The Bible says that as a man thinks within himself, so IS he (Proverbs 23:7). Contemporary expression would probably call this self image: people who think highly of themselves will achieve highly and those with poor self image will be low achievers. God has in mind that you would be a HIGH achiever. You have been created to take whatever God gives you and increase it by using your faith together with His ability and power to make it happen. The only limits on your achievements are the strength of your faith and your willingness to use His ability and power instead of your own.

According to Scripture Believers have the right to enjoy everything in the Kingdom of God. That's because there's a specific Covenant between Jesus the Messiah and God the Father signed in the blood of the Lamb that conveys these rights to every Believer. All the rights are spelled out in the written Covenant and if Jesus has become your Lord then you're in right-standing with the Father and you have access to the rights. This is confirmed in Luke 12:32:

“Do not be afraid…for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the Kingdom.”

God loves you as much as He loves Jesus! In fact, He sees you as equal with Jesus - in His eyes there's no difference (John 17:23). When He sees you He sees Jesus and with the same love He loves Jesus, He also loves you (John 17:26). Consequently you're part of the household of God (Ephesians 2:19) which makes you a joint heir with Jesus. An heir is someone who receives an inheritance and so the entire estate of God, His entire Kingdom, has been inherited by His heirs. Those who know what they've inherited can by faith begin to take it up and use it. But if you don't know who you are you won't pick it up and MOST CHRISTIANS HAVE NOT PICKED UP WHAT ALREADY BELONGS TO THEM BY INHERITANCE (Ephesians 1:11).

Friend it may be hard to believe but you've inherited an important part of the Kingdom of God. All you have to do is study the Word so your faith will develop and then by love and faith you receive your inheritance. You're already the righteousness of God (Romans 3:22) which means you're in right standing with Him and eligible to receive your part of everything He has. You're supposed to reign as a king in THIS life (Romans 5:17), right now if you know who you are. See and think of yourself NOW as a king ENTITLED to live life in the greatest of surroundings fit for an heir and a son of Creator God Himself.

Now, the objective of the enemy is to keep you in your identity crisis for the rest of your life so you'll never have a chance to achieve your potential in Christ. If you don't come to understand who you really are, you'll continue to limit yourself to the abilities of the flesh person you see in the mirror. Friend, biblical prosperity is just not fully available to the carnal Christian and we're each responsible to resist the enemy so he will flee (James 4:7) and we can get on with the process of learning who we are.

It's guaranteed that the enemy will try to hold you back and keep you in your identify crisis. If you know this you can be on guard so you're prepared to respond against him THE MOMENT HE SHOWS UP. The enemy comes to kill, steal and destroy; in fact, all killing, all stealing and all destruction come from the devil. Following are some of the key things to look for because he always works in the same basic ways:

1. The enemy comes to steal the Word from us (Mark 4:15). He uses distractions so we don't study enough or we forget what we've heard or read. He tries to convince us the Word is really not that important or that it can be postponed so we'll get lazy and not apply ourselves with diligence to the job learning. The enemy also tries to convince us that the Word is not true or that it's impractical or impossible to live by. In sum, if he can keep us away from the Word, we'll never learn who we really are.

2. The enemy tries to convince us that reality is subject to the five physical senses even though the Word says exactly the opposite: "the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18). It's not easy to come to the place where you're willing to declare with confidence that reality is what can't be seen. That's why we need to develop our faith and make it stronger which can only come by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). Eventually your faith can become a force that is way more effective than your physical senses ever were.

3. The enemy seduces us into acting like, looking like, and thinking like the World. Yes, we're supposed to be IN the World but not OF it (John 15:19; 17:11; 17:14, 16). We're supposed to come OUT of the World (John 17:15). But because we're surrounded by the World, we tend to identify with it and when we do we're subject to the World's ways of doing things which measure reality by the physical senses and by man's intelligence. The enemy's objective is to cause us to forget who we are according to the Word so we measure ourselves against the standards of the World and wind up seeing ourselves much lower than God sees us.

4. The enemy makes us conscious of our sin and then condemns us for it. Friend, the Bible says that once you're born again all you have to do is confess your sins as you go along and God will be faithful and righteous to forgive you and keep you completely clean from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). The devil doesn't want you to know who you are so you'll be weighed down by his condemnation; but the work at the Cross of Calvary was complete and ALL your sins have already been paid for.

5. He tries to convince us we're not righteous because we're not holy enough. It's sad but tradition has confused us about "righteousness." The word "righteous" simply means to be in right standing with God. When you're born again you come into that right standing by grace. That's all there is to it. Jesus already did the work at the Cross. By faith you apprehend His righteousness because you'll never be holy enough to be righteous on your own. Jesus has already taken care of it so don't let the devil destroy your self image by his condemnation.

Start looking out for your enemy and don't miss an opportunity to resist him. It's certain he won't miss an opportunity to divert you from coming to know who you really are. Put your nose in the Word of God and you can't go wrong. Find out who you are, resist him with that knowledge in the name of Jesus and he WILL flee (James 4:7).

The bottom line is this: everything has already been set up for the children of God. When we find out who we are, we can then claim our inheritance and begin to bring it into our lives by faith. Friend, traditional teaching has told us that our inheritance is for later when we get to Heaven, that it's not for this life. But that's not what the Word of God says. The Kingdom of God has been given to you for THIS life and the main things you have to do are study the Word and resist the enemy so he can't steal anything from you or destroy part of it.

Some people don't realize that they can or even should resist the enemy REGULARLY. Many of us are even a little afraid of the devil because we think that if we agitate him, he might attack and cause inconvenience in our lives. But friend, he's going to attack you anyway if you have any desire for succeeding in the Kingdom of God because he wants to keep you down, he wants to discourage you from trying to increase and succeed. The good news according to the Word of God is that Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). When He was raised from the dead, He was seated at the Father's right hand far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name in this age and in every age to come so that He is the Head over ALL things (Ephesians 1:20-22).

Indeed friends the Bible says further that Believers have been raised up and seated with Him in the heavenly places also (Ephesians 2:6). That means we share total power and authority with Christ OVER ALL THINGS and by the name of Jesus and the force of our faith, we can rule with Him if we know who we are. We already have all the weapons we need to produce total victory over the enemy and we must learn how to use them. Victory is inevitable for the ones who know who they are in Christ.

Yes, the Bible says that Jesus has delegated to Believers full authority over all the power of the enemy so that NOTHING can injure us. Receive and apply your authority by faith and the enemy will soon flee.

To be victorious in the Kingdom of God, we have to overcome an initial identity crisis and come to know who we are in Christ. To know who we are in Christ, we have to study the Word and allow it to make that revelation real within our hearts. There's no other way for it to happen and the lazy Christian will never be able to reach the individual potential Jesus died for each of us to have. Once we begin to truly see ourselves as Kings and joint heirs with Christ, we will see the fullness of biblical prosperity manifested in this life so that we can do more to help God complete the job of establishing His Kingdom.

Thanks for reading Prosperous Life Newsletter today and we pray that this publication has been a blessing. Please feel free to forward it to a friend or ask them to advise us if they would like to be added to our rapidly growing mailing list. God bless you and we'll be looking for you again in three weeks on November 16.

If you have never invited Jesus to become the Lord of your life, you can do so today by saying the following simple prayer: Jesus I believe in you and that God raised you from the dead. I receive you as my Lord and Savior. Please forgive me for my sins and come into my life today.

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