Staying Welcome
Some of my evangelical mentors (Navigators, Campus Crusade, Intervarsity Press) instructed me to believe that when I turned to Jesus in faith I had my sin paid for. In Scriptural terms, they called that being “justified.”
The next step of my process from death to life is an on-going one: “sanctification.” In this part of God’s plan, I am having my mind and heart changed to think like Jesus, and to want to behave like Jesus. “Sanctified” means “made holy.”
The last step will be deliverance from my sinful nature: my body. In this shift, I will pass from being connected to by flesh to having a new body, that is spirit. I will no longer be a spirit in a body; I will be seen for who I really am: a spirit being.
Another of my evangelical heroes (Ralph Neighbor) says that all of this can be referenced by how it relates to sin: I am first delivered from the Penalty of sin, then from the Power of sin, and finally from the Presence of sin.
In these pictures of my identity & nature, I am still only as righteous as my past: like “filthy rags.” God the Father can tolerate being in my presence because Jesus is bringing me to the Father in Himself (Jesus), and because the Father sees me “in Christ,” He can bear my filthiness.
I see too many Scriptures that indicate that when I was born again, that I was born “of God,” however, and that I already have His nature in my “inner man.” This indicates to me that I am spirit, born of Yahweh this second time, not of Adam and Eve, like the first time. I am righteous in my spirit. I am clean in my spirit. I am perfected in my spirit.
Paul instructed the congregations in Rome: “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
(Romans 12:1,2 NASU)
When I approach my God, He sees me as I am: reborn; His offspring; redeemed; holy; righteous; clean; unified with Jesus; much-loved; an heir to His throne with Jesus. He is waiting for me to live as if I am who I am. He is waiting for me to think as He does.
He is not waiting for me to be changed into a new nature when I die so that He can finally stand being around me. I am His son. You are His son or daughter. Stand in that identity. The earth is waiting for us to manifest our identities. Manifest doesn’t mean “become.” It means “become visible,” to “be revealed.”
Romans 8:19 – For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed.