Be sure to catch this point: When it comes to living in your own strength versus trusting Christ to be strong through you, the two feel exactly the same most of the time. We’re just talking feelings though. In actuality, there is all the difference in the world, especially in the mind of God. He does not recognize works done in the flesh as being of any value, but He always raves about the things of the Spirit.

While we like to talk about performance and Christ living in us—perhaps because it is observable and measurable—our Father stresses ten times more frequently who we are in Him. I guess He knew we would be slow to believe Him and hard-pressed to comprehend the profundity of His regenerative plan for us, His fallen creation.

But it’s true.

He placed us in Christ and gave each of us a new—phenomenally, mind-bogglingly new—identity. We are no longer who we were in Adam; we are new men and women in Christ.

Our Father is now the God of the universe; our elder brother is Jesus Himself; we are citizens of heaven, and this world is not our home, we’re only passing through.

In His Word, our Father calls us His own, sanctified, justified, redeemed, loved, accepted, triumphant, and joined to Him with a bond that renders us inseparable.

Next post is about how to truly live.