We Live by Faih

We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.  So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. (2 Cor 5:7-9)

When Paul wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live,” (Gal. 2:20) it was Saul of Tarsus persecutor of Christians that Paul was talking about. He considered that his old self, trying to live without the true and living God of the universe, was dead, and the new life he was living in the body he lived by faith in Christ. He goes on to say that this new life in Christ is the desire of all God’s children, “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ,” (Gal. 3:27) and we want to be “…further clothed…” (2 Cor. 5:4 (NKJV)).  That will happen when we get to heaven, for “it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Cor. 5:5(NIV)). Our new self – our true self in Christ – is being formed in us.

The promise to those who put their faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross is that, “ … just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the man from heaven” (1 Cor.15:49). When we are away from our bodies, the image of Christ in us will be fully restored.  Our faith in that promise changes our lives here in our bodies so we live as if we had already received the promise. We live as if we already bear the image of Christ. As the Spirit leads us, our love abounds more and more in knowledge and depth of insight and we rejoice in doing the works God prepared in advance for each of us to do. We want nothing more than to do the very things our Creator and Redeemer designed us to do.  We want to be the very thing we were made for. Paul became the great missionary, church planter, and writer he was because of his faith in the promise. You and I become whatever Christ wants each of us to be in the same way.“So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it” because that is what gives us the most joy. Rejoice!

Be True to Yourself

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ…For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight…” (Ephe 1:3-4)

“For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephe 2:10)  

In these two passages, the apostle Paul makes it clear that my identity and yours, my Christian brother/sister, is to be found in Christ Jesus. We are God’s workmanship, both before and after we are born again. Before our spiritual birth, whatever natural talents, whatever natural strengths and weaknesses we had came from God, because “…It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves….” (Psal 100:3). But the natural man was choosing to conform to the pattern of this world. We had rejected the identity our Creator had given us, and were not doing the good works God had prepared in advance for us to do. On the contrary we were fleeing from God and were misusing whatever natural talents He had given us to please ourselves and win the approval of this world. That is why Paul, writing to Christians said, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Roma 12:2).

How does this work? How can our minds be renewed? It will happen as we yield to the Spirit within as He speaks to us through His Word, teaching us how the general principles and promises we find there apply to us in our unique situation.  He teaches us to test and approve what God’s will is for us, and He empowers us to do the works He prepared in advance for us to do. We are putting on our true self, our spirit united with the Spirit of God, controlled by His love, freed from slavery to the world, the flesh and the devil. Just as being born again is by faith, so also this process of putting on our true self is carried out by faith as we offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. The life we now live in the body we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.

Your True Self

You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph. 4: 22-24) 

Before I believed and received Christ into my heart I considered ideas such as Jesus’ resurrection from the dead to be foolishness. I thought that sense perception and the reasoning we do from what we perceive is the only source of knowledge. I did not consider revelation from God to be a viable alternative. I did not have the Spirit and “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor.2: 14-15). This left me with a problem.

It was fashionable back in the ‘60's to try to “find your identity” or “be true to yourself,” and that meant there really is a “true you” to be found. But even with the help of a secular psychologist who was no better than I at discerning spiritual things, I could not find my true self. All I could find was behavior patterns that were the product of my heredity and environment. I learned that I was “codependent,” which means that I was so busy trying to be accepted by others and get their approval I had no idea who I was! I was allowing other people to be my judge!

All that changed when I received Christ into my heart and He gave me spiritual life. I began to accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, and the sweetest thing I learned was that I was created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Without Christ in my heart I was being corrupted by deceitful desires; I was trying to be conformed to what others thought I should be. But now I know that I am God’s workmanship and He has a unique purpose for my life. I am no longer subject to any person’s judgment because the Spirit is my teacher; He knows what I was created for, other people do not. “For ‘who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2: 16). As I take captive the thoughts and attitudes of my mind and make them obedient to Christ, I am putting on my true self. I have found my identity…it is in Christ!