I am loved! God loves me so much that even when I was a sinner, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for me. The blood of Christ cleanses me and makes me just as if I had never sinned. God loves me in the midst of my imperfections and weakness. Therefore I come into agreement with my Father’s view of myself, and I say, “I love myself, fully, totally, unconditionally; regardless of how well I perform. I am God’s child. I am precious. I am precious enough that God sent Jesus to die on a cross for me! Amazing love! Amazing grace! I stand forgiven, cleansed, restored, healed and decked out in His beauty! I am amazing! I am beautiful. Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful grace that pours down upon me! I receive it. I say yes to it. I come into agreement with it. I am amazing. Thank you, Lord!”
My spirit is joined to the Holy Spirit, so I no longer live alone, but Christ energizes my spirit and lives out through me, restoring my heart, my soul and my body. I can do all things through Christ who lives within me and who strengthens me. Christ is my hope of glory. I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. I am strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for in Him all the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him I have been made complete.
I am joined to Christ. Christ is formed within me, and I am clothed with Christ. I am saturated with Christ, through and through. On whatever level of myself I look, I see Jesus.
I have been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. I stand holy and blameless before God in love.
I have received God’s divine nature within me, and through it I am escaping the corruption and lust that is in the world. I live by faith that all the promises of God are to me through Christ. I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
Everything in heaven and earth is summed up in Christ, and through Christ I have obtained an inheritance. I pray for a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened, so that I will know what is the hope of God’s calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward me, a believer. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all.
I was dead in my trespasses and sins, in which I formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Living in the lusts of my flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and was by nature a child of wrath, even as others. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved me, even when I was dead in my transgressions, made me alive together with Christ (by grace I have been saved), and raised me up with Him, and seated me with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
According to the riches of Christ’s glory, I am strengthened with power through His Spirit in my inner man. Christ dwells in my heart through faith; and I am rooted and grounded in love. I am able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love, which surpasses knowledge. I am filled up with all the fullness of God.
So I worship Him Who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that I ask or think, according to the power that works within me. To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
I pray that I may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that I will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
I am strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, and I am able to obtain patience, joyfulness and thankfulness. I share in God’s inheritance to the saints.
I have been rescued from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in Whom I have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although I was formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled me in His fleshly body through death, in order to present me before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—if indeed I continue in faith.
God willed to make known what is the riches of His glory to me, which is Christ in me, the hope of glory. So I proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that I may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.
In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. As I have received Christ, I will walk in Him. That is by faith. I will be established in faith, and I will overflow with gratitude. For in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him I have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; and in Him I was also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which I was also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When I was dead in my transgressions and the uncircumcision of my flesh, He made me alive together with Him, having forgiven me all my transgressions, and canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against me, which was hostile to me; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
Therefore no one is to act as my judge, including me, in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day—things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. No one will defraud me of my prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.
Since I have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, I will not submit myself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men. These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.
Since I have been raised up with Christ, I will keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. I set my mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth because I have died and my life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, Who is my life, is revealed, then I will be revealed with Him in glory.
Therefore I consider the members of my earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them I also once walked, when I was living in them. But now I put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech from my mouth.
I do not lie to others, since I have laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One Who created him—a renewal in which there is no distinction between people, but Christ is all, and in all.
If I love others, God abides in me, and His love is perfected in me. By this I know that I abide in Him and He in me, because He has given me of His Spirit.
By His doing I am in Christ Jesus, Who became to me wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.”
I have determined to speak of nothing except Jesus Christ, and His death and life within us. My preaching will not be in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Yet I do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but I speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
“As it is written, ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him'” (1 Cor. 2:9).
For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now I have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit Who is from God, so that I may know the things freely given to me by God, which things I also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.
For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct him? But I have the mind of Christ.
Verses undergirding my confession of who I am: 1 Corinthians 6:17; Galatians 2:20; Philippians 4:13; Colossians 1:11, 27-29; 2:9,10; Galatians 3:27; 4:19; Ephesians 1:4; 2 Peter 1:4; 2 Corinthians 1:20; Ephesians 1:3, 10,11, 17-23; 2:1-7; 3:16-21; Colossians 2:3,6,7,9-23; 3:1-11; I John 4:7-16; I Corinthians 1:30 – 2:16 {eoa}
Mark Virkler, Ph.D., has authored more than 50 books in the areas of hearing God’s voice and spiritual growth. He is the founder of Communion With God Ministries and Christian Leadership University (cluonline.com), where the voice of God is at the center of every learning experience. Mark has taught on developing intimacy with God and spiritual healing for 30-plus years on six continents. The message has been translated into over 40 languages, and he has helped to establish more than 250 church-centered Bible schools around the world.
This article originally appeared at cwgministries.org.
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