Katie couldn't seem to "get it together." She was in and out of Psychewards and living on pills. Her mental and emotional problems had bankrupted the family, ended her marriage, and separated her from her one year old daughter. Hardly unique, she represents a large and growing segment of "Christians" whose lives are little more than unplanned reactions to unpleasant circumstances. Millions in Christendom, while not in the dire straits of a Katie, live lives of "quiet desperation." Their existence characterized by anxiety, worry, anger, and depression. They have little of the happiness that the Holy Spirit promises to those whom He indwells, and much more unhappiness than necessary.

Lewis Sperry Chafer said that the only problem believers have is adjustment to the indwelling Spirit. All other "problems" are only symptoms of the problem of maladjustment to Christ within. Years of living and of observing others live has convinced me that Chafer was right. Craig Massey's book, The War within You, was originally titled Adjust or Self-destruct. Recognizing that every believer is in a major war and that God has divinely equipped us to fight it successfully is "a leg up on the horse." We need to know also that not to fight this war intelligently is to self-destruct, to bring on our own defeat, to ruin our lives and ministries.

We speak of people who are "well adjusted," implying that there are those that are not. Those who are well adjusted, while not problem-free, seem to escape many of the problems that come to those who are not. This is as true in the church as it is in the world. With this difference: The world cannot live the spiritual life and the church can...if it will! The believer must live the spiritual life, a life energized by Christ within, to be well-adjusted and avoid self-destruction. This is because every true believer is a new creation...designed to be occupied with Christ. When we shift our focus to ourselves and our circumstances, whether they are good or bad, we go out of adjustment and the life that the Father meant for us to live becomes an impossibility. We become as impotent as the unsaved world around us. And unnecessary troubles begin!

Randy could never get his mind off sex. No matter how much he wanted to please the Lord and no matter how hard he tried, his moments offreedom from defeat by lust were fewer and farther between. He knew that Christ should be his first priority in life, and not his own gratification, but how to bring this about he couldn't discover. One day he read Philippians 4:8, "think on these things. " He realized that "these things " were the good things that God has revealed in His Word...things concerning what God has made Christ to be to us and what He has made us to be in Him. He found that when he thought on these things he was free from fantasizing about sex. But the problem of his runaway thought life had been developed over the years and was deeply ingrained in his life style. He was in the habit of responding to the sight of a pretty woman by a certain pattern of thought, and this was not an easy habit to break. He determined to form new habits. If a pretty woman can trigger wrong thoughts, Randy reasoned, why couldn't she trigger right thoughts? He began to see temptation as a call to prayer. Not begging! Not pleading with God for some sort of magic star dust that would remove his capacity to lust once and for all. He began to thank God for the power of Christ within, every time he felt the hot breath of temptation. It took some determination and much dependence upon the Holy Spirit, but soon his thought life began to shift from what Randy's old nature fed upon to what Randy's new nature preferred. Pretty women began to elicit a new "Pavlovian response." Feminine pulchritude would move Randy to thank God for the reality of Christ within. It didn't work every time, but things began to change. At first Randy had to tell himself to pray. Then it became virtually automatic. The new habit became as strong as the old had been. Then stronger! Thinking on "these things" kept Randy from thinking about "those things" and ushered him into a whole new realm of victorious living and ministering.

Before Christ came in, we lived our lives with the wisdom and in the energy of the flesh. The new life cannot be lived that way. It is a wholly new and different kind of life. It began with a very real spiritual birth and it must be lived by very real spiritual means. Even our Lord, though infinite in His deity and perfect in His humanity, lived and ministered in complete dependence on the Holy Spirit. Sadly, this new and different life is not experienced by many believers though it was designed for all. All believers have spiritual life, but few believers live it. Like the Corinthians, we tend to remain in our familiar "comfort zones," never knowing the power of a truly Christ-oriented life.

Becky really wanted to serve the Lord. She taught Sunday School, sang in the choir, and, with her husband Bob, sponsored a youth group. Her church was her life but something was wrong. She was impatient with her family, easily angered by friends and strangers alike, and suffered from frequent depressions that sometimes ran much too deep and lasted much too long. She wept tears, walked aisles, made God promises, and prayed sincerely but nothing ever stayed changed for long. True, many unsaved people solve their problems of impatience, anger, and depression without any help from God, but fleshly changes are not spiritual growth. Gains made by man in the flesh are selfishly motivated and subject to reversal, given enough time and the right set of circumstances. On the human level, principle gives way to pragmatism readily. Also, better sinners are not what God is looking for. Nor is he looking for saints whose carnal view is improving, but whose spiritual lives are developing. A saint who masters depression in the wisdom and energy of the flesh may revert to depressed thinking and depressed prone living when circumstances change, as readily as the unsaved. Man does his best work poorly...God does all things well!

One day Becky opened her Bible to Galatians 2:20. She had read the verse often, but never stopped to consider what it really means. When Becky took the verse seriously, things began to change dramatically. "Christ lives in me, " she read, and the concept of the power of Christ within changed her thinking and living. If I simply want freedom from my frequent loss of temper, I may or may not acquire it on a permanent basis. Assuming that I do, I am now a carnal Christian with one less problem getting along. If Christ becomes "my life" in experience as He is in my position, inordinate anger will evaporate permanently as a "bonus" to my Christ filled life.

Paul began all of his epistles by telling us who we are in Christ and what Christ is to us. Then, and only then, the apostle proceeds to appeal to us to live lives that accord to the new reality. One such appeal is found in the first two verses of Romans chapter Twelve. "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, " says Paul. Now, a sacrifice has ceased to live its original life with all its dreams, and plans, and wishes. But a "living sacrifice " has begun a new life where the will of Another reigns supreme. "Present" is a matter of attitude. "Living" is a matter of action. To have the right attitude permanently and to produce the right actions regularly requires adjustment to the indwelling Spirit...dependence on the power of Christ within!