Zoe - The God Kind Of Life - Part 2

Thank God for the gift of the Holy Spirit Who lives in our hearts forever (John 14:16). I rejoice knowing that I am a partaker of His life and nature (2 Peter 1:4). He gave me the life that makes all the difference. "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (1 John 5:11-12; John 3:16).

"Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4). We can now live a life of victory all the way! We're born of the Spirit. Now you have to believe in the life that is in you. Whosoever believes and confesses that Jesus is Christ is born of God (1 John 5:1), and whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world (1 John 5:4). Anything that originates from God is an overcomer. The Word of God comes from God, it originates from Him. That same overcoming Word is in your mouth, and it has divine abilities when uttered by the lips of faith. The Word and the life of God have made you an overcomer.

Don't accept defeat. Don't think defeat, don't think failure, and don't think lack, because you're a child of God. God wants you to have victory-mentality. You are an overcomer today and always! It pains the Lord that most of us, from time to time, become inattentive to the new life we've received in Christ. Out of ignorance, we neglect to meditate on its significance and true dimensions. We forget to remember what it cost the Lord to impart it. Taking it for granted, we become dull of heart and slow to give thanks. Thus, our joy and confidence erode away.

Thank God every day for the opportunity He's given you to be identified with Him. The Lord has made His abode in your heart and honoured you with Zoe; His kind of life. Man in all his goodness and kindness is nothing before the Lord, until he receives this glorious life in him. The reason you can stand before the Lord unashamed with hands lifted in worship, honour and adoration is that you're His holy vessel, His tabernacle, for He lives inside you. His presence takes sickness, fear, poverty, depression or unhappiness away from your life. That presence causes men to favour you and money to come to you by free course.

His presence opens the door, which no man can shut (Revelation 3:8). Listen, you carry the presence of the Lord with you everywhere you go. "...in thy (the Lord's) presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore" (Psalm 16:11). You must learn to cherish His presence in you at all times. The Psalmist understood just how important the Lord's presence truly is when he cried out in Psalm 51:11, "Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me." Moses, being aware that the success of his ministry depended on that presence pleaded with the Lord, "...If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence" (Exodus 33:15). You must cultivate a passion for the presence of God, praising and thanking Him for the privilege of being identified with Him.

"The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly" (Proverbs 20:27). Man is a spirit; when he is born again, he receives the life and nature of God into his spirit. The light of God is not in your mind but in your spirit. This is where the Word of God illuminates; "For thou wilt light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness" (Psalm 18:28). The forces of life are domiciled in your spirit, but you've got to cultivate them! God's life, character and nature are already deposited in your human spirit, but you must spend time cultivating and nurturing your spirit by learning and meditating on His Word.

1 Peter 2:2 tells us to desire the sincere milk of the Word that we may grow thereby. Jesus said, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman" (John 15:1). His father being the husbandman means that God is the vine-dresser. In verse 5, Jesus then goes on to say that, "I am the vine, ye are the branches..." This can't get any better. That fully encapsulates it, and there's not a better way to put it. You know, people read the Bible and you wonder if they see what's in there. "I am the vine, ye are the branches..." My goodness! Jesus is the stem while we are the branches. Have you ever come to a plant and said the branches were called orange and the stem mangoes? I know about grafting, but that's when there's trouble; that's not normal. Somebody had to do something about it to make it so.

The stem, together with the branches, bears the same fruit. The same life that flows through the stem goes into the branches; the branches are called by the same name that the stem is called by. And where do you have the beauty of the plant? In the branches! We are the glory of God. How could Jesus bring us so close to himself? We are even afraid as human beings to identify ourselves with God. We say, "God is holy, and I am so sinful; I cannot be one with him. Oh, God, thou art great and I am so small." No! He said I am the vine, and you are the branches! Don't you understand that verse of the Bible that you've been quoting all your life? "For God so loved the world..." (John 3:16). Why do you struggle believing in something the Lord's made available for us?

I love John G. Lake's story as recorded in the book, "None of These Diseases" by Pastor Chris Oyakhilome. An epidemic had broken out in South Africa where he was living at the time. The epidemic was so contagious that mere touching of those already infected could lead to an infection. But it was observed that John G. Lake had had contact with several infected patients without being infected. When asked about it, he replied that another kind of life was at work in him and that if the disease germs came in contact with his body, this life in him would burn them up and destroy them. They asked him to prove it, and he agreed to a test. They took a sample containing these germs and dropped some on the back of his hand. They viewed his hand underneath a microscope to ensure the germ cells were alive.

After a few hours, they checked under the microscope again and the germ cells had stopped moving. They had all died. The world is about to make some of the greatest discoveries they've ever made from the beginning to this time. They're about to make an extraordinary discovery about human blood. Some scientists have reported their findings that there seems to be a difference in the blood group of those who are born again and the rest of the world. We have always known there was a difference, but they're just finding out. There is a new blood type! D - The Divine blood type! This is the blood that runs in your veins. It came about as a result of the influence of the new life on the human blood. This is a disease destroying blood group.

"...if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them..." (Mark 16:17-18). Why do you think that's possible? It's because of the active working of the Zoe life in them (the new creation)! Read Paul's encounter: "And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Melita. And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold. And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand.

And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. And he shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm. Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god. (Acts 28:1-6). It's clearly the Zoe life that was at work in Paul. No wonder the people marvelled and called him god, which is not wrong because God's Word calls us so. The world does not understand, neither do they believe this life at work in us.

Well, don't be surprised because "...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 are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14). The great man of faith, Rev. Smith Wigglesworth also understood this Zoe life. He said, "I am not moved by what I see, I am only moved by what I believe. No man looks at appearances if he believes. No man considers how he feels if he believes. The man who believes knows that God has it." Rev. Wigglesworth avoided all medical treatment, despite suffering from kidney stones in his later years. These eventually passed naturally.

He refused any surgical procedure, and stated that no knife would ever touch his body either in life or death. When he was dead, a doctor was called to the church and upon examining his body, he said, "What a fine specimen of manhood! There is no visible cause of death. It is just like a workman coming home from his work, taking off his coat, and settling down to rest." He died a healthy man! Indeed, sickness had no power over him. Now listen to the amazing part of the story. According to law, the doctor should have performed an autopsy to determine the cause of death before an authorization for burial could be issued. But this was not done.

In fact this is the only case I've known where a man died and there was no autopsy performed. This brings to mind what Rev. Wigglesworth said when he was alive: "No knife will ever touch this body, in life or in death." He knew who he was; he understood the kind of life that God called him to live and proved it. 1 John 5:13 says, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." You see we're not supposed to be weeping bitterly concerning the Christians who are dead.

It may be painful, but we should rest assured in knowing that their bodies will be quickened when Christ returns because they have Zoe in them. When Christ returns, there will be a resurrection and in the resurrection, eternal life will extend to the sphere of the bodies of the dead. "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation" (John 5:28-29). Jesus knows His own (John 10:14) and, on the last day, will raise those who have eternal life (John 6:54). No one will snatch them out of His hand (John 10:28).

On that day, Jesus "will transform and fashion anew the body of our humiliation to conform to and be like the body of His glory and majesty, by exerting that power which enables Him even to subject everything to Himself" (Philippians 3:21,AMP). Praise God! "For while we are still in this tent, we groan under the burden and sigh deeply (weighed down, depressed, oppressed) - not that we want to put off the body (the clothing of the spirit), but rather that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal (our dying body) may be swallowed up by life after the resurrection" (2 Corinthians 5:4, AMP).

Our bodies will be changed by virtue of the Zoe life in us. I can't wait! There's just so much more in the Word of God than we see. That's why the Apostle Paul said: "For I always pray to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that He may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation of insight into mysteries and secrets in the deep and intimate knowledge of Him, By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints (His set-apart ones). And so that you can know and understand what is the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power in and for us who believe, as demonstrated in the working of His mighty strength, Which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:17-20 Amplified Bible).

Be conscious of the Zoe life in you, take advantage of it and live it to the full. We shall surely be raised by it later. Let us not take this life for granted, be ignorant concerning it, trivialize it, forget it, neglect it, or turn it into clichés. Let us not doubt or disbelieve it, let it slip from our grasp, or surrender it to the enemy of our souls. Instead, let us consider what we have received and reckon on the Zoe life of God who indwells us. As we abide in Him continually, His Zoe life will cause us to grow and mature, and give us confidence in the day of judgement (1 John 2:28, 4:17).

God bless you.