Seeking Jesus First - June 2, 2023
What is your true identity? Is it the one your parents gave you? Or one spoken over you by your friends? Is your true identity the one you tell yourself? Our true identity is at a fixed point in our future. Who are you when you leave the temporary house called your body?
As believers, our bodies are the temple of The Holy Spirit. But that is not all. Our bodies are temporal mobile homes in which the real us dwells while on earth. These bodies are not eternal. They will return to dust when we leave them. We will receive new heavenly immortal bodies like the one the resurrected Christ Jesus has. It is a body that transcends both the spiritual and the physical realms.
So what is our true identity? As believers, our true identity is fashioned according to and like God in righteousness and true holiness.
“But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:20–24, NKJV)
We are instructed to put off the old man which grows corrupt (decays) through the lusts of the flesh. We are further instructed be renewed in the spirit of our mind and to put on the new man which is fashioned like God. We are able to change our cast off our old man and put on the new one. This is made possible by being renewed in the spirit of our mind.
If we will accept the mind of Christ, If we will accept God’s way of thinking and speaking, we will be transformed from the inside out. We are invited to start seeing ourselves as complete in Christ Jesus. We have an open door from Our Heavenly Father to begin thinking and speaking like He does. We are invited to start using our heavenly identity now. We have permission to access our inheritance now.
A person who believes that he is righteous will think that his thoughts are righteous. A person who believes that he is righteous will act righteously. A person who sees himself as the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus will begin to speak from that righteous standing with God.
No one is saying that anyone is righteous by their own thoughts or efforts here. That would be ignorance and foolishness.
We are saying that we have received the righteousness that is the result of faith in Christ Jesus. This righteousness has flooded our inner man - our true and real self. When we receive and adapt to Christ’s way of thinking, we stop seeing ourselves as defeated sinners who deserve whatever the devil throws at us.
We deserve what the resurrected Christ deserves. This is because we are in Him and He is in us. This is what the Bible teaches. We can choose to live in the image of Christ. We can talk with authority and truth like He does. We can minister with compassion and power like He does.
We receive our true identity by saying no to the flesh and yes to the spirit.
OK. Shift.
I am a new creature. I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I have been crucified with Christ Jesus, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ; and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. I am adopted by Our Father in Heaven. I have His Holy Spirit dwelling with me and in me. I am one spirit with The Father. I am a partaker of His divine nature. I have received everlasting life because I believe in the one whom the Father sent. I co-labor with God. I am an heir of God and a joint-heir with Christ Jesus. I have the authority of God to believe and receive, and to speak and do whatever He has spoken.
If “it is written,” then “it was spoken”. If God said it, that settles it, so I believe it.