Real Victory God's Love Poured Out Into Our Hearts Kathryn Kuhlman Real vs Counterfeit Part 2

This little heart -to -heart talk may change your way of thinking, living, experience, everything completely. I mean just exactly that. You may have felt that you were living a victorious Christian life and yet it was only a matter of you using your own willpower. Restraining yourself in not doing the things that you really wanted to do. It's restraint on your part. You're trying to exercise your own willpower. The Bible teaches that there is a place where literally Jesus takes the want to out of your heart, the want to do wrong things, as long as you want to do things that are wrong, as long as you want to sin, then, my friend, that miracle has not yet happened within. And the miracle has got to happen within. I told you in our last little heart -to -heart talk that our Lord wishes us, it's his plan, that his children should be happy, joyful, always, everywhere, under all circumstances. And this life of victory is a life of trust. And that's a kind of a life that glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. Mm -hmm. But there are a lot of folk who are being kidded by the devil. The devil does all he can to entice us to accept a counterfeit victory. If you analyze it, you don't have victory at all. You are just using restraint. And in using restraint, you find yourself a very miserable person. Aren't we the happy? No. Many Christians pride themselves on the fact that they exercise such self -control over everything, their temper, their meanness, that none of these things ever gets the better of them. Mm -hmm. You know... No doubt most of our listeners have heard the story of the old Quaker lady who apparently never lost her temper. Never. Oh, I have visualized her more than once. Can't you see her? Under the most trying circumstances, she always remained unruffled. Oh, she was so even in her temperament and her disposition. No matter what happened, she remained absolutely unruffled. Then one day, a very close friend complimented her on this and said to her, I can't for the life of me understand how you always keep so delightfully sweet. How in the world do you do it? If the things happened to me which happened to you, believe me, I'd just boil with rage. But you never do. And the dear old Quaker lady quietly replied, Well, perhaps I do not boil over, my dear. But thou dost not know what boiling is going on on the inside of me. Ha ha. That's what I'm trying to tell you. That is not victory. There is no victory in keeping our sinful feelings from expressing themselves. If they're there, if you're still boiling on the inside, and you're trying to keep from showing it, that's not victory. The miracle has not happened on the inside of you. You're just using restraint. You're just using willpower. And a sinner can use willpower. Why, I know some people who have never been born again who can control their feelings. They have absolute control over their feelings. They exercise their own willpower over their feelings. That's not spiritual victory. Mm -hmm. There's no victory in keeping our sinful feelings from expressing themselves. We may do that simply because we're ashamed to let others know how sinful we really are. Moreover, it does not require the grace of God to enable a man to hide his temper. Many a sales clerk... God knows it takes patience to deal with the public. I feel sorry for any person who is a sales clerk behind a counter. Oh, God bless them. These poor women in the notion department. These poor women in yardage. I stood there and watched them. Oh, and you know good and well that on the inside of them, they could explode sometime. If they could only give vent to what they are really feeling. But the only reason they don't give vent to what they really feel on the inside is because they know good and well they'll lose their job. That's right. Sure. A businessman... will do the very same thing just to get an order. A salesman will take a lot of gaff. A salesman will take an awful lot from a client. He feels like killing him. He could just clobber him all over the place. But he doesn't do it. He uses restraint. He uses willpower because he's after an order. Mm -hmm. A gentleman will do it to avoid bad form. A society lady does it for social reasons. But this is not a victorious life. All these things are very well so far as they go, but they don't go far enough. There is a place where literally we become a new person in Christ Jesus, where the miracle begins on the inside of us, where it is as natural to be sweet, as natural to be patient, as natural to be forgiving, as natural to be happy. As it is to breathe. That is real victory. And only the Lord Jesus Christ can give that kind of victory. Someone tells the story of a lady missionary who surrendered everything to Christ but had never looked to him for complete victory. Imagine a missionary on the mission field. She felt she had made the full surrender, and she had made the full surrender to the extent that she was even willing to give her life to go on the mission field. But when it came to this thing of complete victory, she found her temper was not improved by the tropics. Oh, sure. Mm -hmm. You go out and live under certain circumstances, certain environments. She was pretty good until she got out in the tropics. And she was much distressed about her failures and her struggles. She tried in vain to counter her temper. However, a friend showed her that there was through simple faith in Christ. And she claimed it as a gift from God. And so writing to this friend sometime afterward, she told her the wonderful thing that had happened to her in the spiritual life. And I quote, she wrote, I wanted to write to you at first, but I was afraid my wonderful victory would not last. But it has lasted. Do you know that for three months, not only have I not once slammed the door in the face of any of those stupid Indian servants that used to get on my nerves, but I have not even wanted to. Not once. Now that, my friend, is the victory. Mm -hmm. Those were her own words. Now that's something. That's real victory. But I have not even wanted to, she said. Not once. I'd like to recognize such a thing as a miracle. No good resolutions, no willpower can alter our likes and our dislikes. Only God can. Let's face this thing of likes and dislikes. In the natural, you cannot control your likes and your dislikes. In the natural, there's some folk you absolutely cannot force yourself to like. You can't do it. Only God can change that. He can take away from us all desire to do sinful things. All right, now follow me. Bad temper is not the only sin of Christian people, but many Christians have the sweetest dispositions. The best test of all is the matter of love. Do we love our enemies? Those who despitefully use us or persecute us? Do we still love them? Oh, it's easy to love the lovely. Some folks are the easiest things in the world to love. But do we love our enemies? If you want him to love you, if you really want him to love you, you're going to have to, first of all, show him you love him. We usually kind of hesitate to see whether the other person is going to like us or not. before we trust our love for him. You know, it's kind of like that. Oh, it's easy to love somebody when you know they're crazy about you. But when somebody says, isn't she the worst thing? I can't stand her. I can't stand her voice. I don't like anything about her. Her personality annoys me. Knowing that that person feels that way about you, can you still love them? Now, that takes a miracle. That takes the grace of God. But it's possible. Uh -huh. And it's got to be spontaneous. It isn't forcing yourself. It's spontaneous. Mm -hmm. Oh, I know. It's in the small things that we're tested. It's in the small matters that I think that we're tested most. How often we hear Ernest Christian saying, well... I simply cannot love the unlovable. No. It's impossible for human love to do this. We cannot make ourselves love another. No judge in anybody's court can make a man love his wife when he doesn't. No court can force A woman to love her husband when she doesn't. No law in the land can make men love each other when they don't. You can't do it. We cannot make ourselves love another. Human love is kindled only by what it... thinks is lovable. The love of God, Christ's love, embraces all and sees everyone to be lovable. I know that I'm talking about something that seems absolutely impossible, so far -fetched in the minds of thousands and thousands of people, but I am talking about something that's real, that the Bible teaches, and it's there. When Christ dwells richly in our hearts, we shall love even our enemies. There is victory when the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts to the expulsion of all unlove. Then and then only. There we have a definition of real victory. No. We can legislate all we want to. We can pass laws all we want to. We can use force and might all we want to. But you'll never make one man love another, one race love another, one people love another, unless it's in the heart. And God and God alone can put that love there. And when he puts it in our hearts, it's the greatest thing that can happen to us. And that's the miracle that we need in the world today. The greatest power in the world today is not force, my friend, but the greatest... power in the world today. And the only thing that will save this civilization is love, the love of Jesus Christ our Lord. God bless you.