Things are different now

Things are different once you believe in Jesus Christ. You are a new creation: the old has passed away, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Your position has changed

You have been forgiven. God has forgiven your sins for Jesus’ sake. They are gone, every one of them. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:12). All your sins have been forgiven, past, present and future. Jesus Christ has taken them and dealt with them. He has borne them in his own body on the cross, he has suffered their punishment. The price has been paid, and need never, can never, be paid again. You are free; the burden has gone. And – as one of our tutors at college used to say – ‘Don’t keep visiting the graveyard of forgiven sins.’ Let them lie in peace: forgotten!

You have been justified. God has declared you righteous in his sight for Jesus’ sake. The verdict of the final judgment has already been announced: not guilty; innocent; righteous with the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. God has justified the ungodly one and accounted him or her as spotless and without blemish in his sight. It is a decision which can never be reversed, a verdict which cannot be overturned on appeal. Being justified by faith we have peace with God, access into this position of grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope – sure and certain – of the glory of God (Romans 5:1,2).

You have been adopted. You belong to the great family of God. You have the right to be called a child of God. You have received the Spirit of adoption by which you cry to God, ‘Abba, Father’, for that is what he is: our Father in heaven. You will never be an orphan, you will never be disinherited. Your name has been written with indelible ink in the record of the sons and daughters of the living God. If you sin you will not cease to be a child of your heavenly Father, nor must you ever think you are less than that. Nor must you let the devil persuade you that you cannot be a child because of what you’ve done. Your Father knows how to chasten you, and he will do what he sees necessary. But chastening, painful though it may be, is an evidence you are a child, and shows his love for you and desire for your best (see Hebrews 12:5-11).

You have died to sin and been raised to walk in newness of life (see Romans 6:1-11). The Bible puts this in various ways. Galatians 5:24 says, Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Colossians 3:3 puts it like this, You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. A decisive change has taken place in your life. Sin remains, but it no longer reigns (Romans 5:21). It has received a mortal blow, but it won’t lie down while you still live in the body. It will not have dominion over you (Romans 6:14), even though it may give you a pretty tough time. You must realise the truth about yourself and live in the light of it, So you also must consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies… Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members as instruments for righteousness (Romans 6:11-13).

You have the Holy Spirit living within you. Not only have you been born again by the Spirit, but he has taken up permanent residence within you. He is there as the Spirit of holiness and as a power for good in your life. By the Spirit you can put to death the sinful deeds of the body (Romans 8:13). As you walk in the Spirit he will produce his fruit in your life (Galatians 5:16-26). Of course his presence is sure to provoke a conflict, for sin remains as well. The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do (Galatians 5:17). Every Christian knows what this means, and the next article will tell you more about it.

You are united to Jesus Christ. This is mysterious and glorious! Christ is in you and you are in him. By faith and the Spirit’s work you are one with Jesus, He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him (1 Corinthians 6:17). Wonderful though this is, it has a frightening consequence. If we sin, we sin in fellowship with him; Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! (1 Corinthians 6:15). But there is an encouraging consequence, too. United with Jesus there is great potential for living more and more like him. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Your disposition must change

You need to think in terms of what you are, you must reckon yourself to be what God has made you. These great changes – and others – have taken place. Your position before God is different from what it was. Your inward, spiritual condition is quite different. You are a new person in a new relationship to God. So live it out; be what you are! How you feel about yourself will have already changed; you will already have some measure of assurance as a child of God, though that may ebb and flow. As you read God’s Word, realise what grace has done for you and live in the joy of it.

There is a place in the Christian life for self-examination, but this is not about whether we belong to the Lord or not (except on rare occasions). It is about taking our spiritual temperature so that we can see where we have failed and where we need to progress. It is measuring our lives by the Word so that our spiritual health is promoted. Do not let the devil rob you of your birthrights as a child of God. Do not let him use sins to get a hold over you. Go straight to Jesus when you fall and let him lift you up. What you are is what you are, and always will be: by grace a child – destined for glory!