Living By Faith

THE HOPE OF MANKIND

For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead. (2 Corinthians 5:14)

When you see what God has done for you in Christ, the reality of redemption will swallow up your old identity.
Mark Hankins

How could Jesus Christ, one man, die on the cross and His death be for every man? It is simply a law of identification. We were all identified with one man, Adam, and affected by him. God simply took the same law that allowed one man to mess up everyone, and allowed one man, Jesus Christ, to die for everyone.

There is no hope for man outside of the blood of Jesus and His death, burial, and resurrection. A person has to be born again if he is going to get out of Adam. This changes your identity. No longer can you identify with defeat because you are identified with the triumph of Christ. No longer can you identify with failure, sickness, and bondage because you are identified with Christ. His victory is your victory! His life is your life! His blessing is your blessing! Everything that God put in Him now comes into you. You were identified with Adam before, but you are not in Adam now – you are in Christ!

Confession: I am born again! The blood of Jesus and the power of the Gospel has changed my life! I identify with the triumph and blessing of Christ!

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OUR IDENTIFICATION WITH CHRIST

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. (Galatians 2:20)

When Jesus was crucified, He took you with Him because He took your identical condition.
Mark Hankins

I heard the story of a fireman in California whose hand was so severely burned that his doctors determined they would have to amputate. One of the doctors wanted to try experimental surgery; he knew that the body has certain regenerative powers. He cut the man’s side open and inserted the burned hand for a period of time. To the doctor’s amazement, when they removed the fireman’s hand from his side, it had begun to heal and grow new skin.

I believe God did a similar surgery with man. When Adam sinned, man’s condition was so bad it looked like God would have to amputate, but God had a plan of redemption. He cut open Jesus’ side and put us “in Christ.” In Him, the power and the grace of God went to work and reversed the condition that Satan had caused. A new man was created — a man in Christ — a righteous man, a victorious man, a redeemed man, a healed man!

Confession: The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

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THE LANGUAGE OF REDEMPTION

But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach. (Romans 10:8)

The Gospel of Christ is a language of power; it is the power of God working in this world. Mark Hankins

Speaking the language of redemption will cause a radical change in your thinking and in your seeing. When you speak like God speaks, you will overthrow and overturn anything the devil has done in your life. We must boldly say, “I am who God says I am. I have what God says I have. I can do what God says I can do!”  The Gospel of Christ is a language of power, love, faith, victory, and blessing.

Instead of being controlled by the influences of the world, the flesh, and the devil, speaking the perfect language, will cause a revolution — a radical change — in your life.  Instead of seeing yourself as a failure, you begin to speak God’s Word. You speak that you are an overcomer and that you have been seated with Christ in heavenly places. You are a winner in Christ!

Confession:  I am God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He prepared beforehand that I should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)

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REVELATION…CALCULATION

Calculate, if you can, the gigantic power behind all this. Sons, quickened into life and consciousness. (Ephesians 1:19 Carpenter Translation)

This power that raised Christ from the dead, will do, in the believer, the same thing it did in Christ! – Mark Hankins

We must get a revelation of the power that is on the inside of us! For just as with natural things, we cannot grasp and use them if we cannot see or sense them. When we have revelation of the power that is in us, and when we activate that power by our confession of it, that power begins to work in us. It duplicates in our souls and bodies what has already been accomplished in Christ.

Paul prayed for believers to have a revelation of this power. This power that raised Christ from the dead will do in the believer the same thing it did in Christ. It will not make our bodies immortal just yet, but it will melt down, undo, break up, and dissolve anything the devil has done in us. It will melt away and dissolve disease, break up bondages, undo complexes and restraints. This power will also deliver us from demonic powers and activities.

Confession: Now the Son of God came to the earth with the express purpose of liquidating the devil’s activities. The reason the Son of God was made manifest (visible) was to undo (destroy, loosen and dissolve) the works the devil (has done). (1 John 3:8 Philips and AMP)

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RESURRECTION POWER

For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8)

The power that God used to raise Christ from the dead dissolved, melted, and liquidated the works of the devil. Mark Hankins

Jesus came to redeem us primarily through His death and resurrection. The power of Christ’s resurrection is destructive — not to us, but to the works of the enemy. The word destroy is luo, which means to loose, break, or undo. Jesus rose from the dead to undo all that Satan had done in man through the fall. Jesus put an end to the works of the devil by first bearing those works in Himself as our substitute in His death, and then rising again free from them all.

In 2 Peter 3:10-12, the word luo was translated “melt” and “dissolved.” When we take this definition back to 1 John 3:8, we get an interesting insight into Christ’s destruction of the works of the devil. “Now the Son of God came to the earth with the express purpose of liquidating the devil’s activities.” (Phillips Translation)

God made Jesus to bear and become all that was wrong with us in spirit, soul, and body and then vaporized it with the power of His resurrection!

Confession: Jesus was my substitute! Because of His death and resurrection, I am free from the works of Satan! (John 8:36)

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