My friends, welcome to part two of this series on salvation. I just love how Abba shows me these truths and walks me through them. They are truths I desperately need and feel honored to share. As one is blessed with wisdom and knowledge to know Him better, I believe many are blessed too, as He calls us to share what we are given in all manners. I am learning more and more about God’s generosity and am continually blown away by what He shows me. I pray that by the end of this post, you are as blown away by what He revealed to my hungry heart.

To review, last week I talked about how we are wired for salvation and how it’s not us who brings a person to salvation but our Father who draws or calls them first to His Son, Jesus. Read that first part, Wired for Salvation, if you haven’t had a chance to yet. This week, we will talk about our identity.

Before we make that most crucial decision to ask Jesus to be our Savior, our identity is “sinner.” Once we take this step and Jesus lives in us (John 17:20), we are new creations who still sin at times. Our identity has changed as we are now children of God and belong to His family. We have sonship (Romans 8:15, 23).

To continue to define ourselves as sinners is kind of like having a split personality and the Bible even says light and darkness can’t coexist. So we can’t be both identities, sinner and new creation. How can Jesus be in us, how can the Holy Spirit dwell in us with the “old man” so to speak?

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun. And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. — 2 Corinthians 5:17-19

For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority. When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. — Colossians 2:9-12

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. — Ephesians 2:10

After accepting Christ, our identity is in Jesus.Yes, we still sin (an action) at times, but as we bear the righteousness of Christ, our identity (who we are) now resides in Him. We are seen in the same righteousness as Christ (Romans 5:17).

Now apply this to your pre-believer. If he or she doesn’t know Jesus as their Savior, how can we expect them to behave as new creations? Yet that is what we do at times, isn’t it? And the enemy wants nothing more than to either keep them from knowing Jesus, or keep us fruitless with his lies.

Last week I talked with dear friend Kevin Adams (author of The Extravagant Fool) about this very subject and loved what he said. I told him I had to share it with you.

“The enemy can’t uncreate us, but he will try to make us unproductive. We don’t practice sin, we stumble.” — Kevin Adams

The final piece Abba brought me is in the story of the Prodigal, again a direction I never anticipated, and it’s a truth God wants us to know and believe. This story not only shows a lost son coming back to his father (the Father), but it also represents the generous heart of our Father in Heaven. The son acknowledged his sin to his father, but never once does the father call him a sinner.

“for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.” — Luke 15:24

He calls him son. This son of mine.

God does not call us sinners. He calls us His children. He calls us and claims us as His own.

He calls us His.

That is our greatest truth to walk in and it is powerful. In this year of intimacy Abba called me to walk in, this above all else has been the focus of our time together as He reveals the lies and shows me His promises. And this next part had me bawling like a baby. Seriously, because it is so contrary to what I have believed for too long—that I must work to get what I want.

“His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”

The father’s son had believed he had to work for what he had all along. We don’t have to work for God’s favor. We don’t have to work for His blessings. We don’t have to work for His love. He’s already given us everything.

He calls us by our true identity. His child. His son. His daughter. His!

My friends, what lie keeps you from fully embracing the truth that God loves you unconditionally (Romans 8:38-39) and calls you His? I want to hear your heart so that I can pray for you, because my victory is yours too.

Love you dearly! 

Dineen

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