INTRODUCTION
Last week, we examined the subject of the indwelling Presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer in the new birth. Being born again is not just an experience; rather, it is receiving the indwelling Presence of God by His Spirit. The consciousness of this reality gives us the boldness to confront any issue in life with absolute assurance of victory.
We shall continue with this study today.
1) God For Us, God with Us, and God in Us;
The New Testament gives us three relations that God sustains toward man. First, God is for us. Second, God is with us. And third, God is in us.
To have God be for us guarantees our success: ". . . If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Rom. 8:31). If God is on our side, we are sure to win in life. If God is for you, and you know that He is for you, you become utterly fearless in life. No matter how difficult the situation may be, no matter how dark the clouds that hang upon the horizon of your life may be, you are calmly assured that you must win in every circumstance because God is for you. There can be no defeat if the Lord is for us. And, thank God, He is for us. If God be for us, who can be against us?
You can also have the assurance that not only is God for you, but in every place in life and in every situation, God is with you. No matter what the circumstances may be, if you are a Christian, the Lord is with you. The knowledge of the Word of God along this line should certainly cause our hearts to leap for joy within us, and buoy our spirits up in faith and confidence.
Under the New Testament or New Covenant, the Bible says we have a better covenant established on better promises (Heb. 8:6). Under the covenant in the Old Testament, God was for Israel and with Israel, but He was not in Israel. However, in the New Testament, God is with us and for us, but we also have something better — God is in us. God is actually making His home in our bodies as His temple (1 Cor. 6:19).
2) Greater Is He That Is in You; 1 John 4:4
"Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because GREATER IS HE THAT IS IN YOU, THAN HE THAT IS IN THE WORLD."
Who is the "he" that is in the world? That is Satan, the god of this world.
2 CORINTHIANS 4:4 “In whom THE GOD OF THIS WORLD hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”
But He who is in you - the Holy Ghost —- is greater! The Greater One is in you if you are born again. God Himself in the Person of the Holy Spirit lives in the born-again believer. All that God could possibly be to you and do for you, the Holy Ghost through His indwelling Presence is to you and for you and in you. If we were really conscious of the Greater One in us, then we would have no fear of the devil. We would have no fear of "he that is in the world" because "He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world."
John said, ". . . greater is he that is IN YOU . . ." (1 John 4:4). Going back to John 14:16, we
hear Jesus say, "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever." Then in the last part of verse 17, Jesus said, ". . . he . . . shall be IN YOU." That is exactly what John was saying in First John 4:4 too: ". . . greater is he that is IN YOU, than he that is in the world."
It's one thing to try to do something mentally yourself; it's another thing to trust Him — the Greater One — who is in you. He is everything in us that the Scriptures say He is. He'll do everything in us the Word says He will do. And He will be everything in us the Word says He will be.
CONCLUSION
Smith Wigglesworth, a man of God who was used mightily of the Lord to preach faith and perform miracles of healings, said in his book, Ever Increasing Faith, "I am a thousand times bigger on the inside than I am on the outside." Someone asked Wigglesworth, "What is your secret to the great place of spirituality you have attained? His answer was, "All I ever did was to remember that greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world."
Kenneth E. Hagin’s book; The Spirit and His Gifts was used as a guide for this study
Contributor: Alex Alajiki