Knowing how God works in and by (through) the believer encourages us in understanding our relationship with God. I believe there is a difference between the believer using God, and God using the believer. While these two phrases may appear to mean the same, there is a significant difference between their applications.
A good example is that of a glove, with the glove representing the believer and the hand, the Spirit of God. In operation the glove is not using the hand because the glove (believer) is an inanimate (lifeless) object. Thus the hand is using the glove and this explanation will hopefully be useful towards the below article, which I find most significant concerning our relationship with God.
IMITATING IS IMITATION
"For to me to live is Christ" (Philippians 1:21).
Once we learn the truth of our union with the Lord Jesus and of the Holy Spirit's indwelling, any attempt to imitate Christ will be seen for what it is: unscriptural, and futile.
"Our Father is going to teach us, mainly through personal failure, that the life we live is the life of our Lord Jesus alone. The Christian life is not our living a life like Christ, or our trying to be Christ-like, nor is it Christ giving us the power to live a life like His; but it is Christ Himself living His own life through us; 'no longer I, but Christ.’”
"The end of Christ's incarnation, death and resurrection was to prepare and form a holy nature and frame for us in Him, to be communicated to us by union and fellowship with Him; and not to be able to produce in ourselves the first originals of such a holy nature by our own endeavors.
"The believer's true education is in the growth of Christ within. The Church's real ministry is not multitudinous public services, so-called, but the forming of the Lord Jesus Christ in the lives of His people; the reproduction of Christ; epistles made alive by the Holy Spirit, to be seen and read of all men." -C.A.F
"There is no answer to infidelity like the life of the Lord Jesus displayed through the Christian. Nothing puts the madness of the infidel and the folly of the superstitious more to shame and silence than the humble, quiet, devoted walk of a thorough-going, heavenly-minded, and divinely-taught believer.
"But the Lord is faithful, who shall establish you" (2 Thessalonians 3:3).
–Miles J Stanford
