A while ago,
my mind got mixed up in a lot of thoughts, most of which I tried to suppress to
no avail. I hate times like this because the harder I tried the deeper I got into
such thoughts. Trust me when I say they
were not the best thoughts but they were in my mind and what am I to do then?
We are called to renew our minds daily with the Word (Romans 12:1) and this
does not mean the unpleasant thoughts will not pop in. Before we were exposed
to the truth of the Gospel, we watched a lot of movies; we did a lot of things
and believed in things that were contrary to the Word of God. As much as we are
now born again, those thoughts have not ceased, they keep coming. There may be days
when you are tempted to ask yourself if you are still born again because of the
things you say and do. I tell you what? Don’t fight them! It is not about you
because it’s all about Jesus. He took that body of yours with all its lustful
desires and He went to the cross with them, dying with them on the cross and at His resurrection you became a new man in Him. We are His sin and He alone is
our righteousness. When we are fighting to quit some uncouth behavior or any bad
habit on our own, we are making grace of no effect thus punishing ourselves
even more. Grace is acknowledging that we are in Christ and what He is, we are,
and whatever He did was with us and as us. He knew we had all these flaws, but because
of His love for us; He took on our nature as humans. He became man so that at
His resurrection we’ll no longer define ourselves by our human standards but by
what He has become to us. Take note that sin is not an act it is a nature which was of the fallen man, Adam. We are in Him and so His righteousness has become our
righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30). We are no longer defined by what we do or
who we are but by who He is and who we are in Him and the more we are Christ conscious
the more we’ll grow in knowledge of our identity. No truth sets free as resting
on the love God has shown to us in His Son Jesus Christ. He placed us in Him and thus
Jesus as our only High Priest presents us to the Father in Himself. He is our
compassionate High Priest who presents us with all our temptations and
weaknesses and He is presenting us before the Father perfect (Hebrews 3:1).
2
Corinthians 13:4(amplified Bible) says “ For
even though He was crucified in weakness [yielding Himself], yet He lives
[resurrected] by the power of God [His Father]. For we too are weak in Him [as
He was humanly weak], yet we are alive and well [in fellowship] with Him
because of the power of God directed toward you. Here the Apostle
Paul is saying that Christ embraced our weaknesses and thus Christ living in us
is by the power of God. We are not complete in God because of anything we did
but because of everything Jesus did in our place and for our benefit
(Colossians 1:9-10, Colossians 2:9-10). The gifts of God are irrevocable and so
we should seek to know Christ even more because only in Him can we know what
has been freely given to us(Romans 11:29). We have been justified by faith in Jesus,
we have received salvation in Him, we have received adoption as sons in Him, we
have been made whole in Him, we are preserved in Him (Hebrews 7:25) etc. Romans
6:8-10 Amplified Bible says, “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that
we will also live [together] with Him, because we know [the self-evident truth] that Christ, having
been raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has power over
Him. For the death that He
died, He died to sin [ending its power and paying the sinner’s debt] once and
for all; and the life that He lives, He lives to [glorify] God [in unbroken
fellowship with Him]. The Ministry of the Holy Spirit is not one of
condemnation, but rather he bears our moral failures with us (Romans 8:1, 14-15).
Christ in us reveals that God has accepted us into His beloved family and so,
we should discard any thing that makes us think we’re not accepted. How can we
seek to justify ourselves by our works when we have been adopted by Grace into
God’s own family (Romans 8:15)? There is nothing that can ever separate us from
the love of God in His Son Jesus Christ (Romans 8:38-39, 2 Corinthians 5:18,).
I believe times like this come so we could better understand the extent to which we have been saved by Christ in His finished works. Acknowledge that you have been made the righteousnes of God in Christ and so you are more persuaded of what He believes about you than what you believe about yourself. Rest in the love of God for you and anything contrary to the person and saving works
of Jesus Christ will leave you.
You Are Blessed!
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