Good Morning, Meetpastordan Readers… I am constantly amazed at the number of Christians who, by their own admission, are missing out on the abundant life Jesus promised. In fact, I have heard many say, “I don’t feel much different than I did before I became a Christian.” I’ve always asked myself, “How can that be? What are they missing?” until I came across Neil Anderson’s powerful book, Victory over the Darkness. In this book he very clearly and succinctly explains the difference between Justification and Sanctification, a misunderstanding of which, I have come to believe, can be a huge contributor to that sense of being “unfulfilled”. And as luck would have it, Pastor Ron Tucker from Grace Church St. Louis just completed a powerful two-part series entitled “Spiritual Armor” which totally supports this notion. Therefore, I will use material from both Neil Anderson’s book and Ron’s message from the past two weeks as my source material for this posting, which will most likely be completed next week.
Justification happens at the moment we make a decision to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. It is instantaneous! We become a new creation in Christ, as stated in 2Corinthians 5:17: “We are a new creation. The old has gone (our sin nature) and the new has come.” (the Holy Spirit). In other words, we are no longer slaves to our “sin nature” (or as our culture calls it…our “human nature.”) We are reborn because we have a new identity in Christ, which means we are adopted into God’s family. We become his Child. Our sins (past, present and future) are forgiven. Therefore, we are worthy and acceptable to come into his presence. We are the righteousness of Christ. In God’s eyes we are no longer a “sinner” but a Saint, all because we are covered with the blood of Jesus. We are also heirs to all the Spiritual blessings in the heavenly realm and all the promises in the Bible.
All of this is because Jesus paid our sin-ransom at the Cross 2016 years ago. This is our new identity! Now we are in Christ! But along with this new truth comes this challenge: it is imperative that we get this truth from our head into our heart and let it begin changing the decisions we make and our resulting behavior through a process called Sanctification. And how do we do that? We stay in the Word, and we ask the Holy Spirit to reveal these truths to us so we can become the person God created us to be.
While Justification (being made right with God) is instantaneous, Sanctification is a process – a life-long process. It is the journey of becoming more Christ-like! And since this journey is a process, it is imperative that we participate in the process if we expect the intended transformation to take place. Remember…justification changes our identity. Our old self is gone, now we are in Christ”. But sanctification is the process of bringing our behavior and our life-style in line with our new identity, and this requires different choices and intentional living.
But fear not… we are already victorious! Ephesians 1:14 tells us, “The Holy Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us everything he promised, and that he purchased us to be his own people.” This is reinforced in 1John 4:4, “He that is in you (the Holy Spirit) is greater than he that is in this world.” (satan) You see, God knows that we are living in a fallen world; that we’re still in these fleshly bodies; and he is well aware of the schemes of the Devil! But none-the less, we’re called to rise above the world around us and to live to a different standard – His standard!
From Creation until 2016 years ago, man displayed his total inability to overcome the “sin issue”, as revealed in Romans 5:6, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.” The pathetic condition of mankind could not be more clearly stated. But because we serve a loving God who wants us to spend eternity with him, part of his salvation plan was to provide a gift to do for us what we had proven we could not do for ourselves. He gave us the Holy Spirit. (Ref. Ephesians 1:14 above) That is the Christ-followers secret weapon! But unfortunately, too many Christians live their life as though they are totally unaware of this GIFT! That is also why I believe so many Christians live as victims rather than victors!
When we were living as unbelievers, we probably never experienced any encounters with the Devil. And the reason for that should be obvious…Satan had us right where he wanted us. He left us alone. We were separated from God and living according to our own plan. In my case, if anyone were to have talked to me about satan, fallen angels, demons or demonic forces, no doubt I would have laughed at them and thought they were nuts. “Are you serious?….” But the sooner we shed that lack of knowledge and replace it with the truth (the armor of God), the sooner we become an armed participant rather than cannon fodder in the Spiritual battle that will surly engulf us.
So here is what I know for a fact today. When we make a decision to move from the realm of darkness into the realm of light – the realm of Jesus Christ, now it’s as though we are wearing a target on our back. Satan and his minions will spring into action, and they will do everything possible to discredit our new identity, and to shipwreck our journey to become more Christ-like. And they are relentless!! Satan is the father of lies and the master of deception. Unless we recognize what is happening and turn to our secret weapon, the Holy Spirit, we will most likely become a victim of his schemes. And therein is the problem.
But that doesn’t have to be the case. Next week I will get into specific tactics we must use to overpower Satan and his minions. But first I want to leave you with this truth for meditation throughout the week. When God nailed all of our sins to Christ’s cross, Jesus won our spiritual war. Since we are in Christ, we don’t have to fight for victory; we fight from victory. Our role is to enforce the victory Jesus already secured! When we understand AND USE the power we have because of our new identity in Christ, there is absolutely no reason not to be experiencing the abundant life Jesus promised.
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May God Bless Ya…
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
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