There are four major expressions in the Epistles that far to many
Christians have not embraced and applied into their lives. They are, "In
Him"..."In Christ"..."Christ in you"..."Christ in us." These expression
are what is referred to as the believers identification. The Bible
tells us, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all
things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus
Christ..." (2 Corinthians 5:17-18)
I want you to meditate on those verses of scripture because it is a
necessity if we are going to walk in the complete freedom that
redemption has purchased for us. If God had simply forgiven humanity for
the crimes that were committed against Him from the fall of man and did
nothing more, then every person, including believers, would continue to
commit sin. However, God through all of His wisdom does not only
forgive the sinner, He makes him a new creation! Not only does He remit,
wipe out, our sin (Isaiah 43:25; Acts 2:38) but He takes away the
dominion of sin over the believer, so that the believer never has to
walk in sin again. "Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal
body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your
members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves
to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of
righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you
are not under law but under grace." (Romans 6:12-14) Of course this
does not mean that a believer's free-will has been taken away. Every
believe still has the choice to exercise faith and stay free from sin, or live in the flesh and live in sin.
You see, God imparts His very nature into everyone who is born again. "...put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4:24). "which
have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that
through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped
the corruption that is in the world through lust." (2 Peter 1:4) The old things have passed away and now all things become new "In Christ." The Apostle Paul tells us, "For
if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly
we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this,
that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be
done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who
has died has been freed from sin." (Romans 6:5-7) What spectacular news, "knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body
of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of
sin." The old man, the body of sin, is done away with in the new
creation. The sin nature is gone and God's nature has taken its place.
So many of us have tried to get rid of the old nature on our own, not realizing that all it takes is faith in
what God says in His Word. For the most part, most believers have not
understood or may not have been told that the old nature has been done
away with and the new creation, God's nature, has been imparted to our
spirit. We must not depend on experience, but truth. We must renew our
minds with God's Word. As we do this, His Word will become the reality
and we will know that sin no longer has dominion over us. As we
persistently fix our thoughts by renewing the mind with God's Word, we
will discover who we are in Christ which will lift us out of weakness
and failure into His strength. Remember, "For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace." (PTL)
Monday, January 31, 2022
Made New In Christ
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.