Everything in the spiritual realm that the believer needs to make him a success belongs to him. The Bible says “we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3).
We sing in some of our churches, “I Surrender All” and “All is on the Altar,” not realising that when we took Christ as our Saviour, we confessed Him as our Lord over our lives (Romans 10:9-10).
If we do that, we haven’t anything to surrender, as we come to recognise the fact that we are not our own, we were bought with a price (I Cor. 6:20), and you can’t very well surrender something that doesn’t belong to you, nor lay something on God’s altar that is not yours to give. You belong to Him. Not only do you belong to Him by your own consent; you are like a wife that consents in the wedding ceremony.
She gives herself to that man. She doesn’t have the wedding service repeated day after day. She belongs to him. The believer belongs to Christ. It is a once for all union. That is in the past tense. The thing is done. It was consummated when you received Eternal Life and became a New Creation in Christ Jesus. When you recognise that, you grow to know the reality of it so that you live daily in the consciousness of your union with Him; of your oneness with Him. He is yours; you are His.
All that He wrought for you in His substitutionary sacrifice, is yours. You don’t have to struggle to get it. You don’t have to surrender for it. You don’t have to pray for it. It is yours as much as your hands are yours, as much as your feet are yours. All our struggling, our praying and fasting to get power, is useless and it has built up within us a type of unbelief that is very difficult to overcome.
We end up having prayer chains as “we seek to get more power” from God something that we have already been given. Ephesians 3:20 says “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”
The word “power” there, means “ability.” We will translate it like this: “According to the ability of God that is at work within us.” And Philippians. 2:13 says, “It is God who is at work within us.” If you have God in you, you have the power house in you If you have Him in you, and you yield to His ability, let Him control you, everything that you need is there on tap ready for use.
I used to consecrate and surrender to the Lord daily. I found out after a while I was running in a circle. I was doing the same thing day after day. I was not making any progress. Many of our spiritual leaders have worked on a philosophy of failure. It is based on unbelief. They teach us to doubt, unconsciously.
EW Kenyon states that there are two phases of redemption, the legal, and the vital. The legal is always in the past. It is what God did for us in the past in the Great Substitution. He redeemed us. Our redemption is in the past tense. He doesn’t have to redeem us again. In other words, you can’t be born again, again. The moment that you confessed Christ and acknowledged His lordship you became a New Creation. You see that moment the Father imparted His own nature to you, so you are now by nature a child of God. That is in the past. That cannot be done again. We are now in Christ, one with Him, a branch of the Vine. That is past. You ask the Holy Spirit to come in and occupy His New Creation. All that God is doing in you in the New Creation is vital. When you understand the difference between the legal and the vital side of redemption, you will be able to take advantage of what has been done for you; of what He is doing in you, through the Holy Spirit, by the Word; and what Jesus is now doing for you at the Right Hand of the Father. The failure of the believer can usually be laid to the lack of clear apprehension of what he actually is in Christ.
When he can quietly say, “I am a New Creation; I have in me now the life of God, the nature of my Father God; I am a partaker of His Divine nature; all I need then to enable me to walk in love is to let His nature dominate me.”
Someone may ask: “Well how can I do that?” That is easy. Just begin to practice or to act upon the Word. Believing is acting upon what He has asked you to do. There is no believing without acting. Faith without works is dead. You have acted. You have arrived, and on the ground of that, you begin to take your place as a son, as a daughter in the family of God.
The Godhead dwells in you fully. You are quite safe. When you know this, you will have a fearless confession. You will dare to tell the world what you are, and what you can do. You will be able to say with perfect fearlessness: “When I pray the Father hears me.” You are not afraid to say: “Greater is He that is in me than any circumstance that may confront me, any difficulty that may confront me. I become the master of circumstances in Christ.
The Word of God means exactly what it says. When I read it, it is His present tense message to my heart, for the Word is always Now. The Father is always Now. Jesus is my Now Lord, and so I am building into myself by the aid of the Holy Spirit, the reality of the Word. This is the vital side, of what He is doing in me.
He builds Himself into me; He and the Word are one. As He builds Himself into me, He builds His faith into me; He builds His wisdom into me. Jesus is made unto me wisdom from God (1 Cor. 1:30). As the heart absorbs these real things, the mind becomes renewed and comes into fellowship with the Recreated spirit. That will mean that you are in fellowship with the Word, and with the Father. There will be no limit to you now. You are tied up with Him. His ability has become your ability. Yes, He is yours. All that He is, He is in you, and you begin to take advantage of it.
You are a New Creation. You have God’s life in you and you have the great Mighty Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead within, and if the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He will bring the Father’s life in fulness into you until it draws out the disease, or the doubts, or the fears. It will bring you into the very strength of God.
The moment a person accepts Christ, he enters into all this. Jesus bore his diseases just the same as He bore our sins. He is not troubled with his old sins. The moment that he accepted Christ, they were all remitted. He who knew no sin became sin so that we could become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). You become the righteousness of God once you have received Christ. Righteousness is a gift, you don’t work or fast for it. Your salvation also means that you also have access to prosperity. His Word states that though He was rich yet for your sake and my sake became poor so that we would become rich.
Your redemption is a done deal (Hebrews 9:12). You should know who you are in Christ.
- Dr Doug Mamvura is a graduate of Charis Bible School. Feedback: drdoug@corporatemomentum.biz or Twitter @dougmamvura