Already Ours

There is SO MUCH in this verse!

I came across it while doing Priscilla Shirer’s Armor of God study this week. I’m not even going to lie, it’s one of my favorites. I am passionate about what this verse tells us, and I desire deeply for every person to understand these words are for them. Not simply to read, but to live!

See, I think that’s one of our problems with the Bible. We read it like we would other books. A good story. A fix-it manual. Or several auto-biographies rolled into one. We keep a safe distance, a third-party participant if you will, from the words on these pages…but the Bible is a living, breathing, powerful weapon full of truths and actions for our lives today!

The Bible was meant for us to know God intimately and, by extension, to change our lives radically. Those words on the pages are his very breath. They are filled with power. And they are ours to experience in a very tangible way. Oh, how much we miss in our lives when we think it’s simply ink on a page.

Simply look at this verse. Once we understand that it’s our to live, we can begin to let it transform us. First, we have hope to which he’s called us, meaning when we call on him we are saved. Redeemed. Free from our sins. Free. Now that is hope.

But he doesn’t stop there. He has an inheritance for us. We’re not talking monetary, no, we’re talking riches like mercy, grace, wisdom, joy, peace…life changing riches that are ours because we now belong to him.

Even better? The verse goes on to one more. Possibly the most important for us to grasp. His incomparably great power resides in us. Listen to that! It’s the linchpin of our Christian lives, people. The same God who raised the dead lives in us and has given us access to that power through him. This verse doesn’t say we are waiting for it, it says it’s already ours.

So why do so many of us live like we’re more of a watch battery than a power plant? There is nothing satan can throw at us that the God who lives in us can’t defeat. We need to start behaving like the God who raised the dead and called dry bones to life is the same God who is IN us. We need to believe the Bible is active and not black ink on paper thin pages.

It’s not a story, it’s a sword. And we need to start wielding it as such. Because every promise inside of it is already ours.