"From Salvation" Part 2

"From Salvation"

Part 2

       

     When we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, God changes the very essence and being of who we most deeply are.  To live "from salvation" and in the power of its grace, we must know such Truth to be true.

     "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.  Old things are passed away.  Behold, all things are become new" (II Corinthians 5:17).

     The "old" and the "new" involve...

     Before Christ, we were "alienated from the life of God."  Now we are "accepted in the Beloved" (Ephesians 4:18; 1:6).

     Before Christ, we were condemned.  Now we are forgiven (John 3:18; I John 2:12).

     Before Christ, we were "without God."  How He lives within us, through the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:12; I Corinthians 3:16).

     Before Christ, we were "servants of sin."  Now we are "servants to God" (Romans 6:17; 22).

     Before Christ, we were darkness.  Now we are "light in the Lord" (Ephesians 5:8).

    The list could go on, including the Apostle Paul's command that calls us to decisively affirm the fundamental change that happens in the very heart of all who believe: "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:11).  We have "passed from death unto life" in the part of us that is the very heart of us: "So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God.  But with the flesh, the law of sin" (John 5:22; Romans 7:22).

    Some aspects of our being, however, presently remain the same in our initial conversion.  The members and faculties we inherited from Adam, while becoming the "purchased possession" of God, nevertheless do not experience His direct presence as does the innermost temple of our spirit (Ephesians 1:14).  Our flesh remains our flesh, to the degree that Paul wrote, "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin" (Romans 8:10).  The Apostle also confessed, "In my flesh dwelleth no good thing" (Romans 7:18).  Thus, we can and do sometimes think, speak, act, and relate as who we were without Christ.  We can walk in the flesh despite the fact that our innermost being is "in the spirit" (Romans 8:9).  Our doing does not yet always correspond to our being.  "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:25).  We can be transformed swans, but still perceive ourselves and act as if we are ugly ducklings.

    The Christian life, as constituted in our present existence, involves our human faculties and members progressively becoming the accurate representation of our innermost Christ-inhabited spirits.  We must know who we most deeply are in order to make choices to live accordingly.  Again, as Paul mandated, we must account as true that we are "alive from the dead" rather than being still dominated by servitude to sin.  Who we were is not who we are.  But we can still live amid the tombs of spiritual and moral death if we fail to walk in the light of truth and reality.  May our Lord illuminate us to Himself first and foremost, but also to ourselves as birthed and inhabited by the Spirit of the risen Lord Jesus.  Believers are new creatures, as enlivened by the indwelling presence of the eternal God.  The knowledge and affirmation of such Truth enables us to progressively live from salvation, and from so heart and life changing a Savior…

"The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."

(Romans 8:2)

"I will walk in Thy truth… I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living."

(Psalm 86:11; 116:9)

Weekly Memory Verse

   Who can understand his errors?   Cleanse Thou me from secret faults.

(Psalm 19:12)