When we acknowledge Jesus as Lord over our lives and accept the great gift He offers us of his very own life laid down in our place, we become a whole new person.
The bible calls it a new creation.
God’s Spirit is joined with our spirit and because of that we change.
We receive a heart transplant.
It is such a transformation we undergo that the bible even calles it born again.
Our spirit was death through our sin but His Spirit makes us come alive again. Like Jesus rose from the dead on the third day so it is like we rise from the dead.
We rise from our death way of living.
Void from the presence of God.
From now on He lives inside of us and accompanies us in everything we do.
We do not anxiously start striving to conform to his ways of righteousness and love in our own strength all of a sudden.
We do not have to walk on our toes for the rest of our lives, afraid that we sin again.
Our pursuit is not to become righteous.
The miracle of conversion is that the moment we surrender our lives to God and accept Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf God makes us righteous!
Now we may still have sinful tendencies and it can take time for our behaviour to change, but our spirit is totally cleansed and made perfect and holy through unity with God.
Therefore our pursuit from now on is not to become holy because we already are.
In his eyes we have no lack, no spot, no impurity.
That is how He relates to us from now on.
When Jesus died on the cross an exchange took place.
Our sin was accounted to Jesus.
He was punished for it.
But the righteousness of Jesus was accounted to us!
So we are now blameless in God’s sight.
The guilt we owed God because of our sin was completely erased, payed for by the blood of Jesus, God’s Son.
God himself.
But that was not all.
His righteousness was not only accounted to us but we are now clothed with it.
We are clothed with Jesus himself who never sinned.
He never rebelled against his Father but was always obedient because He loved him so much.
This does not mean we live without sin automatically once we get saved.
We still have a free will.
In fact it is more free now than it was before conversion.
But we need to put on this garment we have been given.
We do that by faith, by believing that Jesus is our righteousness and we cannot live righteous without him.
We acknowledge and confess this. That is how we put Jesus on.
So for example if you struggle with an addiction or any kind of sin, you make this confession every time you are tempted:
“Jesus is my righteousness.”
You do not start to fight the temptation in your own strength because you will most likely fail.
You keep acknowledging him as your holiness.
It may take time for some people until the revelation of this truth really sinks in but you have to keep doing it.
One day you will be set free from the bondage that sin and addiction holds you in.
Sin is like sinking sand. The more you fight it the worse you sink into it.
Just lean on your Savior.
Trust that his presence inside you is able to overcome every sinful tendency.
Put Jesus on!
Just believe.
To be continued…
Creator's Joy 