A NEW YEAR CHALLENGE FOR ALL - Daily Inspirational...
« Reply #8 on: December 29, 2003, 04:38:31 PM »
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A NEW YEAR CHALLENGE FOR ALL
WHAT DO YOU KNOW
You've heard it said, "What you don't know won't hurt you." Wrong! In Christianity, what you don't know will destroy you! On the other hand, what you know and Who you know--Jesus--will grant you the peace that passes human understanding.
You know....
WHO YOU ARE: God is Spirit and He created you in His image; therefore, you are a spirit critter who lives temporarily in an earthsuit. You are not a physical critter with a spirit. The essence of your identity is spiritual, not physical.
WHO GOD IS: God is love. He created you to need love so that you would need Him. But, not knowing God, you set out to get your love-need supplied through only people, and naively ignored the only Source that can fully satisfy our need to be loved.
WHO YOU WERE: God's job description is, "He runs things." He's in control. At birth, however, you imme-diately homesteaded everything you wanted to control, staked a claim, drew an imaginary circle around it,
established your fences, held an election, stuffed the ballot box and declared yourself god of your"turf." You crowned yourself lord of the ring. You took control, and that put you in competition with God. Ultimately, you built your self-image upon your ability, or inability, to effec-tively play lord of the ring.
GOD STARTED ALL OVER WITH YOU: When you said, "Yes," and allowed Jesus to save you from yourself, many wonderful things happened instantly. And you didn't do a thing to make them happen---Jesus accom-plished them for you. All your sins were laid on Jesus when He was crucified in Christ (Romans 6:6). He not only took your sins to the cross, He took you to the cross.
WHY YOU SIN: As a saint (holy one), you long to obey God. But because you programmed your brain with thoroughfares (software) that God calls "flesh," this makes you vulnerable to sin. A power called "sin" dwells
in your as yet unredeemed body (Romans 7:21-23). The law of (power of) sin is an agent of Satan that seeks to control your behavior by using the thoroughfares of the flesh to trigger thoughts into your mind with first person singular pronouns (I, me, my, etc.) Victory over this power is experienced as you act out ("life" out) reality; that is, as you "act dead" to sin's thoughts and "act alive" to the truth that Jesus is overcoming your circum-stances through you. This is God's command to us
(Romans 6:12-13).
THE CONFORMATION PROCESS: You know that to "take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ," you must develop a lifestyle of "setting your mind on (these) things above," that you are resting in Christ in heaven while Jesus meets your circumstances through you on earth. You do this by faith, not by feel, because feelings will often deceive you. This technique makes it much easier to recognize sin's thoughts when they penetrate your awareness. You think, Nope, that's not my thought; I'm dead to that, and you press on. Through this pro-cess, you are "transformed by the renewing of your mind".
WHO YOUR LIFE IS: One life came out of the grave 2,000 years ago as Christ began a whole new spirit-race: Eternal Life, Christ, Resurrection Life. Jesus is the Vine, you are a branch. You know that God's will is that you allow Christ (Vine) to express His Life through you (branch). In this way you can gain God's approval ("Well done, good and faithful servant.")
YOUR TRUE IDENTITY: You are a new creation in Christ ( 2 Corinthians 5:16-17). You know the criteria you once embraced as the means for determining your identity are false, a ruse. Physical appearance, intellect, race, educational achievement, alumnus of (fill in the blank),
personal worth, and things of this type are used to generate and maintain acceptance from others and to bestow or withhold self-acceptance. But you no longer have to strive for acceptance from others or yourself.
Jesus has set you free to rest in God's unconditional acceptance through Christ.
By God's grace, you and I know these things and can be used by God to help lead other Christians into appro-priating their true identity in Christ. In so doing, we can celebrate together knowing Christ, His life in us, and the matchless grace of our Heavenly Father. So, sic 'em,
Tiger!
Bill Gillham
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