Not of Ourselves but of Christ!

Many years ago I doubted my salvation because of my thought life mostly. I reasoned, "how can I be saved and still have these thoughts?" Then the Lord showed me that my cleansing was an ongoing thing, as a new believer I was under attack of my own flesh and the devil, leaving me to think I might not be saved. I jumped for joy on the day the Lord told me that I was born again but I was in a battle against the flesh and the devil. I have had many victories over the years as I fought the battles in prayer. When I tried to fight the battles in my own mind with shear will power, I would lose every time. But when I prayed and told God I needed Him to remove the thoughts, then I had peace and victory in a very short time.

1 Corinthians 15:57 "But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

The Bible does not say that our victory is through our hard work in the flesh, just the opposite. If we think we can effect change in ourselves we may make some progress but eventually we will lose that battle, we become tired of the struggle. God will only give us HIS strength, not our own empowered by Him. He is the strength we need.

One day the Lord said to me, "when you are ready to stop trying so hard to be good in your flesh, then I will begin working in you." The peace flooded me and those "rivers of living water" began to flow.

Ephesians 2:10 "10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

We must stop thinking that God empowers us, He does not, He is the power that lives in us, He will be all that we need. The more we submit to Him, the greater our growth strides. He ultimately gets all the glory, we become so in step with His Spirit that we hear His voice...a spiritual hearing. Sometimes we allow our flesh to drag us down another road, but if we are in tune with the Spirit of God in us, He will bring us back to where we should be.

2 Corinthians 3:1-6 "3 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? 2 You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; 3 clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart."

The Spirit, Not the Letter
"4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit;[a] for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."