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Oh, how we need the mind of
Christ. A real desire to obey God
will make the difference. We need to
watch the tendency to please men and only obey
God when others are watching. There
is a world of difference between that and
obeying God because we love Him.
When we are obeying God because we love Him, it
doesn't make any difference who's watching, what
part of the country we're in, etc.
When we surrender and the power of God works in
us, then obedience comes with delight
and not a battle.
It 's very easy to read
that it is God which worketh in us, but how does
He work in us? First, He works in us through the
Holy Spirit being in us. 1
Corinthians 6:19-20 tells us: "What?
Know ye not that your body is the temple of the
Holy Ghost [ Written to the Church at Corinth]
which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye
are not your own? For ye are bought with a
price: therefore glorify God in your body, and
in your spirit, which are God's."
Now our text said, "...it is God which worketh
in you..." The power which works
within us is the power of the Holy Spirit of
God.
Our very English word
energy comes from the word translated "worketh"
in the thirteenth verse. In other words, it is
God's divine energy working in and through us.
The same Holy Spirit that empowered Christ
empowers us. There's only one Holy
Spirit. We must recognize the fact
that the flesh and the devil is ready to
work. We can allow them to work, but
if we're going to live the life God wants us to,
we must know it is God working in us.
We also need to know how the Holy Spirit
works in our lives. People get all
kinds of impressions. They say the
Holy Ghost told them to do this or that, from
killing somebody, leaving their family, to
"speaking" in some tongue.
We must have something to measure God's
working in us. Many spirits have
gone out, and a great majority of them claim to
be the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we
are instructed in 1 John 4:1, to try the
spirits, which are in people to see whether they
are of God or
some other spirit.
Someone may ask, "How are we going to
tell whether preachers are really being led by
the Spirit?" 1 John 2:20 tells us,
"But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and
ye know all things." We don't need
to be in doubt if it is God's Word or not; we
have an unction that will let us know whether it
is truth or not.
