sin. 

It behooves us, then, to believe God as we stand before Him covered by the righteousness of His Son, and not allow man nor devils to destroy the faith by which we stand. In Christ we can live a life pleasing to God. We can be adjudged holy, even as He is holy. Thanks be to His wonderful name!

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