You Know, But Most Do Not Know

You've heard it said, "What you don't know won't hurt you." Wrong. In Christianity, what you don't know will destroy you! You and I are but two voices among others who have been raised up to equip Believers by teaching them the truths of our identity in Christ. I thought it might be edifying to enumerate some of those truths millions of Christians still do not understand.

You know, but most do not know...

Who You Are: God is Spirit and He created you in His image; therefore, you are a spirit critter who lives temporarily in an earthsuit. You are not a physical critter with a spirit; the essence of your identity is spiritual, not physical.

Who God is: God is Love. He created you to need love so that you would need Him. Not knowing God, you set out to get your love-need supplied through only people, and naívely ignored the only Source that can fully satisfy our need to be loved.

Who You Were: God's job description is "He runs things"; He's in control. At birth, however, you immediately homesteaded everything you wanted to control, staked a claim, drew an imaginary circle around it, established your fences, held an election, stuffed the ballot box and declared yourself god of your "turf." You crowned yourself lord of the ring. You took control, and that put you in competition with God.

Over the years, you wrote a book entitled How to Get Your Needs Met Without Depending On Jesus. All your data were based upon living independently, free from total dependence upon Christ's life.

To maintain control, you developed habit patterns for how to get your needs--primarily for love--satisfied. And using everything from dominance to passivity, from ethics to cheating, from manipulation to superior intelligence, from economic power to physical strength, from will power to physical attractiveness, from musical talent to athletic prowess, from "religion" to agnosticism, you did just that. As you programmed your brain with these habit patterns, your emotions became programmed or stuck and you adopted the way you felt as your primary barometer of reality. You built your identity around your emotions.

Having learned that the keys to getting love from people are performance-based acceptance and physical-appearance based acceptance, you adopted them as the criteria whereby 1) you would accept or reject others; and 2) you would bestow or withhold love for yourself. Ultimately, you built your self-image upon your ability--or inability--to effectively play lord of the ring.

You know but most do not know...

God Started All Over With You: When you said "yes" and allowed Jesus to save you from yourself, many wonderful things happened instantly. And you didn't do a thing to make them happen--Jesus accomplished them for you. All your sins were laid on Jesus when He was crucified. The old you (lord of the ring) was crucified in Christ (Rom. 6:6). He not only took your sins to the cross, He took you to the cross. This actually happened to your rebellious spirit identity, the "old man." It was not simply a paper transaction in the mind of God where He "played like" the old you was crucified with Christ. Having been executed, the old man could not resurrect himself; only Christ's Life has that capability. Nor do you have to "keep the old man crucified," as dead men tell no tales nor do they move; the old man can't "jump on and off the cross" as some teach.

Christ shed His blood for the forgiveness of your sins, but it was through Christ's body that the lord of the ring died and you were reborn as a new spirit critter in Christ (Eph. 2:10). These two facts are the reason Christ initiated the Lord's Supper with two elements instead of only one, the wine. When we celebrate with the wine, we are to remember that we passed from guilt to forgiveness via His blood, but when we partake of the bread, we are to remember that we died as a sinner and were reborn as a saint (holy one) by His body. We passed from death to life.

You know but most do not know...

Why You Sin: As a saint (holy one), you long to obey God. But because you programmed your brain with those old green highways ("flesh"), this makes you vulnerable to sin. A power called "sin" dwells in your as yet unredeemed body (Rom. 7:21-23) this power is not you, it simply dwells in your body the same way a splinter might dwell in your foot. This power called sin can't be the old man--he died in Christ. Rather, it is an agent of Satan which has the capability of waging war against your mind (v. 23). Sin seeks to control your behavior by using the old patterns in your brain to trigger thoughts into your mind with first person singular pronouns (I, me, my). Victory over this power is experienced as you act out reality; that is, as you "act dead" to sin's thoughts and "act alive" to the truth that Jesus is overcoming through you. This is God's command to us (Rom. 6:12-13).

You know but most do not know...

The Conformation Process: You know that to "take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ," you must develop a lifestyle of setting your mind on [these] things above," that you are resting in Christ in heaven while Jesus meets your circumstances through you on earth. And you do this by faith, not by feel, because feelings will often deceive you. This technique makes it much easier to recognize sin's thoughts when they penetrate your awareness. You think, "Nope, that's not my thought; I'm dead to that," and you press on. Through this process, you are "transformed by the renewing of your mind."

In conjunction with this process, you know that the definition of a hypocrite is pretending to be something you are not; knowing this, you have rejected Satan's lie that a hypocrite is someone who acts differently that he feels. Thus, you often act against how you feel and are not intimidated into thinking this makes you a phony.

You know but most do not know...

Your Life: One life came out of the grave: Eternal Life, Christ as Life, Resurrection Life. Jesus is the Vine, you are a branch. There is no such thing as a "branch life"; the life of the vine and the life of the branch are identical. You know that God's will is that you allow Christ to express His Life through you. In this way you can gain His approval ("Well done, good and faithful servant.")

You know but most do not know...

Your True Identity: You are a new creation in Christ. Eph. 2:10 says you were "...Created in Christ Jesus..." not "created in your Momma" as that old spirit identity died. God says "...From now on we recognize no man according to the flesh...you are now a new, [eternal] creation in Christ" (2 Cor. 5:16-17). This is your true spiritual identity now. You are a new spirit critter in a dying body!

You know that the criteria you once embraced as the means for determining your identity are false, a ruse. Physical appearance (5'5" tall, blond), intellect (I.Q.=125), racial (Hispanic), educational achievement (Ph.D.), marital history (irreconcilably divorced), title (Major), alumnus (Notre Dame), personal worth (financial statement), home (the "right" neighborhood/city/state/country) and things of this type are used by the world to generate and maintain acceptance from others and to bestow or withhold love for self. But you no longer have to strive for acceptance from others or yourself. Jesus has set you free to rest in God's unconditional acceptance.

When Christ ascended into heaven, you went with Him--you are now seated at the right hand of the Father (Eph. 2:6). The verses which speak of you being "in Christ" state that you are now holy, blameless, righteous, acceptable, loved, treasured, forgiven, a child of God, etc. You know that you are not striving to get any of these wonderful characteristics, but that you already have them.

You are similar to a pecan sprout in that while it may develop into a mature pecan tree, it can never become "pecanier." While you can grow spiritually into a mature Christian, you can never become holier, more forgiven, more righteous, or more acceptable than you are right now!

You know but most do not know...

The Normal Christian Life: You experience abundant life by setting your mind on the reality of your true identity, meditating moment by moment on how unconditionally acceptable your are, allowing Christ to express His life through you to do His will, offering yourself as a living sacrifice to God to serve Him by serving others.

By God's grace, you and I have come to realize these truths. But millions of other Christians walk in defeat because they have not heard nor received the gospel Jesus gave to Paul (Gal. 1:6-2:2). If you would like to invest yourself with us in some way whether as a volunteer, by prayer, financially or by letters to share with us how He is using you to spread this complete gospel of Jesus, or if we can serve you by giving suggestions as to how you can effectively reach your family, pastor or friends with these truths, please let us know. By working together, you and I can be used by God to help lead a generations of defeated Christians into appropriating their true identity in Christ.