~ See Yourself for Who You Really Are ~
“We don’t serve God to gain His acceptance; we are accepted, so we serve God. We don’t follow Him to be loved; we are loved, so we follow Him. It is not what we do that determines who we are; it is who we are that determines what we do. ‘Beloved, now we are children of God’ (1 John 3:2, emphasis added)… To live the Christian life you have to believe what is already true about you. Will you have opposition to believing this truth? Of course! The father of lies (see John 8:44) has deceived the whole world (see Rev. 12:9), and he accuses the brethren day and night (see 12:10).” (63-64)
“Since I am in Christ, by the grace of God…
I have been justified—completely forgiven and made righteous (Rom 5.1)
I died with Christ and died to the power of sin’s rule over my life (Rom 6.1-6)
I am free forever from condemnation (Rom 8.1)
I have been placed into Christ by God’s doing (1 Cor 1.30)
I have received the Spirit of God into my life that I might know the things freely given to me by God (1 Cor 2.12)
I have been given the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2.16)
I have been bought with a price; I am not my own; I belong to God (1 Cor 6.19,20)
I have been established, anointed, and sealed by God in Christ, and I have been given the Holy Spirit as a pledge guaranteeing our inheritance to come (2 Cor 1.21,22; Eph 1.13,14)
Since I have died, I no longer live for myself, but for Christ (2 Cor 5.14,15)
I have been made righteous (2 Cor 5.21)
I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I am now living is Christ’s life (Gal 2.20)
I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing (Eph 1.3)
I was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and am without blame before Him (Eph 1.4)
I was predestined—determined by God—to be adopted as God’s son (Eph 1.5)
I have been redeemed and forgiven, and I am a recipient of His lavish grace (Eph 1.7,8)
I have been made alive together with Christ (Eph 2.5)
I have been raised up and seated with Christ in heaven (Eph 2.6)
I have direct access to God through the Spirit (Eph 2.18)
I may approach God with boldness, freedom, and confidence (Eph 3.12)
I have been rescued from the domain of Satan’s rule and transferred to the kingdom of Christ (Col 1.13)
I have been redeemed and forgiven all my sins. The debt against me has been cancelled (Col 1.14; 2.14)
Christ Himself is in me (Col 1.27)
I am firmly rooted in Christ and am now being built in Him (Col 2.7)
I have been made complete in Christ (Col 2.10)
I have been spiritually circumcised (Col 2.11)
I have been buried, raised, and made alive with Christ (Col 2.12,13)
I died with Christ and have been raised up with Christ. My life is now hidden with Christ in God. Christ is now my life (Col 3.1-4)
I have been given a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline (2 Tim 1.7)
I have been saved and set apart according to God’s doing (2 Tim 1.9; Titus 3.5)
Because I am sanctified and am one with the Sanctifier, He is not ashamed to call me brother (Heb 2.11)
I have the right to come boldly before the throne of God to find mercy and grace in time of need (Heb 4.16)
I have been given exceedingly great and precious promises by God by which I am a partaker of God’s divine nature (2 Pet 1.4)” (64-65)
“In the spiritual realm, when I was born again I became a member of God’s family. God is my Father and I enjoy an eternal relationship with Him through the precious blood of Christ (see 1 Pet 1.18,19). As a child of God, can I do anything that will change my relationship with Him? Now I realize that I may step on some theological toes here. The question of eternal security is still a topic of debate among Christians. For the sake of this discussion, I am less concerned about that debate than I am about making a distinction between two separate areas. Our relationship with God is based on the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are saved by how we believe, not by how we behave. A lot of Scripture supports the assurance of salvation. [Rom 8.35-39; John 10.27,28] I am a born-again child of God, in spiritual union with Him by His grace, which I received through faith. My relationship with God was settled when I was born into His family. Can I do anything that will interfere with the harmony of my relationship with God? Absolutely! Harmony with God is based on the same concerns as harmony with my earthly father: trust and obedience. When I trust and obey God I live in harmony with Him. When I don’t perfectly respond to God, the harmony of our relationship is disturbed and my life will reflect it. I love my heavenly Father and I want to live in harmony with Him, so I strive to live by faith according to what He says is true. Even when I fail to take Him at His Word or choose to walk by the flesh, my relationship with Him is not at stake, because we are related by the blood of Jesus Christ [and not by my behavior].” (66-67)
“[Many] Christians live their lives as though they are walking on glass. They can’t make any mistakes because if they do, the hammer of God will fall on them. Dear Christian reader, the hammer fell. It fell on Christ. He died ‘once for all’ our sins (Rom. 6:10). We are not sinners in the hands of an angry God. We are saints in the hands of a loving God who has called us to ‘draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water’ (Heb. 10:22). ‘For through [Christ] we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:18); ‘in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him’ (Eph 3:12).” (70)
~ Something Old, Something New ~
“Being a saint who is alive and free in Christ does not mean spiritual maturity or sinlessness, but it does provide the basis for hope and future growth. Despite God’s provision for us in Christ, we are still far less than perfect. We are saints who sin. Our position in Christ is settled, but our daily performance is often marked by personal failure and disobedience that disappoints us and disrupts the harmony of our relationship with God.” (73)
“When you were dead in your trespasses and sins, you also served under a cruel self-serving skipper. The admiral of that fleet is Satan, the prince of darkness, the god and ruler of this world. By God’s grace, you have been ‘delivered… from the domain of darkness, and transferred… to the kingdom of His beloved Son’ (Col 1.13). You now have a new skipper; your new self is infused with the divine nature of Jesus Christ, your new admiral. As a child of God, you are no longer under the authority of Satan and dominated by sin and death. The old man is dead.” (79)
“Despite the fact that all believers at times still live according to the old self, like Paul, they are new persons—new in relationship to God and new in themselves. The change that takes place in us when we come to Christ involves two dimensions. First, we have a new master. As mortals we have no choice but to live under a spiritual power—either our heavenly Father or the god of this world. At salvation, the believer in Christ experiences a change in the power that dominates life. Second, there is an actual change in the nature of believers so that the propensities of their lives or the deepest desires of their hearts are now oriented toward God rather than toward self and sin. This becomes evident when believers choose to sin. They are being convicted. What they are doing is no longer consistent with who they really are in Christ. I have counseled hundreds of Christians who are questioning their salvation because of their struggle with sin. The fact that it even bothers them is the best argument for their salvation. It is the nature of a natural person to sin. On the other hand, I have talked to people who profess to be Christians, but seem to have little or no remorse for sin. I would have to question their salvation. If we are children of God, we are not going to live comfortably with sin.” (80)
“Why do you need the nature of Christ within you? So you can be like Christ, not just act like Him. God has not given us the power to imitate Him. He has made us partakers of His nature so that we can actually be like Him. You don’t become a Christian by acting like one. You are not on a performance basis with God. He doesn’t say, ‘Here are My standards, now you measure up.’ He knows you can’t solve the problem of an old sinful self by simply improving your behavior. He must change your nature, given you an entirely new self—the life of Christ in you—which is the grace you need to measure up to His standards.” (80-81)
“God’s work of atonement changes sinners to saints. The radical change, regeneration, is effected at the moment of salvation. The ongoing change in the believer’s daily walk continues throughout life. The progressive work of sanctification, however, is only fully effective when the radical, inner transformation by regeneration is realized and appropriated by faith. As a new Christian, you were like a lump of coal: unattractive, somewhat fragile and messy to work with. After time and pressure, however, coal becomes hardened and beautiful. Although the original lump of coal is not a diamond, it consists of the right substance to become a diamond. Right now, you are a diamond in the rough, but given enough time and pressure, you will be like a diamond, revealing the glory of God. Anthony Hoekema comments, ‘You are new creatures now! Not totally new, to be sure, but genuinely new. And we who are believers should see ourselves in this way: no longer as depraved and helpless slaves of sin, but as those who have been created anew in Christ Jesus.’” (83-84)
“I was asked if I taught the eradication of the sinful nature at the new birth. One cannot give a simple yes or no answer to that question. If you are asking, ‘Do you believe that the old man is dead?’ the answer is yes. I am no longer in Adam, I am spiritually alive in Christ. If you are asking, ‘Do you believe that the Christian can still sin and walk or live according to the flesh?’ the answer is yes. New believers are dominated by the flesh and deceived by the devil. It takes time to renew the mind and overcome the patterns of the flesh. If you asked me, ‘Do you believe that you have a new nature?” I would answer yes, because God has given me a new heart and I am now spiritually alive. My ‘new self’ is oriented toward God. I have become a partaker of the divine nature (see 2 Pet 1.4), and ‘I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man’ (Rom. 7:22). If you asked me, ‘Are you a sinner or a saint?’ I would joyfully respond, ‘I believe I am a saint by the grace of God and I intend to live my life as His child in the way He intended me to live by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit.’ Don’t forget that our entire being was morally corrupt before we came to Christ. Our minds were programmed to live independently of God and the desires of our flesh are in opposition to the Spirit of God. The flesh, our old nature, has to be crucified by the believer (see Gal. 5:24). I do not believe in instant maturity. It will take us the rest of our lives to renew our minds and conform to the image of God. The seed that was sown in us by God is only a beginning. Being a child of God and being free in Christ is positional truth and the birthright of every believer. Because of a lack of repentance and ignorance of the truth, many believers are not living like liberated children of God. How tragic!” (85)
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