Hello Friend!!
Do you realize you are not one person, but two? Do you ever feel the tension of that? Is there a heavy feeling in your gut when you read, "The heart is deceitful above all things?" (Jeremiah 17:9). Are you a terrible person, a deceitful worm, thankfully covered by the blood of Christ, but still worthless and awful?
May it never be! Rejoice dear one!
Ezekiel understood. He explains that our deceitful heart of stone has been removed, and today we know that was by the cross! (Ezekiel 11:19). The apostle Paul understood. Look at this familiar passage where he is struggling with his identity:
"Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it ... For in my inner being I delight in God's law ... I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law" (Romans 7:20, 22, 25, emphasis mine).
Could Paul be copping out here? No! He is making a differentiation in
identity. He knew that his real self delighted in doing the right thing. We will always be responsible for the things our sin nature does, but it is no longer
who we are. If indeed we have committed our lives to Jesus, we have now become the righteousness of God in Christ, and our sin nature is
outside our true selves.
At conversion, we become new creations, "the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17). The blood of Christ doesn't just cover us, it cleanses us (Revelation 7:14; John 15:3). The old you (the sin nature) has been washed out of your identity and "rendered powerless" (Romans 6:6, "useless" in the Greek). In a non-believer, the spirit is dead and the flesh is alive. At conversion, the spirit is "born again," brought to life, and the flesh (sin nature) dies. C.S. Lewis said it is like sharing a leg iron with a corpse. It stinks, it's inconvenient, it always causes trouble, but it is no longer who we are!
So what does the real you look like?
- You are a child of the light (1 Thessalonians 5:5)
- Eager to do good (Titus 2:14)
- The real you is permanent (1 Peter 1:23)
Next time we'll talk more about practical application. For now, just remember that the real you, the person God sees,
your true identity, is the righteousness of God in Christ. It is the only part of us that is genuine and lasting in the eternal sense. In Abba's Child, our friend Brennan Manning says that sanctification is the process of learning to live more and more out of that true self, and we'll look at how to do that soon.
If you have a question, post a comment, and I will address it as best I can.
In the mean time, please do not use this as a license to sow seed from the sin nature; we still reap the consequences of our actions (Galatians 6:7-9).
Peace to you!
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