The Will SPONTANEOUS VICTORY
Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory. 1 Chron. 29:11.
So long as we are in the relationship of abiding dependence on God's power, sin has no dominion over us. The experience that we know of sometimes being defeated and sometimes having victory come about because we don't depend on God's power all the time. We are painfully aware of these times when we fall and fail and are overcome by the enemy. We tend to become preoccupied with the one time that we lost our temper during the day, and conclude that we have had no victories.
The Desire of Ages, page 668, tells us that when we know God as it is our privilege to know Him, our life will be a life of continual obedience. Sin will be hateful to us. Is it possible that when we are in the close relationship of knowing God, and depending on and trusting in Him, that we may not even notice some of our victories, because they come naturally? If there is victory and obedience in the Christian life that is natural and spontaneous, then much of it could happen without our especially noticing it. Why is this? Because when those kinds of victories come, where is our attention? It is on Jesus. It is when our attention is on ourselves that we are so aware of how we are doing--and it is when our attention is on ourselves that we experience defeat!
Because of this, it is Satan's constant effort to get us to take our eyes off Christ, so that He won't be able to work His will in our lives. He knows that if he can get us to look away from Jesus and to ourselves, he has us. And he can succeed in diverting our attention from Christ by drawing our attention either to our defeats orto our victories! Have you ever been defeated because Satan came to you and said, "Look at how well you've been doing lately"?
But we have been told, "Not even by a thought did He [Jesus] yield to temptation. So it may be with us. Christ's humanity was united with divinity; He was fitted for the conflict by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And He came to make us partakers of the divine nature. So long as we are united to Him by faith, sin has no more dominion over us."--The Desire of Ages, p. 123. As we continue to look to Jesus day by day, we will learn to depend more constantly on Him.
Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory. 1 Chron. 29:11.
So long as we are in the relationship of abiding dependence on God's power, sin has no dominion over us. The experience that we know of sometimes being defeated and sometimes having victory come about because we don't depend on God's power all the time. We are painfully aware of these times when we fall and fail and are overcome by the enemy. We tend to become preoccupied with the one time that we lost our temper during the day, and conclude that we have had no victories.
The Desire of Ages, page 668, tells us that when we know God as it is our privilege to know Him, our life will be a life of continual obedience. Sin will be hateful to us. Is it possible that when we are in the close relationship of knowing God, and depending on and trusting in Him, that we may not even notice some of our victories, because they come naturally? If there is victory and obedience in the Christian life that is natural and spontaneous, then much of it could happen without our especially noticing it. Why is this? Because when those kinds of victories come, where is our attention? It is on Jesus. It is when our attention is on ourselves that we are so aware of how we are doing--and it is when our attention is on ourselves that we experience defeat!
Because of this, it is Satan's constant effort to get us to take our eyes off Christ, so that He won't be able to work His will in our lives. He knows that if he can get us to look away from Jesus and to ourselves, he has us. And he can succeed in diverting our attention from Christ by drawing our attention either to our defeats orto our victories! Have you ever been defeated because Satan came to you and said, "Look at how well you've been doing lately"?
But we have been told, "Not even by a thought did He [Jesus] yield to temptation. So it may be with us. Christ's humanity was united with divinity; He was fitted for the conflict by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And He came to make us partakers of the divine nature. So long as we are united to Him by faith, sin has no more dominion over us."--The Desire of Ages, p. 123. As we continue to look to Jesus day by day, we will learn to depend more constantly on Him.
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