Have you ever wondered why so many Christians today are living in bondage to fear, anger, doubt, and habitual sin? Or maybe you’ve had those struggles yourself and wondered why the glorious promises in Scripture don’t seem real and tangible in your everyday life. In this video, Eric Ludy pinpoints the key reason why so many Christians aren’t walking in the power and triumph of the Gospel — and what we can do about it. Defeat isn’t something we should ever surrender to — it’s something we can overcome through the power of Jesus Christ.
Transcript
I think the reason that defeat is the most common experience that many Christians today have has to do with the fact that our Gospel today is truncated. It’s clipped. If you take a bird and clip its wings, it can’t fly. It doesn’t mean it couldn’t fly, it just can’t fly with clipped wings. And when you have a Gospel with clipped wings, you’re going to find that it isn’t able to function the way a bird is intended, or created by God to function.
We can read Scripture and watch the life of Paul the Apostle and cheer, “Go, Paul!” But why can’t we do what Paul did? Oftentimes, that’s because we’ve taken aspects of the Gospel and left certain aspects on the table. The key aspect that I would say is a functional point of Christianity has to do with the Gospel’s invasion of our life.
It’s not just a mental assent to say, “Yes, Jesus died for me.” We must ask the important follow-up question: What does that mean to you? Well, He bought your body with His blood. Give it to Him. It’s your reasonable act of service. Just give Him what is rightfully His and let the Holy Spirit move in and take over.
When Jesus Christ moves in and takes over a life, these hands are no longer my hands, they’re His hands. These eyes are no longer my eyes, they are His eyes. This mind is now the mind of Christ. His mouth is now His mouth for Him to speak what He wants to be spoken.
It’s a little scary for many people. So if we keep control of our life, it’s the equivalent of saying, “Jesus, You stay over there. I’ll stay over here. But I esteem You and I love You.”
If you do that, you’re going to find that you’re living a life with clipped wings. It’s not as God intended it to and so as a result, you’re not going to fly. You’re sort of like that ostrich running around on the ground esteeming flight but you can’t get up. You can look at the eagle in the air and read about it in Scripture, but God needs to have control of your life if you want to fly.
So I would say that is right at the crux of why there is a latent weakness to the Body of Christ today.
If you’d like to take these truths deeper, join us here at Ellerslie for one of our upcoming discipleship programs.
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