Most people desire to win in life. They want to have victories and success in their lives. If it were available to have an edge, or special advantage, to help you be successful, would you want to have it? As born-again believers we do have that special advantage—the spiritual advantage! We have God’s written Word and the spirit of God working in us to help us succeed. We have the spiritual advantage when we choose to live our lives by spiritual knowledge. The competition in life is in our mind, and we get to decide whether to walk by our five senses or to walk according to the revealed Word of God.
We are in a spiritual competition, not by choice, but that is the reality of it. We have to decide daily what we are going to put in our minds and what we are going to believe in order to win in this competition. There are two types of knowledge to put into our minds: natural and spiritual. Natural knowledge is that knowledge which comes through our five senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. One who is not born again of God’s spirit is limited to natural knowledge. Spiritual knowledge is that which comes from the Holy Spirit, God, through the Bible or by direct revelation from God.
When we get born again, we still have the same mind we had before salvation. We need natural knowledge because we live in the body-soul realm. But, as born-again believers, our standard of life, our standard of what to believe, is that spiritual knowledge, the revealed Word of God. To have the right information with which to compete, we go to the Author of life, to His spiritual knowledge, which is the Bible. This is the Word and will of God, and He magnified it above all His name.
Psalms 138:2:
…for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy [God’s] name.
When I was in sporting competitions, I would seek out the best people I could find, to learn from them. I wanted to know the right things to be my best to gain the advantage. In skiing, it was an Olympic team member; in track and field, it was someone who had beaten an Olympic sprinter; in swimming, it was a national champion. Now, in the spiritual competition, I seek out the best knowledge I can find—the spiritual knowledge from God and His Word—in order to have the edge, or advantage, to win in life.
The Word of God dwelling in us richly keeps us on the winning side in this competition of life between natural knowledge and spiritual knowledge. We determine each day that we are going to send the information from God’s Word to our mind and that we are going to believe and live it. That is how we gain the advantage to win.
Colossians 3:16:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
In living life we are faced with countless challenges that come our way via the five senses. For example, many people get anxious when they hear that some sickness or disease is going around, and they are tempted to believe only the natural knowledge of the five senses. But, when we have the Word of God dwelling in us richly, we can choose to believe the spiritual knowledge that God wants us to be in health.
III John 2:
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
Spiritual knowledge also tells us that God wants us to prosper. As our children approached college age, we desired to continue in God’s prosperity and also send our children to college. However, the natural-knowledge advice of some college financial aid advisers was that there was no way we could do this without taking school loans. Instead of taking loans, we decided to believe the spiritual truth of God’s Word in II Corinthians 9:8.
II Corinthians 9:8:
And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.
God provided abundantly, and all of our children went to college debt-free.
We want to choose and believe the spiritual knowledge of God’s Word. Each of us has free will and a spiritual and moral responsibility for our conduct. Therefore, to conduct ourselves rightly, we don’t conform to the world; we determine instead to make God’s will our will and believe it.
Romans 12:2:
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
God has placed in each of our hands the freewill ability to determine our future by means of our own deliberate selection and rejection of natural or spiritual knowledge. Let’s use our special advantage. Let’s determine to be winners in the competition of life by choosing to believe the spiritual knowledge of God’s Word that produces the greatest results for now and eternity.