Are You Limiting God?

* This teaching is a foundational study from The Bible Tells Me So published by The American Christian Press in 1973.

Jesus Christ is the sweetest name I know, for it is in His name, and His name alone, that I see the unlimited possibilities in man. It is in the name of Jesus Christ that men and women are saved, born again, converted. It is in the name of Jesus Christ that the sick are healed to rise up again and declare the glory of the Lord. It is in the name of Jesus Christ that devil spirits are cast out and people are forever freed in body and mind. Unless we know that name of Jesus Christ as a vital living reality in our lives, we are most definitely limiting God.

Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. – Matthew 12: 22

The spirit of God is born within us the very moment we accept and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and that God raised Him from the dead. This is a supernatural miracle of God. We have nothing to do with this new birth except to allow it to take place in our lives. God is the miracle worker. He is the one who creates a new spirit within us and makes us His children. From then on, we are God's children, we belong to the family of God, we are children of God, sons of God, and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus.

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God, And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we also be glorified together. – Romans 8: 16-17

Then we are no longer servants who know not what their Master is about to do, but we are sons, sons of God. Satan then has no further legal rights over us unless we permit him to usurp authority which he does not rightfully possess. We may limit God in our lives by not knowing what is legally ours as sons of God by Christ Jesus.

When Christ died on Calvary, He was our complete substitute for sin and the consequences of sin. Nothing was left undone in His substitution for us. When we begin to see this truth and we accept the work Christ accomplished as a finished reality, we become spirit-filled men and women who are well-pleasing in God's sight. When this great transformation takes place and we do not limit God, then we will not talk about worry, fear, anxiety, sickness and want. We forget those negatives for we are sons by the One who overcame. We are men and women who refuse to limit the power of God in us because we desire to bring to the world the knowledge of the living Christ. When we do not limit God, we will be living in The Word and The Word will be living in us. Our life will be the story of the vine and the branches.

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work. -- II Corinthians 9: 8

Have we been limiting God in our lives? We must be if we do not have all sufficiency in everything. Sufficiency is the will of God for His children in order that His children may abound unto every good work. Our having sufficiency is God's Will for us; yet how many of us have limited God by not allowing Him to fulfill this promise in our lives? How slow we have been to realize that God is our ability, that He is the life of our lives, the strength of our strength, that He is our sufficiency.

We frequently limit God in ourselves by our wrong believing, by accepting the knowledge that comes to us through our senses.

For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. – Romans 8: 6-7

Our reason says, "That just cannot be," and so we confess the negative, when all the time His spirit within us is crying out, "Sufficiency in everything." We have been so schooled to revere the knowledge that comes to us through our five senses that we fail to recognize the knowledge that comes from the higher realm, the spiritual, where the Word of God, and not reason, has first place. Both realms or worlds are here: the natural world is factual; the spiritual world is true. As there are four kingdoms in this world, and one supersedes the other: the plant kingdom, animal kingdom, kingdom of man and the Kingdom of God; so, there is a natural world and a supernatural or spiritual world. The natural world and everything in it comes to the mind through or by way of the natural senses. The truths of the spiritual world are absolutely not dependent upon the senses, but rather on the spirit from God in man.

We cannot know anything about the spiritual world by way of the senses. Paul says this by divine inspiration in I Corinthians.

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they [spiritual matters] are spiritually discerned. -- I Corinthians 2: 14

Spiritual things from the spiritual world may be known in this world only by the spirit which dwells in us. Then, and only then, can the Spirit relate impressions and truths to us about the spiritual world and make them logical. Then, and only then, do we have the God-given ability within us, making known to us things about the spiritual world.

Time and time again, after having explained the difference between the natural and spiritual worlds, how the one supersedes the other and that two entirely different sets of laws are in existence, people have said to me that they were thereafter able to give God the place He deserves. Then they refused to limit God within themselves.

Few people realize the great spiritual truth of Christ's substitution and the believer's righteousness. A man in whom the new creation lives is righteous before God, according to the Word of God. The born-again man is righteous, and to be righteous means that we can stand before God in the righteousness with which He clothed us by our acceptance of Christ as our substitute for sin and the consequences of sin.

I will give you a definition of righteousness that will help you to break the powers of darkness in and over your life. Righteousness is your God-given ability to stand in the Father's presence without a sense of sin, guilt or condemnation. That means that you as a child of God can also stand in the very presence of Satan without fear or defeat because you know your rights in Christ and you have refused to limit God in you.

When we recognize that God in Christ lives in us, that kind of believing makes us victorious over Satan in every way. We then come to the place where we rely upon the power or the ability of God in Christ in us. We recognize our place in life and we work knowing that God in Christ in us assures us of success. We go to our shops with natural confidence - into our homes, into our businesses, knowing that God in Christ in us makes a winning combination in every situation.

Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he [Christ in you], than he [Satan and all his devil spirits] that is in the world. – I John 4: 4

I want you to notice Ephesians 3: 20. As a matter of fact, I want you to learn it so well that it will be a living reality in you day by day for then I know you will have released the power of God in your life.

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power [or ability of God] that worketh in us. -- Ephesians 3: 20

How much are we allowing God to work in us? That is the paramount question. It is not a question of God's willingness or ability. It is simply a question of allowing the limitlessness of God to live in us and work in us, to will and to do His good pleasure. He will do exceedingly abundantly all that we ask or think, but only to the degree that we manifest the internal potential power.

Thus, I know that the "more abundant life" which is spoken of in John 10: 10 is in me. He is no longer with me to convict me of my sin and shortcomings; but He is in me to guide me and lead me into all truth and reality. Now we are "labourers together with God … " Now we are God's fellow-workers. What a glorious privilege.

Are you limiting God? Why not release the power of God that is latent within you, and believe God for the abundance which He has promised?

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