FREEDOM IS OUR NEW NATURE

 

Freedom is simple, yet we tend to complicate it by continuing to deal with our sin nature.  

When God looks at us, He cannot see anything wrong, only what is missing. He is in the business of strategic life exchanges: new for old, and He never requires us to look a  the old.  He wants us to lay it aside, put it in the grave and never dig it up again.

He is not dealing with our sin any more because Jesus dealt with that at Calvary.  He who never experienced sin, was made sinful on our behalf, so that we could become the righteousness of God in Him.  This is absolutely brilliant!

He is only teaching our new man how to live in His righteousness by only focusing on our righteousness in Christ.  That's what He's dealing with!

He has made Jesus our wisdom, righteousness, and lifestyle of practical holiness.  He is our full atonement and freedom.

He does not deal with our fear, He comes as perfect love and overwhelms fear.  In our anxiety, He offers a new place of rest and renewal instead.  In our worry, He focuses only on our fresh revelation of peace.

God does not help us work on our anger because it is dead; instead He empowers us to become gentle.  He displaces irritation with patience, bitterness with gratitude, and turns sorrow into joy.

The OLD HAS PASSED AWAY, AND HE IS ONLY WORKING ON

THE NEW, REAL AND TRUE US IN JESUS.

Since freedom is His nature; it's also ours.

By Graham Cooke.

ARE YOU A WORM OR A BUTTERFLY?

Are you a worm or a butterfly?  For years, I was told that I was a worm. As a sinner, that is the truth. I am a worm.  But when I was born again, I thought that I was a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthian 5:17). What is that all about?

I found it very confusing. How could I be born again and still be called a worm?  Even in nature  the Lord creates a butterfly out of a caterpillar. Through the process of metamorphosis  the capterpillar becomes a new creation.

Because I believed that I was just a sinner saved by grace, I spent ten years striving in my old nature to change my behavior. I was so focused on myself and my sin that I had no joy in my heart. I was greatly deceived.

It was when I started to read the letters of Paul, that  I noticed that he addressed the believers as saints, not sinners(worms).  What was he saying?  My eyes were being opened.  Romans 6:3 revealed the mystery of new birth in Christ.  The sinner (the worm) died in Christ, is buried and resurrected as a saint to a newness of life (as a butterfly).

This reality changed my whole perception of being a Christian. Apart from Christ, I am a worm, but IN Christ I am a saint. Does that mean that I am perfect and don't sin any more?  Heaven's no!  But I no longer desire to practice sin. 1 John 3:9 "No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God." It is a miracle to be born again by the living God.

 By the grace of God, I am no longer striving in my flesh trying to change a sinner to look like Jesus.  Colossians 3 says,"If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with  Christ in God.  When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory."

GOODBYE WORM..YOU HAVE BEEN CRUCIFIED IN JESUS CHRIST AND RAISED UP AS A BUTTERFLY. NOW SPREAD YOUR WINGS AND LEARN TO FLY IN HEAVENLY PLACES WHERE YOU ARE SEATED WITH HIM.  GALATIANS 2:20, EPHESIAN 2:6