How can you know and imitate such infinite love? How can you receive divine fullness? Alone, you have no such strength. That is the whole point of the prayer, isn’t it? You ask God to “strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being.” And what is His reply? Christ dwells in your heart! The ability is not yours, but Christ’s. Christ in you empowers you to know His boundless love. He fills you with all the fullness of God.
Living in you, Christ keeps on doing what He does so well, thinking of others, loving them, and sacrificing for them. The difference is this: Now He loves them through your heart. Now He works through your earthly body to touch the sick30 and to help the needy.31 Now He uses your mouth “to proclaim Good News to the poor” (Luke 4:18).32 As you let Him, Christ in you transforms33 you into a winner. He wins His victories through you!
But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession.… (2 Corinthians 2:14).34
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us (Romans 8:37). M
CHRIST IN YOU MAKES YOU MORE THAN A CONQUEROR!
30. Touch: Mark 7:33; 8:22; Luke 5:13; 22:51 cf. Acts 28:8; Luke 7:14; 8:46; 18:15
31. Help the needy: Mark 6:34; 8:1-8; Luke 4:18; Acts 10:38 cf. Matthew 25:34-40; Romans 12:8,13; 1 John 3:17
32. Cf. Luke 6:20; James 2:5; 1 Corinthians 1:28; on responsibility to share the Good News, see The Winning Family (Part 1), “Your Personal Story: God’s Living Link of Love,” Note 7.
33. Transformed: 2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 12:2 cf. Matthew 17:9; Mark 9:2 where the same verb is translated as “transfigured.”
34. When Roman armies celebrated major victories, their chief commander took the lead in a public victory march or “triumphal procession.” Prisoners of war followed behind him in the procession. 2 Corinthians 2:14 pictures God as the chief commander, and us as participants in the parade, likely as fellow-victors “in Christ,” or else as captives won “in Christ.” Whichever picture is intended, God’s continual victory brings glory to Him and benefit to us, for which we are eternally thankful!
Research Subjects
- God uses weakness
- Illness
- “Joy” and “rejoice” in Philippians
- Joy in trials
- Imitate Paul and similar leaders
- Things “known” as certainties
We are called to love as Christ loves, but that is impossible. How can we, mere humans, love like God? God Himself gives us the strength. He shares His own vast power with us. Through Jesus and the apostles, God proved His power over demons, nature, and sickness. Paul served as an example of enjoying victory, even while in the lowest circumstances on earth. The foundation of God’s truth has been laid, and we simply build on it. Christ in us gives us the power to succeed spiritually in every way, including loving unlovable people and winning others to Christ.
Memory Verses
- 2 Timothy 1:7 – … for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
- 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 – So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
- Philippians 4:4,13 – Rejoice in the Lord always! … I can do everything through Him who strengthens me.
- Colossians 2:15 – He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
- 1 John 2:14 – … you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.
- 1 John 4:4 – Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
- 1 John 3:19-20 – By this [Christ’s love and our imitation of it] we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.
- Romans 8:37 – No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
You O Lord are a Mighty Warrior. You are our Rock, our strong fortress. We lift Your name on high as our banner of victory. Through You we become more than conquerors. I confess my own weakness and doubts. So I pray, in the thoughts of Ephesians 3, strengthen me with power through Your Spirit in my inner being, so that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith. Grant me a strong sense of confidence in You. Grant me success in everything to which You call me…