YOU ARE WHO'S YOU ARE ~ 3/21/08

The most important question in the world is “Who’s am I?”  This is the most important question because its answer will determine your future.  It will also determine who you are.  Whatever is your master will define you and your life… You are who’s you are.  So who’s are you?

All of us are born with the same identity, but we don’t all die with the same one.  We all start out as flawed, fallen creation -- an inherited plight which places us, by default, smack dab in the middle of Satan’s family tree – and which dooms us to empty lives and a painfully lonely afterlife (if this was one of Bill’s sermons, this is where he’d smile real big and say, “Aren’t you glad you came to church this morning?).  But by the grace of God, along the way, we may be exposed to an opportunity to gain a new identity – as Children of God. 

That moment of choice comes when we have to decide what we’re going to do with Jesus.  If what we do is accept Him for who He said He was and believe He did what He said He did – then this is who we become -- this is our new identity:

n      I am a child of God (Jn. 1:12)

n      I am Christ’s friend (Jn 15:15)

n      I am chosen and appointed for Christ (Jn. 15:16)

n      I am loved by my Father (Jn. 16:27)

n      I am a personal witness of Christ (Acts 1:8)

n      I have been redeemed (Rom. 3:24)

n      I have been justified and am at peace with God (Rom. 5:1)

n      I died in Christ to the power of sin’s rule over me (Rom. 6:1-6)

n      I have been freed from sin’s power over me (Rom. 6:7)

n      I am a slave to righteousness (Rom. 6:18)

n      I am forever free from condemnation (Rom. 8:1)

n      I am an heir of God and fellow heir with Christ (Rom. 8:17)

n      I am holy (Rom. 11:16)

n      Christ accepts me (Rom. 15:7)

n      I have been sanctified (1 Cor. 1:2)

n      I have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:12)

n      I am the temple of God, His Spirit dwells in me (1 Cor. 3:16)

n      I have been bought with a price; I am not my own; I belong to God (1 Cor. 6:19-20)

n      I have been established in Christ and anointed by God (2 Cor. 1:21)

n      I am a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17)…

The list could go on and on… isn’t that fantastic?  Meet the “new you.”  Now read the list again;  do you believe each one of these?  Each one describes you if you’re a Believer.  Meditate on them.  Thank God for them.  And then, by the grace and power of God, live like you believe them.

Surrounded By Grace,

Josh