Joshua 1:3; Ephesians 1:3

Everything in Christ

All of the great saints were receivers. They learned how to receive from God the Father "every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." All of the Lord Jesus Christ is mine at conversion, but I possess only as much as I claim and receive by faith.

Joshua and his friend Caleb walked across the Promised Land. They had crossed the valleys, plains and mountains and had brought back to Moses samples of its fruitfulness. Forty years later Joshua and Caleb are camped across the Jordan River ready to enter and conquer the Promised Land.

After the death of Moses, God spoke to Joshua and said, "Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you . . ." (Joshua 1:3). Go and take possession. All this land is yours. I have given it to you. Go in and by faith claim it as your own.

God has given every believer every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. I got all of Christ when I trusted Him as my Savior. Am I appropriating my spiritual blessings? Am I drawing upon my heavenly resources for my daily life? Do I focus on my self-centered condition, or upon my eternal position in Christ?

Practical everyday sanctification in the Christian life is not an instantaneous act. It is a steady, day by day growth process. We are to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit causes us to focus on Christ. The work of the Holy Spirit is to daily deliver us from sin and transform us into the likeness of Christ.

Although we may not be satisfied with the growth in our Christian life, we should be satisfied with what we have in Christ right now.

The secret to growing in Christ is walking in the Spirit. Galatians 5: 16, " . . . walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh." "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit" (v. 25).

The goal of the Holy Spirit is to present us to the Father complete in Christ (Colossians 1:28). He does this by daily transformation into the likeness of Christ. The Apostle Paul encourages us with these words in II Corinthians 3:18. "We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit."

As we gaze into the word of God, the Holy Spirit removes the veils of unbelief, and selfishness, and the eyes of our understanding are enlightened. We look into the face of Christ and we are gradually being transformed into His character. The more I gaze into His face I see the holiness of God, His divine love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fruitfulness, gentleness, self control, etc.

God has provided us with everything we need to live the Christian life. He does it in our vital union with Jesus Christ through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

God's Promised Land for the saint is immeasurably rich. You are immensely rich in Christ! You have hidden treasures in Christ ready for your use. What do you possess in the treasure house? What do you find when you search your temple?

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body" (I Corinthians 6:19-20).

Have you come to the realization that the Holy Spirit lives in you? Christ Himself lives in your heart by faith. The eternal Spirit of God has made your body His home and He lives within you.

The Apostle Paul expressed it when he wrote, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ . . . " (Ephesians 1:3). We are not lacking in any spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. There are no second class citizens in His kingdom.

Then why do we go about in abject spiritual poverty? Why do we have a haunting fear that we can not be what God wants us to be? We have riches untold. We are spiritual billionaires because Christ indwells our hearts through His Spirit. Many Christians do not realize they are rich. They think and behave as though they were spiritual paupers.

True, we were dead in our trespasses and sins before we were made unbelievably rich by God's grace. "But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:4-7).

You have been made extremely rich through the exceedingly great poverty of Christ. God did it in His grace (II Corinthians 8:9).

From the moment you were saved, you have possessed the Holy Spirit. You have boundless spiritual resources in Him who has made His home in our hearts. All of His wealth is available to each of us. How sad to think that He has made little difference in the daily lives of many believers, not because they have never received the Holy Spirit, but because they have not realized they have Him living within them.

The same Holy Spirit who lived in the apostle Paul indwells you and me! Everything that Paul had in Christ you and I have in Christ. Nothing is lacking. We have everything in Christ Jesus.

"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me" (Galatians 2:20). Paul often uses the idea of dying with Christ (Gal. 5:24; 6:14; Rom. 6:8; Col. 2:20) and burial with Christ (Rom. 6:4; Col. 2:12). Paul’s identification with Christ has become so complete that his separate personality is merged into that of Christ. It is the same as the vital union of the branch and the vine in John chapter 15.

Christ wants us to exchange our poverty and hunger for the satisfaction He gives. Instead of mourning, He gives indescribable joy. Instead of spiritual slavery, the Spirit gives you freedom. He sets you free to let Christ live in you.

Do you appreciate who you are in Christ? Are you neglecting the resources that are yours in the Holy Spirit? Have you learned by faith how to draw upon His assets?

God the Father has blessed you in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. Weymouth translates, God "has crowned us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ." Could it be that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing that "heaven itself enjoys"? Knox even suggests these spiritual blessings are "higher than heaven itself."

Do need peace? Christ is our peace.

"Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me." "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful" (John 14:1, 27).

Do you need contentment? It can be found only in Christ Jesus.

"Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst" (John 6:35).

Do you need spiritual power right now? That power is found in Christ.

"All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth" (Matthew 28:18). "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13).

Do you need wisdom, sanctification or redemption? These are found only in Christ. The apostle Paul reminds us it is "by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption" (I Corinthians 1:30).

Do you need victory over your current situation? Christ gives us victory.

"But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:37-39).

The apostle Paul declared from experience, "you are complete in Him (Christ)" (Colossians 2:10). To possess Jesus Christ is to possess all these spiritual blessings in heavenly places.

Do you think for one moment God the Father would short change His own Son? Remember our position; we are in Christ. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3, NIV). It is a completed action. He has already blessed us in Christ Jesus. There is no spiritual blessing that is not mine in Christ Jesus because Christ dwells in my heart by the Holy Spirit.

Is there anything lacking? Then perhaps you are not abiding in Christ. If there is any need not provided then it tells me that I am not in God's will. He will provide everything I need if I am walking with Him. My resources in Christ are boundless.

Because the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts, we are never without resources. We have a never failing source of strength. The Lord Jesus who dwells in our hearts by faith can meet every need. And His supply never runs out. We have a constant "provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:19).

I fail to draw from Christ's presence because of my selfishness and unbelief. I must learn the most difficult lesson in the Christian life that without Him I can do nothing.

Major Ian Thomas writes candidly:

God has chosen the weak and the base and the nothing, and the things that are not, to confound the things that are, and all God demands of a man is his availability--to be what man was created to be, the human vehicle of the divine life, inhabited by God for God. That God may be Himself . . . What you are is totally irrelevant--nationality-wise, money-wise, family-wise, education-wise, personality-wise, and any other wise, if only you will recognize the principle that it is God that works in you, to will and to do His good-pleasure.

He takes an old clay pot and fills it with Himself that He may be glorified. We try to fill the pot with self and glory in ourselves and it will never do. We can have no confidence in self. It will mar the glory of God every time. However, when we hand Him our old pots He fills us with Himself and He gets the glory because of "the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us" (II Corinthians 4:7). It is Christ working in us to do His work for His glory.

Are you drawing upon your fortune from Christ by faith? Are you taking possession of the spiritual Promised Land? The Lord stands before us and commands us to go and take possession. All this land is yours. I have given it to you. Go in by faith and claim it as your own.