ChristMyLife.org - Completeness and Freedom in Christ

I have wanted to update those of you on my mailing list on how things are going with me personally. How it is going in my relationship with the Lord. I have been growing in my understanding of Christ and my completeness and freedom in Him. Much of the focus of my writings up to now has been how we must keep the eyes of our heart and mind on the Lord and how He is worthy of all our adoration, worship and praise every moment of every day. These things are still most certainly true, but now I see clearly the greatest wonder and glory of our Lord: His death on our behalf on the cross and the complete defeat of sin and death as He died in our place. Christ's death is the key to our life. As others have said, it is the great exchange. He dies that we might live. He takes our sin that we might have His righteousness. What a wonderful Savior. I love you and praise you Jesus.

It seems so clear now how Christ is my life. I don't have any need (and I know that no one has the ability) to try to make myself "behave better" as a follower of Christ. Rather I rest in Him knowing the new life I have in Christ is my complete goodness. God cannot be pleased with any work in my flesh as Paul explains in Romans 8

For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:6-8 NASB)

God is delighted, though, in the new creation we are in Christ. The old is passed away and we are alive in Christ and Christ is our life.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV)

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20 NIV)

To say it in another way, I am freed from the hopeless cycle of trying to modify my behavior by self effort and personal discipline. Our flesh cannot please God, no matter how hard we try to put on a good front. I believe the vast majority of Christians today, most without realizing it, place all their effort in trying to "do better" rather than resting in the finished work of the cross which has completely freed us from sin.

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. (Romans 6:6-12 NIV)

Each of us literally died with Christ on the cross with Christ and are raised in newness of life with Him. The old me which was enslaved to sin is dead and gone. I am raised a completely new man in Christ and am completely, totally and forever free from sin. Sin has no power over me, or any other believer. I can delight in salvation and grace I have in Christ without concern about sin. If we don't realize this truth and see the full power and wonder of it, we will rather try to make ourselves better by force of will and discipline. Just as it is by grace through faith that we are saved, so it is by grace through faith that we are freed from sin.

We must be mindful that this is not what we have been taught or are being taught in churches today. It is not how we as fallen man naturally think and, generally, churches and books today teach that we must discipline ourselves to be better. They teach, for example, we must be in an accountability group where others hold us accountable for what we do and how we live. It is fine to meet with other believers for encouragement, but any attempt to control sin in our lives by personal effort or peer pressure is a work of the flesh "and those who are in the flesh cannot please God." (Rom 8:8) The "nobleness" of our goals or efforts does not matter. No effort in the strength of our own flesh can ever please God, regardless of how successful it may appear.

The grace and truth which are in Christ must be allowed to permeate our thinking and our very lives. By His grace (i.e., His abundant generosity and unmerited favor) He has given us everything we need to live a life which is pleasing to Him, as Peter describes.

Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:2-4 NIV)

Praise God that I am full and complete in Him. He has done it all and I can rest fully and completely in Him.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30 NIV)

Jesus has freed us from the unbearable burden of rules and regulations which He spoke against in the Pharisees during His time on earth. Christians today understand there are no rules or regulations as far as our coming to Christ in faith, but I believe we have mistakenly applied rules, regulations and expectations to our life in Christ, rather than living in complete faith in the finished work of the cross. We are completely and forever free from the power of sin in Christ and we do not need to work to make ourselves "better" (and we can never succeed in this effort either). Just as we can be amazed at the grace we have in Christ in His death on the cross for our sins, so we can be amazed at this same grace which has given us a new life which is completely free from the power of sin. As sinful man we will always be tempted to apply some rules of behavior to make ourselves better, but, praise God, we are completely free from this nonsense and can thrive in and enjoy our new life in Christ.

Some of you may be thinking, "So all I need to do is think differently about the sin in my life and it will all go away?" Yes, it is something like that. You as a believer need to grasp the wonderful truth of your identification with Christ in His death and resurrection. This is the truth about you and to think in any other way is to believe a lie. To struggle against sin and try to overcome a temptation through personal effort is a deception from Satan himself. He doesn't want you to realize you are completely free. It's not about you and your struggles, it's all about Jesus. Jesus has accomplished it all. You have been saved completely. Don't worry or concern yourself with your sin or struggles. Fix your eyes on Christ and put your faith in Him and not in any of your own efforts to improve yourself.

I must acknowledge that I have learned much about my life in Christ in just the last month from the The School of Christ website (http://www.theschoolofchrist.org/).

February 2004

Printer friendly version of this page.