The Real You

“You were dead in your trespasses and  sins, alienated from the life of God, without hope in this world.”

But God, who is rich in mercy, who loved you even when you were an enemy, gave you His divine life as a free gift when you believed in Jesus. He forgave all your sins, past, present and future, and removed your old dead spirit and soul through the death of the Son on the cross. He then created you anew both soul and spirit and joined Himself to this new inner you in an unbreakable union, by the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Now one Spirit with Him, inseparable, eternal.

Sin has been removed from the real you, the inner person. It has been quarantined in the flesh. The flesh is not your identity. Sin in the flesh now wars against the real inner you, the new creation, your real identity. This war occurs in your mind.

The Spirit must renew your mind!

As you experience the unconditional love of God that is being lavished on you, you find yourself returning that love to Him. A back and forth loving relationship, being loved, and giving love.

As you ponder His indescribable limitless love and acceptance for you, your mind begins to be renewed. Your true nature begins to manifest itself outwardly into the natural realm through your works. You choose to love others. You choose to represent your Lord in your actions and deeds. Fruit begins to manifest itself in selfless works. The world sees your works and they are drawn to you. They want what you have. 

You don’t look to an external standard or moral law to gauge how you are doing, because you are not living by a standard, but learning to live by the life of Another who is within you. He is your life and has met every standard ever contrived against you. 

Amazingly, as you rest in this finished work, you find yourself doing the very works of God. For it is God working in you to will and to do according to His good pleasure. The works are in you at your new birth, and they only manifest themselves when you see His love deeper and deeper. It becomes easier to “obey”, because “obedience” is just fruit of your relationship with Him, and not a work to become more righteous.

But you don’t always make the right choices. Sin in the flesh is constantly trying to distract your mind from the things of God. When you set you thoughts on the flesh (ex. doing to earn God’s favor in some way because you do not see His unconditional love for you), your mind starts to lose its “grip” on spiritual things. You lose your clarity, and the deeds of the flesh start to manifest. You then can find yourself doing the works of the flesh. Hate, anger, jealousy, adultery, etc. But even so, in the new covenant, these sins are not being held against you. This is not who you really are.

As you begin to see who you really are in deeper ways, that likeness starts to manifest through your body via your mind and will. As you behold as if in a mirror the glory of God in the face of Christ, you see in that mirror that you are not an adulterer, so you choose not to commit adultery. You see your are not a thief, so you choose not to steal. You see you are loved beyond measure, so you choose to love without expecting anything in return. You see you are totally forgiven, so you choose to forgive when you are wronged, even when your emotions would say otherwise. His life is being manifested through your members.

You can choose to sin anytime you want. You just don’t want to, or at least not as much. This is not your nature any longer. When you do sin, something in you “grieves”. You are not expressing your true self, who is in the image of God. You are not expressing the Spirit, you are grieving the Spirit, or suppressing the Spirit. Don’t mistake this as if God is disgusted with you, or He is mad at you. It is a gentle impression in your spirit that this is not the way to manifest His life. As you grow in grace and the true knowledge of Him, you become super-sensitive to this prompting. The grace of God does not lead you into sin. It actually teaches you to deny ungodliness. The more you see your freedom, the more you begin to manifest and not grieve the life of God that is in you.

As you go on this journey, the Spirit is constantly leading and prompting you. You have no need that anyone teach you, because the Spirit is teaching you. But He has given you teachers in the body of Christ. This seems to be a contradiction. But a teacher comes along side to speak into your life by way of reminder, or a word of revelation, etc., to confirm what the Spirit is already speaking to you, but something you may not have not fully seen yet. It is all about the renewal of the mind. We are all at different levels of renewal. A teacher is imparting to you from their deeper understanding (renewal) on a spiritual issue. The teacher acts like a catalysis and your mind renews at a faster rate as you hear the “deep things” of God. You hear truth, you believe and receive, and you are changed. As your mind is renewed, you are then able to impart that new revelation to others, and the process is repeated.

So when Paul says “consider yourself dead to sin” or “let no unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth”, he is looking into that mirror with you so to speak, and pointing out that you are not a sinner any longer, but a saint. I can hear him say to the husband, “look with me, do you see who you are, I know you love your wife, but look, love your wife as He (Christ) loves the church.”

The new covenant is totally “other” than the old. The new covenant is life and peace in the Holy Spirit.

Jim