If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.
—Mark 8:35 (NLT)
Giving up your life for Jesus’ sake is giving up your limited human frailty to receive all the fullness of His unlimited spiritual life! It is discovering who He has created you to be. You can’t hang on to who you were before He saved you from your sinful life. If you do, you will falter in feelings of guilt and shame. If you allow the sin of who you were to define who you are now, you will believe you owe something when your own righteousness has no worth. Only His righteousness has worth! When you believe in the gift of His life for yours, you receive His righteousness. He gave everything He had for you. He held nothing back. You were worth it all to Him. And now He calls you worthy because He has made you righteous.
What is your identity? Who are you? Do you belong to your past, or do you belong to Jesus? Do you belong to what you believe in your natural mind instead of what He wishes to reveal through His Spirit? If you hang on to who you were, you will never know who you are now. If you keep trying to pay a debt you don’t owe, you will forever be indebted. When you give up the power of your past to determine who you are and what you believe, you will know the power of faith in Jesus Christ. You will walk in His new life by faith and not by sight.
His Good News is too good to be true to the natural mind! Who would ever die for someone else? Only Jesus—the righteous Son of God—would give His life with nothing owed in return. Don't try to hang on to who you were. It will defeat His power to change your perception to one of acceptance instead of one of needing to win His approval. If you give up the selfishness of your failures and desires and allow His righteousness to transform your mind, you will be changed by the Holy Spirit to believe you are free in His grace.
You were bought with the most precious blood—given for you without hesitation. Give your life for His sake—for His Good News—and discover who Jesus says you are. You are chosen in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. You are forgiven—showered in His love with all wisdom and understanding.
When you first believed in Jesus, He identified you as His own. So who are? YOU ARE HIS.
© 2019 Lynn Lacher
www.lynnlacher.com/2019/09/you-are-his.html
No comments:
Post a Comment