They look at what the Bible says concerning the believer and say, "I'm not like that. I'm going to try to be like it." If that is how you approach the Christian life, you will fail. You will never do it, because you will be relying on human effort. The life of faith, however, is a life of believing the Word of God. In faith, the Spirit-filled believer looks at the Word of God and declares, "I am like that. Therefore I will act like it." The devil, or your own fleshly mind, or your family will say, "You're not like that." That is why faith is essential, for by faith we look at things which are not seen. Our evidence is faith itself. We believe what the Word says about us above any other voice. It tells us we are children of the Living God, partakers of the Divine nature, more than conquerors, victorious, free from the dominion of sin, holy. You must believe it. If you are born of the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit, then that is what you are like. All kinds of voices of doubt, without and within, may be saying "impossible", but faith - not trying - will bring you to victory.

In some ways it is like learning to swim. You say, "I can't swim. It's impossible for a heavy body to do such a thing." But when you gain the confidence and move out in that confidence then you wonder how you ever thought it was impossible. Similarly, when you become a Christian and you begin to move in the life of faith, you cannot imagine what was so difficult about it before. Before it seemed so impossible. How can anyone live apart from sin and the lusts of the flesh? How can I live with a thought life that is pure and so on? It looks so difficult until you begin to move in the power of what you are. Then you prove that the Lord is true, because you are then living according to what His word says and not according to what your mind tells you. Your mind will tell you all sorts of different things about yourself based on what you used to be like. However, the Bible says that you are a new creation. That is what you must move in.

Jesus said, in John 15 v 5, "Without Me, you can do nothing." Now when we say that we are going to try to be what we should be, then we are doing it without Him and consequently fall flat on our face. But when we open our heart and life to the Holy Spirit and move out in faith, then we are moving with Him and He with us. Without Him we can do nothing, but with Him and in Him we are more than conquerors. So in Philippians 2 vv 12 and 13, it says, "For it is God that works in you both to will and to do His good pleasure." This is the secret: it is not us but God who works in us. Being filled with the Spirit is opening ourselves up to let God work in us, to let the Lord Jesus Christ be revealed in us, being responsive to His leading and guiding.

Now let us look at the work of the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us, as far as the world and the unsaved are concerned, that everyone is born dead in trespasses and sin, spiritually dead, cut off from God. And the Holy Spirit draws such men and women to God.