Thursday, August 19, 2010

Dead to sin. Alive to God.

I love getting to know the heart of the Father. I have been hit afresh with some sweet truths over the past several months as God has been speaking the truth about who I am in Him...


I read John 3 today and realized this... that it was never in God's heart to condemn us. John 3:17 says "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

Or in the words of Eugene Peterson in The Message, "God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted".

Condemnation, accusation.. these are not words of our God. In fact, these words are usually played out by his enemy, "the accuser of our brothers" as John calls him in Revelation.

This truth has led me down a journey of reconsidering how I see myself and how I see others. Do I consider myself in the same way that my Father does? And do I consider others as He does? If Jesus really came not to tell us how depraved we are, but to give us life... how well am I following Jesus in speaking life over myself and others?

Romans 6:11 says "So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." Dead to sin. Alive to God.

Does the church really believe this? For a while, I did not. I did not consider myself in this way. In fact, I considered myself very much ALIVE to sin. I would talk about sin as if it were my identity. "I'm a control freak... I'm a people pleaser... I'm an idolater..." I would drown people with talk of my unworthiness, my depraved nature, my ikky motives, my desperately wicked heart... certainly never being so proud to consider myself dead to sin.. or born of God, not of the flesh (John 1). I was very humble indeed.

Ha, or not so humble. If humility was wallowing at the feet of the cross in my sins (which in fact was never believing the fullness of the Gospel and the completed work of Jesus in His ressurection)... then the sinless Jesus was not humble at all. But Jesus Christ never sinned and few would argue with the truth that He was the most humble man to ever live. My humility was indeed false. The scary thing is I thought the more I wallowed and came to grips with the depths of my wickedness, the more I would believe the Gospel. After a year of that, I realized that the more I wallowed and mined for new idols in my heart.. the more in bondage I remained.



I heard a friend share something the other day that shed more light on this for me. He was sharing about how we should love one another.. seeing each other through God's eyes.. really calling out our identity as sons and daughters in each other. He shared a verse from one my favorite chapters in scripture, 2 Corinthians 5. It was verse 16, which says: "From now on, therefore,A)"> we regard no one according to the flesh..." The chapter goes on to talk about how we are new creations in Christ.

I realized this is the very lens of Christ. He does not regard us according to the flesh. He calls us as new creations. The word of Jesus is powerful... by calling us new creations, we ARE new creations. The fact may be that we still believe lies at times and fall into temptation. But the TRUTH is that we are who Christ says we are... we are not born of the flesh any longer. We have been reborn (John 3). We are born of God.. now innocent children of God. (John 1) Sin is no longer who I am.

(This changes the culture of confession altogether.. for confession is no longer "Darn, there I go again with my people-pleasing ways, sorry God..." but instead "I am not a people-pleaser. I know my identity and my approval is in God. I come out of agreement with the lie that I need man's approval. I confess and repent and believe the Gospel.")

So not only do I now "consider myself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Paul's charge to the Romans)... but I consider by brother or sister as the saint that he/she is. I call out the gold in them. I speak life over them, not death. Jesus did not come to the earth to tell us how bad and depraved we are... he came to set us free, he came to save us, he came to take us back to innocence.

It all started with a tree.. and from that moment man was bent toward sin and under a curse. BUT God so loved the world.. that He sent his own son to reverse the curse of that tree by dying on one. Thus straightening out the bent of His kids.. and returning them to innocence... and giving them back the keys of the Kingdom and the dominion of the earth that they so long ago gave away to the enemy.

With these things I mind... I have been praying and dreaming:

What if the children of God began to truly believe who they really are?
What if the church as a whole began to walk as a confident band of saints, instead of a people obsessed with their sins that Jesus already paid for?
What if the people of God began to call out the identity and the destiny in one another?
What if we stopped trying to understand the depths of the depravity of our "old man" and instead walk as people who have "been set free from sin"(Romans 6:6-7)?
What if we spoke so much TRUTH over one another that it began to become a reality... that we are indeed dead to sin and alive to God?
What if those who believe in His name stopped believing that they are too unworthy of the authority to which they have been charged to exercise (Matt 10:1, Luke 9:1, Mark 16:15-18)?
What would happen if the Body of Christ shook off the self-imposed chains that are not even locked and walked in the power of the Resurrection?
What if the Church stopped "glorying in their shame" (which Paul would suggest, makes us "enemies of the Cross of Christ").. and instead walked as "citizens of heaven" (Phil 3)?


Arise Church. Know who you are. Believe the Gospel. Obey His commands. Do greater things than He.