Your who or your do?
Romans 3:23- 28
23 since all have sinned and continually fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are being justified [declared free of the guilt of sin, made acceptable to God, and granted eternal life] as a gift by His [precious, undeserved] [a]grace, through the redemption [the payment for our sin] which is [provided] in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God displayed publicly [before the eyes of the world] as a [life-giving] [b]sacrifice of atonement and reconciliation (propitiation) by His blood [to be received] through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness [which demands punishment for sin], because in His forbearance [His deliberate restraint] He passed over the sins previously committed [before Jesus’ crucifixion]. 26 It was to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the One who justifies those who have faith in Jesus [and rely confidently on Him as Savior]. 27 Then what becomes of [our] boasting? It is excluded [entirely ruled out, banished]. On what principle? On [the principle of good] works? No, but on the principle of faith. 28 For we maintain that an individual is justified by faith distinctly apart from works of the Law [the observance of which has nothing to do with justification, that is, being declared free of the guilt of sin and made acceptable to God].
For most of my life, I can recall that I have not liked myself, sometimes even going as far to say I hated myself, now I know that I am (sometimes)not an easy person to get on with, we could say that I had a bad relationship with myself. People and their lies, the devil convinced me that I was not who I was, my mind doubting and questioning everything that I did. I have had many positive self-talks with myself, they may have worked for a time period, yet I believed I was unworthy, I think you could say, that I was my own worst enemy.
As we go throughout all this, we continue to look for answers, we try everything… (do we not?) even church, more than one…
So, what is it going to take for us to like being around ourselves?
Little do we know, God wants us to learn who we are inside, who we really are. We fall into the trap of thinking we are the worst people on the earth, there is no one as bad as us, and satan wants us to feel wrong, worthless, hopeless, he will keep us in this prison just to stop us from making progress.
How many bad habits do we pick up, in order to have a relationship with ourselves? Drinking, hobbies, work, fitness.
Boy, we are messed up, yest God days to us, I live in you, and you are my masterpiece, you are valuable in my sight.
When the Holy Spirit of God starts to reveal who you are, then you can begin to accept who you are. God made you, as you, we need to stop focusing on sin and focus on our own true selves.
As we go on this journey of learning who we are, God gives us a brand-new spirit inside. Identity is already there.
We, as Christians are mostly judged by people on our behavior, good or bad, yet that does not change our identity. God decided to make us spiritually perfect for good, for free, forever, all we have to do is believe, He has forgiven us through Jesus. That is the gospel, that should be your identity…Christian… you are a spiritually spotless, heaven ready saint. Now that we are aware of the truth, we begin to like ourselves, in a way that shows God’s love.
You see, God wants you to have an enjoyable relationship with yourself…look at it like this…everywhere you go, you are there, so you may as well get along with you. Stop being hard on yourself, you don’t deserve that, be nice to you…forgive you…love you.
As you get closer to God, you learn and grow in your identity in Christ, you are working out who is in you.
Our behavior says a lot, it matters…people are watching, what do they see? Do you work God out through your actions and attitudes?
Our spiritual identity comes from God, our behavior cannot change that. I am a saint in my spirit, every Christian is… Paul called the early Christians saints, no matter what they did or said (1 Cor 1:2)
You see, we all come into this world as babies, we all start the same way, we have to learn how to grow, how our bodies work, how the world is, we cannot be unborn from the mother who gave birth to us. From the moment that we are born, we have an identity and nothing we did, ever changed that. So, if we apply this to our spirit…
If we truly desire to succeed at being ourselves, we must understand what makes us right with God, if we have real faith, we will do good works as acts of love for God…
Read with me: John 3: 5-7
5 Jesus answered, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot [ever] enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh [the physical is merely physical], and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be surprised that I have told you, ‘You must be born again [reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, sanctified].
See, Jesus says water and spirit, now many of us think that this is referring to baptism, yes, we need to be baptized as it is a celebration of our spiritual birth, which means to place inside of and that is what happens to our spirits when we first believe in Christ, our spirit is placed in God’s spirit by the way of grace through our faith.
(Can you imagine if we were to try and baptize a Satanist, he will still believe in what he believes in), the water spoken of in this verse is actually the sac of water our bodies come from when we are born, so we are born of water and to be born of spirit, we have to believe in the one who is, who was and who is to come, the I AM…the Lord Jesus Christ, once we believes in our savior, nothing can change our spiritual DNA just like our physical DNA, as we begin to separate who we are from what we do, our identity remains the same.
The day that you accept Jesus is the day that you are spiritually reborn, sealed forever with his Spirit.
Are we learning, growing daily…yes?
Are our minds being renewed…yes
Are we sanctified…yes?
Being sanctified means being holy, being holy means set apart, our spirit has been set aside from the world.
So, if you ask yourself “who am I ?”
You are God’s child, reborn and joined with God’s spirit and learnt to separate your who from your do, to like yourself and accept yourself as the person God created you to be. God places dreams, visions in the hearts of His people, they begin as little seeds yet satan works hard to try destroying them by placing doubt and disbelief in our mind.
Faith is a spiritual force, a gift from God, it makes you positive and you start believing that you can, satan does not want that. Let us show the world who Jesus really is by showing them who we are… in Christ.
Let us pray…
