✌🏼Do You Know Who You Are?

Escaping The Trap of Spiritual Amnesia

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NET)
So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away - look, what is new has come!

I hope you've never experienced the heartbreak of a loved one with dementia or debilitating memory loss. That look of fear, confusion, and vulnerability in those sad eyes. It's beyond painful to watch. No one with an ounce of compassion would blame them, shame them, or callously think they deserved it because of something they did or didn't do in life.

It's just tragic to observe someone who doesn't even know who they are.

I can imagine that's what Jesus felt as He looked over Jerusalem with compassion for the crowd. He saw them as sheep without a shepherd. They didn't even know who they were created to be.

Lost.
Spiritual amnesia.

One of the hardest things to understand about grace is that "while we were yet sinners," Jesus died for us.

The cross isn't a reminder of how much God hates our sin; it's the ultimate object lesson of how much God loves the sinner, like me. Or rather, like I used to be.

Sin is an issue of identity, not just right and wrong.

You weren’t created to be a sinner. You were created in the image of a sinless God. In His likeness.

But when we reject God's truth, we believe the identity lies of this broken world. It's like spiritual amnesia or dementia.

Lostness.

But when you turn from sin's rebellion and trust that Jesus' life, death, and resurrection are the only Way out of the brokenness of this troubled world, your identity changes. Born again isn't just a ticket to heaven or a get out of hell free card.

It's a new life.
A new identity.

Abundant life is the restoration of who you were created to be. In His image, not a reflection of sin's brokenness. The instant you are forgiven, you are not a “sinner” saved by grace any longer.

You are a new creation thereafte… not a sinner. Grace is the favor to acquire a new identity. The opposite of lostness.

And it's only by faith.

When you truly believe the cross is enough, you are a new creature. Old things, the old you, are dead.

A Jesus follower isn't just "trying" to be better through self-discipline. That's rule-keeping and legalism. Real freedom is by faith in the truth. Only the truth will set you free. The truth of God's incomprehensible and never-failing love.

The truth is that Jesus died so you could be the righteousness of God in Him. You were created to be a joint-heir, a sibling in God's family called the Kingdom. A child of God filled with the very same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. Seated with Him in heavenly places–here on earth, just as it is in heaven.

And when you, by faith, begin to see yourself as God sees you, through Jesus, something amazing happens. You begin to see others, not as they are now, but as who they were created to be.

But they don't know it.
They've believed the lies of brokenness.
Lost, confused, scared–living in the fear of spiritual dementia, not even knowing who they really are.

So were you.
So was I.

Where then is judgment, condemnation, finger-pointing, and name-calling?

New creatures have no need for such earthly chaos and stress. God is not the author of such confusion.

Love keeps no record of wrong.
Guilt keeps meticulous records.

A clear conscience has nothing to defend or prove.

• Nothing to be offended by.

• Nothing to argue about.

• Nothing to hide.

• Nothing to gossip about.

• To worry about.

• To stress…

Nothing.

You know Jesus. He knows you!

New creatures can’t take it personally. They are guilt-free and even fault-free, by the grace of repentance, not performance.

Romans 8:1 (NET)
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

No condemnation. Not a license to sin. Being born again is the only antidote and freedom from it.

New identity in Jesus is the only Way out of sin’s brokenness. Enforcing rules is a band-aid on a corpse.

This broken world is full of people who don’t know who they were created to be. If you know Jesus, that’s not you anymore.

In Jesus, as a new creature, you are:

• The righteousness of God in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:21 (NET)
God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.

• Filled with the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.

Romans 8:11 (NET)
Moreover if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit who lives in you.

• Seated with Him in heavenly places.

Ephesians 2:6 (NET)
and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,

• Chosen royalty.

1 Peter 2:9 (NET)
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may proclaim the virtues of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

• An adopted, joint-heir with Jesus.

Romans 8:15-17 (NET)
15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are Godʼs children. 17 And if children, then heirs (namely, heirs of God and also fellow heirs with Christ) - if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him.

• A citizen of heaven.

Philippians 3:20 (NET)
But our citizenship is in heaven - and we also await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

• Blameless in His sight.

Colossians 1:22 (NET)
but now he has reconciled you by his physical body through death to present you holy, without blemish, and blameless before him -

But wait… there’s more!So much more.
1 Corinthians 2:9 (NET)
But just as it is written, “Things that no eye has seen, or ear heard, or mind imagined, are the things God has prepared for those who love him.”

You weren’t created to be offended, to be angry, fearful, living in guilt and shame. Who the Son sets free is free indeed! A clear conscience has nothing to prove or defend. The price of your freedom has been paid in full, once for all!

Hebrews 9:14 (NET)
how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our consciences from dead works to worship the living God.

Don’t fall for the trap of spiritual amnesia. Jesus didn’t die to improve you. He died to make you new.

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