I would like to make it clear to you that Christian victory is something that is gained and maintained, not something that comes in a moment and for all time with some spiritual experience. I know Christians who are miserable because they have been hunting for this elusive experience, something that will wipe out all desire to sin and take away all ability to become tempted.

Many years ago a famous explorer went on a search for a fountain of youth. He had heard that there was a fountain somewhere that had amazing powers. A man could drink from it and never grow old. He died without ever having found that fountain because there was no such thing. Your search for some kind of experience that will totally wipe out your ability to be tempted is just as futile as that man's hunt for youth water. There is just not any such thing.

If there were such an experience, I am sure that Jesus would have had it. He had every spiritual experience that a man can have, and the Bible says about Him, "For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor (help) them that are tempted" (Hebrews 2:16-18). Chapter 4, verse 15, of this epistle says, "We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was tempted like as we are, yet without sin."

Jesus was in ALL POINTS tempted like we are; yet you are looking for some experience that will completely take away your ability to become tempted. You are looking for a spiritual experience that Jesus Christ Himself did not have. There is no such experience. There is victory, but there is not complete eradication of the old human nature to the extent that a man loses all his potential to sin. The Bible does not say, "Blessed is the man that is never tempted"; but it does say in an epistle written to Christians, "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation" (James 1:12).

The prayer we call the Lord's Prayer is very obviously a manner in which we are to pray. Jesus said in Matthew 6, "After this manner therefore pray ye... Give us this day..." It is a daily prayer. It says, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" (verses 9-13). Jesus said, "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" (verse 34). Jesus taught that a man should live each moment, each hour, each day, fighting the faith fight a day at a time.

Alcoholics Anonymous teaches a man to stay sober a day at a time. A man wakes up in the morning and faces twenty-four hours, not a lifetime. This method has helped many people. Jesus taught that a man should face evil this way: one day at a time. The evil of the day is sufficient.

Many Christians think they will be more able to resist temptation and be more powerful witnesses after they fast for long periods, or after they become a missionary, or after they find God's special will for their lives, or some other thing that has yet to happen in the future. Their spiritual condition always seems to depend on something that they are going to do . . . sometime: pray more; read the Bible more; witness more; do more good works; have a traumatic, supernatural, soul shaking, life-changing spiritual experience. All these things are wonderful, but, really, if more Christians would learn to deal with today--this hour that they are living in--they would be much more victorious. If they would rest their hopes on what Jesus has done already rather than on what has yet to happen to them, or on what they must do, they would be much more stable and spiritually powerful.

Stop chasing spiritual fountains of youth and come to grips with today. Today is the day temptation will stalk your soul; today is the day discouragement and despair will try to drive their crippling wedge into your heart. The enemy of your soul will fire his arrows today. It will not do you any good to look to the future for help, to conditions yet to be fulfilled, to put off dealing with him until you are in better spiritual condition. You think, "I'll give up this and quit that and spend hours on my knees . . . then I will overcome." But these thoughts only make you weaken and surrender today. You put your own deliverance off into the future. The time to deal with the enemy of your soul is today--just like you are.

Your natural man will never be any different. It is a delusion to think that someday he will not be responsive to the lures of the flesh and the pride of life. He will never be any different. God did not call you to make the natural man change. He cannot change any more than the leopard can change his spots. He will always . . . always . . . have the same nature. God says for us to reckon him dead with Christ (Romans 6:11), not strive and struggle to change him. The Bible says, "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:2,3). You say, "I want to be dead to sin, I want to be crucified in my flesh and live a crucified life; but there is something in me that responds to temptation, so I know that I am not dead." But God says, "You ARE dead and your life IS hid with Christ in God."

This is not something you make happen by your deeds, by your efforts. It is something that did happen when by faith you identified with the Lord Jesus Christ. At that moment . . . at that moment . . . your old man, in the sight of God, perished and you became a new creation in Christ Jesus. God sees you in Christ. Your old self says, "Oh, but I'm not dead" and he makes his demands upon you; but Jesus said to deny self and to follow Him.

Many Christians twist this all around. They think this means to starve him, afflict him, and, eventually, he will die and you will not be aware of his presence; then you can truthfully say, "I am dead, crucified with Christ." But this is a false teaching and it puts a man's hope for deliverance in the future. In fact, this is a teaching that is the interpretation of the carnal man, the natural mind; it is the very product of self. It appeals to the self, the reasoning of the self that judges all things on a natural level by the senses.

To deny this teaching is the very essence of self-denial. Don't ever let the reasoning of self guide your spiritual life. Self is totally influenced by feelings, emotions, and the natural senses. You are what God says you are, not what self says you are. You are, right today, what God's grace says you are, and God says, "You are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God." Romans 6:6 says, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." It is not a matter of what you feel, but what God says; and God tells you to "reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof" (Romans 6:11.12).

Let's think about those verses. First, "Reckon yourself dead." The dictionary says this means "to conclude." You can conclude that you are dead. You can count yourself dead; you can do this because God counted your old man dead the moment you accepted Christ as your Savior and came to rely on His sacrifice for your salvation.

Paul said, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). Paul was not bragging about an experience he had that you do not have. He was stating a faith fact. You can and should be saying the same thing, because you are also crucified with Christ. Not, you will be . . . or . . . you are struggling to be . . . or . . . you are hoping to be, but, you are, and you live. You are alive to God because the Son of God dwells within you, and the Bible says, "Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1John 4:4).

You do have the power now within you. Your body is the Lord's temple, and He dwells within that temple. Meet the trials and temptations of this day with that power--the power of God that dwells within you. That verse in Romans 6 that I quoted previously--the second part--says, "Let not sin reign in your mortal body." You have been praying, "Oh God, don't let sin rule in my body." But God says, "You have something to say about this. Don't YOU let sin rule in your body." You have the power to meet it today. Use it. Stop being deceived by self and Satan into thinking you are a weak, helpless defeated person with so much to work out before you will have any spiritual power. Stop mourning and murmuring flesh fallacies; start talking the faith language, quoting faith facts: I am crucified with Christ; Christ liveth in me; I live by the faith of the Son of God; I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me; Greater is he that is in me, than he that is in the world; With God all things are possible; If God be for us who can be against us?

Wake up each morning in the awareness of these facts. Forget yesterday. It is gone. Deal with today. God's mercies are new each day. MEET TODAY AS IT COMES ALONG. CHALLENGE TODAY WITH A VICTORY SONG.