Our New Identity in Christ -- As He Is, So Are We

   Thank You, Father, for your patience with me.

It has taken me so long to understand how fundamental, how unshakable is my new identity before You, in Your Son Jesus.

This has taken me a long time to understand.

For the last few months, little by little, You have guided me to be set free:

"9Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.

"10For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:" (Isaiah 28:9-10)

As I quote the verse, I notice the key element for those who understand doctrine: those who have been weaned from milk.

This metaphor indicates those who understand righteousness as a gift, not as a work:

"12For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. 13For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe." (Hebrews 5:12-13)

When we understand that we have been made the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21), we are able to understand more and more from the LORD, here and there and here and there!

That is where I am now! 

I am less and less hung up on this false notion that I have to think and feel a certain way to know that God is with me. I am no longer deceived by the falsehood which implies that if I feel bad, or get fearful, or something else happens, that somehow God may or may not be there for me.

It all now rests on the more profound understanding of this basic revelation: God is my Daddy, and I am His child.

I am indeed His Son, and that does not change, no matter how I feel or what I am going through. 

He was still my Father, and I was still His child, even when:

1. My mother left me at the airport when I was 14 years old.

2. My father did nothing about the abuses perpetrated by my mother.

3. I struggled with all kinds of perversions in my flesh. 

4. I walked off of so many jobs in my life, and wondered many times how I was going to pay the rent, or get through the month.

5. I got arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced.

6. A corrupt judge wanted to place me in contempt of court on a flimsy pretext, just to defend marauding Black Lives Matter bigots.

No matter what I am feeling, no matter what I am thinking, no matter what I am doing, and no matter what I am going through, I am a child of God. That is not going to change, diminish, or disappear in any way. 

This is truly wonderful for me. For the longest time, when things would get difficult, or I faced challenges of some kind, or I would get fearful.

Yes, especially when I would get fearful ... I often felt that I had done something wrong, or that God was automatically displeased with me when I would get afraid.

Now, I understand this verse very well:

"The king's wrath is as the roaring of a lion; but his favour is as dew upon the grass." (Proverbs 19:12)

A number of pastors have discovered that Satan's trick is to give the impression that God our Father is mad at us:

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:" (1 Peter 5:8)

However, we can rest assured that our Daddy God will never be mad at us again, because of all that Christ Jesus has accomplished on the Cross:

"For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee." (Isaiah 54:9)

Jesus took all the pains, hurts, punishments that we deserve. There is discipline, because our Loving Father cares for us, but He will never again be angry with us or rebuke us. AMEN!

So, I am more settled and resolved than ever, in the full knowledge that I am a child of God, that no matter what I feel, what I think, I am in Christ, and I am God's child.

In light of this increasingly profound revelation, God expounded to me this verse in a very important light:

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." (1 John 2:15)

I was so focused on "The Love of the Father", and that's right and proper.

But there was something else to this. We can understand God's love for us best when we understand that we are His children!

Why do we long for the things of this world? Why do the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life overtake us? We don't see ourselves as God's beloved sons and daughters!

Yet, if we want love perfected within and among us, then we need to rest in this solemn, wonderful promise:

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4:17)

As He Is, So Are We In This World!

It's amazing, wonderful, and remarkable how often I hear and receive continued, ongoing revelation from this verse! At the outset, I had started my Christian blog based on this revelation.

To this day, I am still learning so much from this verse!

For the longest time, I would get so caught up in how fearful, unhappy, or angry I would feel, and thus sense that I had to do something about those feelings in order for God to be present to me.

Now I am realizing an even greater revelation: God is for me, and He is for me so clearly and unshakably because of my new identity in Christ. I cannot be separated from my Savior. There is no way that I can be separated from my Father!

It's so simple, it's so amazing, and yet it has taken so long to get this wonderful, sovereign revelation to be established in me.

Then again, I should not feel bad about this. After all, Paul wrote:

"38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

"I am persuaded" ... it took Paul time to understand this revelation that we can never be separated from the love of God, and that this love is toward us as we are in Christ Jesus.

Furthemore, Paul prayed to the Ephesians:

"That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love," (Ephesians 3:17)

The Ephesian church was the most mature when it came to the revelation of God's love for them, and yet even then Paul prayed that they would be rooted and grounded in His love.

That's where I am today! Thank you, Jesus!