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• Parables

Several aspects of our life with God are covered here using three Old Testament character studies as metaphors. For additional practical discussion of these topics, see The Life That Wins.

1. Three Significant Men — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as examples illustrating the three aspects of victory over sin: the purpose of God in His choice, the life of God in Christ, and the ways of God in the disciplines of the Holy Spirit.
   
   Abraham: The Divine Choice
2. The Starting Point of Recovery — As God promised a land to Abraham, He has established a Kingdom within us through which our inheritance in Christ is to be manifested.
3. Call and Response — We are called to establish God’s rule in our communities (corporately). Where the kingdom of God is effective, there is our inheritance.
4. The Committed Life — The effective corporate body life comes through an intimate knowing of Jesus Christ which is more than mere information.
5. The Man in the Land — Just as we receive our inheritance from God without earning it, so we must also leave it to Him to protect it. None can harm us unless God allows it (and if we trust Him, we will use even that for good) and none can help us unless God sends them.
6. The Heir and the Proof of Time — God must be the source of the fulfillment of His purposes. Often, we get impatient and try to help God accomplish his will through efforts of our own. But God is able to do all that He has promised, while our feeble efforts will only make things worse.
7. The Covenant of Grace — It is the grace of God that gives value to our faith.
8. The Gifts, or the Giver? — When we know the God who can raise the dead, we are free from clinging to our gifts or ministries, and free from trying to accomplish them on our own, because resurrection power is so miraculous that we can not think of possessing them ourselves.
   
   Isaac: The Son Given
9. The Wealth of the Child of God — Everything that God has given us in Christ is available for us. It is a matter of receiving, not doing. It is bestowed, not attained.
10. The Status of an Heir — We are in Christ. Christ is in us. These two statements govern the fruit of our union with Christ. God has done these things. We do not need to achieve them, they are done. We only need to receive them.
11. The New Life Indwelling — We are victorious by acknowledging the finished work of God in Christ. The power to overcome is given to us through Christ dwelling in us, not by anything we can do to avoid temptation.
    
    Jacob: The Real Transformation
12. Precious Stones — The natural man is weakened, crushed, shattered, and progressively incapacitated so that we may learn to rely on the spiritual strength that comes from the grace of God.
13. His Own Medicine — God uses circumstances to discipline us. He undermines our strong points and instead allows us to partake of His holiness. God has no need to discipline us where we are weak. We know we are failures in those points. His discipline brings us to a place where we see that we are just as much failures in our strengths as in our weaknesses. Then we are willing to let go and receive His strength in His grace.
14. The Divine Wounding — God must incapacitate our strengths. If we fight it and refuse to yield and be defeated, He must deal more harshly with us. We must learn to trust His strength. Often the only way we can do this is by having our own strength destroyed.
15. The Face of God — God uses light to expose the true spring and motive of our life. Natural strength is killed by revelation. When we see it for what it is and all pretense is removed, there is no further hindrance to God’s work of transformation.
16. The Peaceable Fruit — When God deals with the flesh, we are more able to receive Christ from others and we begin to value the fellowship of the body of Christ.