“Glove, pick up this Bible”

I may say to a glove, “Glove, pick up this Bible,” and yet, somehow, the glove cannot do it. It has got a thumb and fingers, the shape and form of a hand, and yet it is unable to do the thing I command it to do.

You may say, “Well, of course not. You have never told the glove how!” But I may preach to and instruct that glove until my patience is exhausted, but the glove, try as it will, still cannot pick up that Bible. Yet I have a glove at home that has picked up my Bible dozens of times–but never once before I put my hand into it! As soon, however, as my hand comes into that glove, the glove becomes as strong as my hand. Everything possible to my hand becomes possible to that glove–but only in the measure in which the glove is prepared simply to clothe the activity of my hand.

That is what it is to have Christ, by His Spirit, dwelling within your redeemed humanity. You are the glove, Christ is the Hand! Everything that is possible to Him becomes possible to you, and with Paul you may say, “I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me–I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me, [that is, I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency]” (Philippians 4:13 Amplified). The presence of the living Christ, by His Spirit within you, imparts to you all the things that pertain to life and godliness, all that you need to live a life of righteousness and nobility of character.

In II Peter 1:3-4a, we read, “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature.”

From “The Saving Life of Christ” by Ian Thomas.