How do I mature in the Lord?  There are lots of different theories and views.  In charismatic churches believers are told that suddenly, almost without warning, you get zapped by the Holy Spirit.  Instantly, you are mature and spiritual.  It doesn’t happen that way in the Bible.  Then there is the method of sanctification taught in many of the Reformed churches in which the believer is told to produce godliness through self-discipline.  We saw earlier from Romans 7 that that does not work. The Bible records God’s method of how spiritual growth really does take place in our lives.  We will see that it all points back to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Jesus provided for it all.

Substitution: Jesus Died and Rose Again

We asked the question, “Who died on the cross?”  If you answered Jesus Christ, you were half right.  We saw that Christ did die on the cross, but Paul tells us that we also died with Him.  Now we ask the question, “who rose from the dead?”  If your answer is Jesus Christ, your answer is correct.  But, it is only half right, because Paul also tells us that we also rose with Jesus Christ.  We want to make a distinction here in the finished work of Christ on the cross.  One has to do with substitution that results in our salvation or justification.  The other has to do with our identification with Him (in His death & resurrection) and that results in sanctification or spiritual growth. Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15 that Jesus rose from the dead.  That is the heart of the gospel message.  That is the good news – life comes out of death.  There is no other way for salvation to take place.  The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the proof that God the Father accepted His shed blood as the final and only payment for our sin and that the work is finished (see Rom. 4:25).  Therefore, there was no need for Him to remain in the grave.  He rose from the dead because His work was finished!

As we consider the subject of salvation in the Bible, it is always based on faith plus nothing.  The gospel message is that Jesus died for our sins and that He rose again.  If we know these truths, and believe them, (trust in Him) we will be saved.  We will be justified. The Bible tells us that human flesh, human efforts, human works, human merit, play absolutely no part whatsoever in our justification.  It is entirely the supernatural work of God on behalf of undeserving sinners like you and me.  The work of regeneration, the work of justification, and the work of redemption are finished.  Jesus paid it all!  It is not a mixture of His work on the cross plus our feeble human efforts.  Jesus did all the work and it is finished. We should not assume that Jesus died on the cross and in conjunction with our own efforts, God now helps us to be saved.  God does not help anybody to be saved.  God saves us!  There is absolutely nothing we add to this process.  Faith and faith alone in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross is the only means of our salvation.  God does not even consider our efforts.  We will see in the writings of the Apostle Paul, that while these things hold true for the doctrine of justification (how we become saved), they are also equally true for the principle of sanctification and spiritual growth.  Remember that sanctification is part of God’s overall package of salvation.  There are three tenses of salvation:

1. The past tense, justification–that day when I first believed on Christ and was saved;
2. Then there is that future element of salvation, glorification–that final day when my body is redeemed;
3. There is also the present tense of salvation–that is called spiritual growth or progressive sanctification.

All of it is part of God’s package of salvation.  All of it is by faith.  It is the supernatural work of God, and God designed it that way so that no flesh could ever glory in His presence.  When Jesus died and rose again, He dealt with my sins.  The penalty and payment for my sin was paid in full.  Because Jesus died for me, because Jesus rose again for me, I can be justified, saved, regenerated, reconciled to God.  The fact that Jesus died and rose again deals with my sin, but it does not change my heart.  It does not deal with me.  It does not deal with my old man.  It dealt with my sin, but not with me.

Identification: I Died and Rose Again with Christ

Now we want to consider what God did with you and me. It is not very flattering.  Paul says in Romans 6:3-4, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?   Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”  Here the Apostle Paul is speaking about Spirit baptism.  It is not water baptism, but Spirit baptism. The moment we put our faith in Jesus Christ, God immerses us (baptizes us) into the body of Christ and we become one with Jesus Christ.  Because the believer has been baptized into Christ, we are now “In Him” and become identified with Him in His death and burial, and also in His resurrection.

Faith unites us to Christ.  In God’s plan, when Jesus died and rose again, “I” died and rose again.  This baptism changes me.  I am no longer in Adam.  Now God sees me as a new creature risen in Christ.  The fact that I died with Christ and rose again changes my nature.  This is what we want to consider here.

Every believer was as Paul describes in I Corinthians 15–in Adam.  In Adam we were dead in our trespasses and sins.  In Adam, we partook of his nature, the Adamic nature–fallen, corrupt, sinful human nature.  Adam begat sons in his own likeness and in his own image.  Every one of the sons of Adam (including you and me) were all born with that fallen, corrupt, Adamic nature.  We shared in his condemnation as well.  Yet we discover in Romans chapter six, that God says we died to sin.  That is good news.  We died with Christ by virtue of our identification with Him.  We died to sin; we died to the sin nature.  That son of Adam (I used to be) was crucified.  He is buried; he is gone; he is dead.  We saw before in Romans 6:7 that “he that is dead is freed from sin.”  Again, that is good news.  That means I do not have to sin any more.  I have been freed from the bondage and shackles of sin.  My identification with Christ in His death freed and delivered me from sin.  Therefore Paul is able to say in Romans 6:14, “sin shall not have dominion over you.”  That is good new, indeed!

We have been set free.  We have been delivered from the bondage of sin.  And, get this point– God is not asking you or me to break the power of sin in our lives.  He is not telling us that we are committed to an endless cycle of frustration by trying to break the chains of sin.  What God is telling us is that it is done!  That it is finished.  He wants us to believe that what Jesus accomplished on the cross has already provided redemption.  It has already delivered me from the power (dominion) of sin in my life.  God does not ask me to break the power of sin, rather He asks me to believe that Jesus did it already, and that the work was finished on the cross.  He just wants me to believe it and to rest in that fact.  We sing that song, “He broke the power of canceled sin, he set the prisoner free.”  That is exactly what Paul is speaking about here.  When Jesus died on the cross, I died with Him.  That broke the power of sin in my life, and it set me free. The former slave to sin is now free!  God does not tell me to break or smash the power of sin.  Remember that our flesh is incurably sick.  There is no way we are going to free ourselves.  What God really asks us to do is to believe in the work Jesus accomplished 2,000 years ago.

Our death with Jesus Christ is only half the story.  As wonderful as it is (in that it broke the power of sin, that it set the prisoner free), there is more.  In Romans 6:7 Paul says we have been made free from the bondage of sin.  In Romans 6:14 he says we are no longer under the dominion of sin.  Again, that is only half the story.  That tells me that now that I am redeemed, I do not have to sin.  But, how can I ever do anything good?  Remember what Paul says in Romans 7:18, “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.”  Nothing is good in my flesh.  Now Paul tells us in Romans 6:4 that in the very same way we were buried with Christ, we also rose from the dead with Jesus Christ.  We are in Him by means of this Spirit baptism.  We have been united with Him.  We are no longer in Adam.  We are now in Christ.  Paul tells us often in his epistles, (in various ways) that we are now in Christ.  We share in His death and resurrection.

This is an exceedingly important principle in the Bible.  Let me share an illustration I once read.  Just suppose that there was a liver taken out of a debased criminal.  It was then transplanted into a man who was one of the most upright citizens in the community.  We would no longer consider that liver to be a criminal. That liver has now taken part in the nature of that new man.  This liver now functions in the new man in a very new way.  He is not that criminal any more.  He has been brought into this new relationship with this new man–an organic union with this new man.  That is exactly what Paul says happened to us when we put our faith in Christ.  We have been made part of the body of Christ.  We have been united to the Lord Jesus Christ and that changes everything about us.  That means we died with Him because we are in Christ.  When Jesus rose from the dead, we also rose as new creatures in Christ.  God looks at us in a totally different fashion now than He did before.  What does Paul tell us in Ephesians 1?  Where is Christ by the way?  He not only rose from the dead, but He ascended into Heaven.  And now the Lord Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the Father in the heavenly realm.  Do you know what Paul tells us over and over again?  We too are seated in the heavenlies!  If we are born again, that is how God views us.  We are already citizens of Heaven.  It is just as if we were there already.  We are told to walk worthy of that high calling, because we really are a new man.

When we came to Christ and were saved, our salvation was much more that just receiving forgiveness of sins.  I do not mean to minimize or belittle that.  It is a wonderful thing to have our sins forgiven.  But there is much more to this salvation that God has given us.  Not only has God buried my sins, but also He has changed me.  I have a whole new relationship to Him.  It is all because God now sees me in Christ Jesus.

In that position, I am able to do things I was not able to do before.  Now I share in all that Jesus Christ is, and in all that Jesus Christ has done.  It is all mine.  It is all part of me now and I am part of Him.  Christ dwells in me and I live in Him. I am His and He is mine!

In Adam, we were united with Adam.  But in Christ we are now united in Him.  Look in Romans 6:11 where Paul says,  “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin…” Now that is only half the story.  We are dead to sin.  We do not have to sin any more.  We have been set free.  Here is the good part… “But alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  He rose from the dead.  Now we are alive in Him.  In Romans 6:4, Paul talks about the fact that we are now able to walk in newness of life because we have been resurrected with Jesus Christ.  Sometimes we see these truths in the Bible and skim over them, failing to see how central they are to our faith and to our relationship to the risen Savior.

Let us look at Colossians 3.  This is right before Paul exhorts the Colossians to put on bowels of mercy and kindness and humbleness, and meekness, and longsuffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. Before he mentions any of those commands–he says in verse one, “If ye then be risen with Christ.”  And that could be translated equally as well, “since you have been risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.”  That is our new position.  We are in Him in the heavenlies.  He says in verse three, “For ye are dead.”  Your old man was crucified.  Yet, of your new life he says, “your life is hid with Christ in God.”  So, even though I died with Christ, I still have a life and that life is hidden with Christ in God.  It is a new kind of a life.  Look in verse four.  He tells us even more what our life is like.  He says, “When Christ, who is our life…” This is absolutely central to Christianity.  This is what is unique in this dispensation.  Jesus Christ dwells within us.  He is our life.

Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ…” The old me was formerly in bondage to sin and had no other recourse but to live in sin. Of that old man, Paul says “I am crucified with Christ…”  “Nevertheless” in another sense I am still living, Paul says.  Yet, it is not I.  It is not the old “I.”  He is crucified, “but Christ liveth in me.” The “life which I now live in the flesh,” I live not by the ways of the old man, but I live now by the faith of the Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself for me.  That old self is gone.  He is crucified.  He is buried.   Now there is a new “I”, and my new life is so closely related to Christ, Paul says, that Christ is my life.  “For to me to live is Christ…” (Phil. 1:21).

In Ephesians 2:1 Paul said that we “were dead in trespasses and sins” but God “who is rich in mercy, for the great love wherein he loved us” (Eph. 2:4) saved us and He raised us together and seated us in heavenly places with Jesus Christ (vs. 5-6).

We want to note that these truths that relate to this close, unique relationship to Christ are found most often in the writings of the Apostle Paul.  He was the man God chose to deliver these unique Church truths.  Paul, in a very special way, was God’s messenger for these wonderful mysteries about our relationship to the risen Savior. Paul spoke often in his epistles about our identification with Jesus Christ in His death, burial, resurrection and ascension.  He tells us that we are complete in Him.

The Lord Jesus gave an illustration of how growth takes place in God’s program, God’s plan.  It is different from what we might assume.   Jesus said in John 12:24, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone…” Consider that little seed, that little kernel of wheat.  Until it is planted and dies, it abides all alone.  It is nothing but an insignificant little kernel.  But if it dies and is buried in the earth, it brings forth much fruit.  The Lord Jesus was using that as an illustration of His entire ministry.  He was about to die, and out of death came new life.  Out of death came a new life that was filled with fruitfulness.  That is the very same principle by which we are to grow as well as believers.

Remember, in Romans 6:6, Paul said, “that the old man is crucified, that the body of sin might be destroyed.”  This old body, this frail human body that has been captivated by sin is rendered inoperative through our death with Christ.  Here is the purpose of my death, the crucifixion of the old man–“that henceforth we should not serve sin,” that we might not be slaves to sin anymore.  I died to sin that I might become freed from its bondage and power.  In Romans 6, Paul also tells us that once we died with Christ, we are identified with His death and burial.  We are also resurrected with Him.  We are identified with Him in His resurrection so that we can walk in newness of life.  The purpose of being identified with Christ in His death and resurrection is that on the one hand we will stop producing corrupt fruit, and, on the other hand, we will start producing good fruit.  That is totally impossible apart from the work of God in us.

We are going to see that just as justification is by faith, so too sanctification is by faith.  The fact that Jesus died for me and Jesus rose again for me means that I can be saved.  The fact that I died with Him, and I rose with Him, means that I now can live the right kind of life. I am now able to walk in newness of life.  The Bible tells us that because of our relationship to Jesus in His resurrection, some wonderful things are true.  II Corinthians 5:17 (a verse most of us have already memorized), says, “Therefore, if any man be in Christ…” That is our new position.  Because we are in Christ, we share in His death, burial, and also His resurrection.  We are raised with Him as new creatures.

How many of us can create something?  None of us can.  That is something only God can do.  We can make things.  A carpenter can take previously created materials and make something useful out of them.  But, a carpenter cannot create wood.  We cannot create anything.  That is the supernatural work of God and God alone.  Yet, the Bible tells us that by virtue of our identification with Jesus Christ, we are new creations.  God did something in me the moment I was saved.  It is a wonderful thing.  He made me a new creature, a new creation.  The old me is dead. Praise the Lord!  God has made me new. I could not make me new.  I tried and failed.  God had to do it.

It is not that the old life is changed.  It is that the old life is exchanged for an entirely new life!  It is not that our old self has been improved.  Our old self has passed away as Paul says.  It is not the old creation with some improvements made.  It is not the old man that has been fortified with a little extra strength.  It is not the old self with a face-lift.  Paul says we are new creations.

Look at Ephesians 4:24 where again Paul tells us what God did the moment we put our faith in Christ.  He wrote, “And that ye put on the new man…” This is not a command. Rather Paul was telling them truths they had already been taught.  You have put off the old man already at the moment of saving faith.  That is what we taught you.  And, you have put on the new man.  This has already happened.  And notice, this new man, “after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”  That is hard to believe.  I am so accustomed to my own personal day by day experience, and it does not always seem that I am righteous.  It does not always feel like I have been created in true holiness.  But, God does not want me to live by my feelings.  God wants me to live by the facts. These are the facts–God said, I created you.  You are a new creature whether you feel like it or not, whether is seems like it or not.

Look at what Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10.  Right after explaining in verses 8 and 9 that our works have nothing to do with our salvation, Paul says in verse 10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.”  Notice how God views us.  We are His work.  We are His masterpiece.  We were created in this position in Christ Jesus.  You see, all the way through, it is not our work.  If we are saved, God is at work in every one of our lives.  God is active and He wants to bring His will and His work to fruition in our lives.

II Corinthians 3:18 says, “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord…” As we open the Scriptures, and meditate upon the Person and work of Jesus Christ and see the glory of God, what happens?  We are changed into the same image from glory to glory.  And who does this? Are we to be constantly struggling to discipline the self-life and change the old man?  No!  The Spirit of God is working in me.  My job is to meditate on Christ and behold His glory.  God’s job is to change me to bring that transformation about.  I could never do it.  It is a supernatural work.  It is the work of the Spirit of God in the hearts of yielded believers.  Jesus puts it this way– We are like a branch in a vine, and a branch on its own is useless.  He said, “without Me you can do nothing.” However, every branch that abides in Christ will bear fruit.  What is the responsibility of the branch?  We don’t manufacture fruit.  We don’t produce fruit.  We bear fruit.  Our responsibility as a branch is to make sure that we are abiding in Christ.  He is our life.  Stay close to Him.  His life will change us.  It is not that we are to struggle and try to make these changes.   Instead, we are to develop our relationship to Him.  He is everything–  He is our life!  When that is a reality in our moment by moment, day by day living, fruit is naturally going to take place.  Jesus said that “without me ye can do nothing,” and He was not kidding.  Paul said that in our flesh dwells no good thing and he was not kidding, either.  Paul wrote in Philippians 2:13, “it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”  So, when we have this inner desire to do that which is right, thank God for it.  When we are actually doing things that are right in God’s sight, praise God.  It is God working in us.

In II Peter 1:4 we read, “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature…” In Adam, we were partakers of the Adamic nature.  He is dead.  That old man that was united to Adam has been crucified.  He is buried.  Now that we have new life in Christ, we are no longer enslaved to the Adamic nature. Death with Christ set us free.  We now have a new nature, a divine nature.  That does not mean that we become little gods.  But, it does mean that we have been made like Jesus Christ.  It is our nature, as we are yielded to Him, to bear fruit.  It is a new nature that delights in the things of God, that wants to do what is right, that wants to please God, that wants to be yielded and surrendered to the Lord.  God has inclined this new nature to obey Him.  This is all because we have been raised with Jesus Christ from the dead.  It really is a new life.  God never asks us to reform the old life, to try to cure the incurable old man, or to try to fix up the old nature.  Rather, God says, I have given you a new nature.  What is that new nature like?  It is like Jesus Christ who lives in us.  I was crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live, yet not I, not that old I, but Christ lives in me.  The life I am now living in the flesh, I live now, not by the old man, but by the faith of the Son of God who loves me and gave Himself for me.  You see, we as believers have an entirely new system of life, once we have entered into new life with Christ.  The Christian life is not the old I  trying to do my best to please God.  That is what Paul struggled with in Romans 7:24 until he finally shrieked out in horror, “Oh, wretched man that I am!”  I cannot do it.  Lord, help me remember what Jesus did on the cross, I died with Him.  The struggle is over when we come to that realization and rest in it.  It is not self trying to do its best.  It is not the old self life trying to discipline itself.  It is rather Christ living His life through me.  The life of Christ is manifested in us and through us.

We were identified with Jesus Christ in His resurrection. We have been raised into heavenly places in Christ and are new creations.  We have a new nature.  We have a new life, and here Paul tells us we have entered into a new sphere.  He said in Ephesians 2:5-6, “Even when we were [previously] dead in sins,” (God) “hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in…”  Where?   In this new position, in “Christ Jesus.”  Our faith has identified us with Him and we have been baptized into Him.  We are like that liver transplanted in a new man. We now partake of all that the new man is and has.  It changes us completely.  We enter into a new realm, a new sphere.  Here, Paul tells us that now because of our identification with Christ, we have been elevated, ascended into the very heavenlies themselves.  That is where the believer is to live and to dwell.  In this new sphere, sin has no more dominion over us – not in the heavenlies!  The Devil has no more dominion over us – not in the heavenlies!   And, neither does our own fallen nature have dominion over us.  We have been delivered, rescued, redeemed, ascended and are now entirely new creatures in Christ.  The good news is that this has already been done.  God does not ask us to do anything when it comes to salvation.  All the work that is necessary for spiritual growth, sanctification and Christlikeness has already been completed 2,000 years ago on the cross.

So, by means of our union with Jesus Christ, the power of sin has been broken.  God dealt with my old nature.  When Jesus died and rose again, He dealt with my sin.  When I reckon myself to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God, when I realize that I died and rose again with Him, God deals with me.  In the song, Rock of Ages, we sing “Be of sin, the double cure, saved from wrath…”–that is justification.  “And make me pure…”–that is sanctification.  The songwriter knew that when Jesus died on the cross, His death provided not only salvation and justification, but also for sanctification and spiritual growth.  It can save me and make me pure.  It is a double cure.  It is the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross that accomplished all aspects of salvation.  It is His work for us.

Romans chapter six is a central passage where Paul explains how it all works.  He tells us we died with Jesus Christ.  What are we supposed to do with those facts?  In Romans 6:6 he says he wants us to know this.  If we are going to grow God’s way, we have to learn.  We have to open up His plan book.  The Bible is His book.  He has told us how growth takes place.  If we ignore His method, no matter how hard we try, (with hypnotists, or self-discipline or psychology) we are doomed to failure.  Here is God’s way.  God says our old man died, and in Romans 6:6, we need to know it.  We need to get this information into our heads and into our hearts. We really did die with Jesus Christ.

As a result, I do not have to sin.  Romans 6:7 says that “he that is dead is freed from sin.”  God wants me to know it, to reckon it to be so, to believe it.  In Romans 6:4 he says because of my identification with Christ and His resurrection, I am also able to walk in newness of life.  In the very same sense, in Romans 6:11 Paul says “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God…”  I died with Christ; I do not have to sin.  I rose with Christ; I am able to walk in newness of life.  I can obey God.  I can have a holy life.  I can manifest Christ’s likeness in my life.

But, it sure does not always seem like it.  I seem like the same old man I always was.  I still struggle with sin.  Yet, God tells me that my faith is to rest on truth–not on my feelings or experiences.  When I approach a temptation, or a struggle or a trial in my life, a difficult situation, I need to be conscious of the FACT that my old man really is dead, because God said so.  I do not have to sin, and I really can have victory.  I really can walk in newness of life–because God said so.  It is no longer I.  There is not a trace of self-confidence in this.  It is confidence, but confidence in God, because now I know that Christ lives in me. As I yield myself unto God, Christ’s life and power is manifested through my yielded members.

God wants us to know these truths, to walk in them, and to believe them, no matter how hard it is to believe them.  It is true because God said so.  We are to reckon it to be true in our daily experience, moment by moment, and to keep on believing these things, because victory is through faith.

God has dealt with the power of sin over my life by identifying me with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It is a new life entirely.  I rose as a new creation.  Now my life is hidden with Christ in God.  It is safe.  It is protected and it is able to walk in newness of life.  God says it is a new creation, created in righteousness and true holiness.  Not the phony kind of holiness that religion offers, but true holiness, the kind that God creates.

This is all true, not because I was good, not because I tried real hard, not because I am stronger than the average Joe, but because I reckon myself to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God and because I allow Jesus Christ to use my yielded members. He manifests Himself through me.  That is how growth takes place.  Victory is based on faith and faith alone.

These facts are true.  I really did die with Christ.  I really am a new creature in Him.  This is true of every single born again believer, whether that believer understands it or not.  However, these truths do not do us any good unless we understand them and follow God’s plan of sanctification. We absorb these truths in our minds and hearts and they become ours.  In time they become our experience.  God wants us to know that our old man is dead, that we do not have to sin, even when it seems that he is still alive and kicking.  God wants me to believe what He says, trust what He says, and rest in Him.  Then, victory is ours.

Here is a good description of faith.  It does not feel like my old man is dead.  But that is what the Bible says.  Faith rests in that.  Faith takes comfort in that.  Faith stops trying and toiling and simply rests in what God says.  As I consider some of the commands God has given me, I may not feel like I am able to walk in newness of life, but God says that I am able. I am responsible for my new life.  I have to walk.  I have to take that step, not in self-confidence, but in confidence that God is true and that He will work in me. We can rely on what God has said. Paul prayed for the Ephesians that God would open the eyes of their understanding so that they would know their high calling in Christ and the exceeding greatness of His power.  The power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that is available for us and indwells us in the Person of the Holy Spirit, every moment of every day.  That is the fact.  Faith rests on that fact.  The fact is that the Holy Spirit lives in me, and He is never going to forsake me.  Faith rests in that fact.  The fact is that God said we can do all things through Christ.  Anything God calls us to do we can do through Christ Who strengthens us.  That is the fact.  My faith rests on those facts. The fact is, that as I am yielded to Him, it is God working in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure.  My faith rests on that fact.  The fact is that the shield of faith is able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.  My faith rests on that fact.  The fact is that God says sin shall no longer have dominion over me. My faith rests on that fact, and I take one step of faith after another. Behold–I am now WALKING in newness of life, yet not I (the old I) but Christ!

You see, faith is different from feelings.  Our feelings are like roller coasters.  They can take us far away from God.  True faith does not operate on the basis of our feelings.  Faith rests upon the facts.  Faith does not go by my experiences–my past failures or my past successes.  Faith does not rest on anything but God’s truth.  And, do you know what Jesus said?  Faith can do what seems impossible.  By faith, we can live a victorious Christian life.  By faith we can walk with God because Christ lives in me.  Is anything too hard for the Lord?  He lives in me.  He wants to manifest His life through my yielded members.  We struggle with anger, with jealousy, with lust.  We seem unable to forgive, unable to deal with bitterness in our life, unable to have victory over cigarettes, or alcohol, or sex, or drugs, or what ever it might be.  But, is anything to hard for the Lord?  God wants us to live by faith, to walk by faith, not by sight or experiences or by feelings.  God wants us, by faith, to attempt the impossible. What the New Testament commands us to do really IS impossible in the flesh. They that are in the flesh cannot please God.  Without faith it is impossible to please Him.  But true faith can move mountains!  It can even control my temper!  It can tame my tongue!  It can cause me to be content!  It can even enable me to love as Christ loves!   It can enable me to forgive others as Christ forgave me!  As we take that step of faith, the indwelling Holy Spirit enables us to walk in newness of life, and to manifest the indwelling life of CHRIST through our yielded members!  There is not a trace of self-confidence. It is not a matter of self-discipline. It is a matter of reckoning self to be dead and alive unto God. It is nothing but pure faith in GOD and His ability to transform us into the image of His dear Son… as we surrender and yield ourselves to Him. He will keep His Word. Trust Him!  “Walk in the Spirit and ye SHALL NOT fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16).  When all else fails, try God’s method of victory: Quit struggling and trying to reform and improve the old self… the flesh.  It’s incurably sick!  In my flesh dwelleth NO good thing.  Quit trying to produce spiritual fruit on our own. Without Christ we can do nothing!  Branches on their own can do nothing.  Quit trying to conquer sin… you’ll never win!  Come to the end of self by reckoning self to be dead, crucified.  BELIEVE that you died with Christ and rose again with Him!  Believe that Christ lives in you and you are a new creature.  HE is able to produce spiritual growth in you as you yield to Him. Yield yourself to God as one who is ALIVE from the dead and let Him do a work in your heart.  Surrender, yield, submit, and bow before Him.  Divine life and power are available to produce in us what we could never produce on our own– bring forth fruit unto the glory of God!  Instead of struggling to tame the untamable… striving to cure the incurable… vainly toiling to draw something good out of the flesh… why not REST in the finished work of Christ and walk by faith?

You weren’t SAVED by the efforts of the flesh. You will never be SANCTIFIED by self-effort either. Victory is through Christ–through faith in His work on the cross.