We Must Embrace the Inconceivable – Part 2

25 Jul We Must Embrace the Inconceivable – Part 2

Blog Series

Moving from Checkers to Chess

Five Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective

The first part of embracing the inconceivable, as we saw then, is to accept that your redeemed inner man is holy and righteous.

This is almost inconceivable because it seems too good to be true, and because we know that we still sin. So, how is it possible to accept that our inner man is holy and righteous?!? Answer: by acknowledging that the sin is in our outer man… the flesh, the body, our “members” (Romans 7:140-8:1).

This body is not going to go to heaven. When our body dies, it drops to the ground and our eternal spirit (the true “us”) goes immediately to heaven. We do not have to be born again, again, in the split second between the time we die and the time we get to heaven, because our inner man is already holy and righteous (Ephesians 4:24). That is the point of last week’s blog, and it is an important point, so if you haven’t read it yet, be sure to go back and do so to set the stage for this part 2 of embracing the inconceivable.

The second part is to accept our inherent and true worth as a child of God.

We are created in the image of God, and as a result have inherent and infinite worth for that single reason. There is nothing we can do to earn or increase our worth. Our worth is conferred on us by God, not by anything we do (Genesis 1:27).

When we get to heaven and stand in the presence of God, we will be completely and permanently separated from our sin, so with what God already thinks of us, and what He has already done for us, there is nothing for God not to love. We accept this truth by faith, and then repeat that truth until it changes us.

This changes our identity, and since we tend to act consistently with our identity, this mental renewal helps our inner man gain increasing mastery over our outer man.

Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

As we work this passage backwards, we see that we can be living proof of the fact that God’s will is good and acceptable and perfect, but only if we are transformed. And we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, which is why it is vital to accept this truth.

It is not smart to abuse God’s grace

What God has done for us in forgiving our sin, causing us to be born again in the inner man, and calling us to live in fellowship with Him are all acts of towering grace, which, when grasped, will cause us to deeply love God in return. But it is not smart to abuse God’s grace.

One might say to himself that if he is holy and righteous in the inner man, and that if sin in the outer man does not cause us to lose our salvation, why not indulge in sin? Why not enjoy ourselves a little and toy with sin?

There are any number of things wrong with that. First, it is a response rooted in profound ingratitude for what God has done, and for the price He had to pay to do it (God’s sending Jesus to die for our sin, and Jesus’ being willing to do so).

Second, it kicks off three sets of consequences that any thinking person would want to avoid:

1. It generates negative cause/effect consequences. Every sin has a negative consequence. The worse the sin, the worse the consequence. Galatians 6:7 says, “Do not be deceived. God is not mocked; for whatever a person sows, this he will also reap.”
2. It generates vulnerability to spiritual warfare. In Ephesians 4:26-27 we read, “In your anger, do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” When we leave sin unrepented of and unresolved, it creates a situation in which the devil can foment further sin in your life, leading to magnified negative consequences.
3. It generates divine discipline. In Hebrews 12:5-11, we read that God will discipline us when we sin, just as any loving parent would discipline a child that was acting self-destructively.  In profound understatement, the passage says, “For the moment, all discipline seems not to be pleasant, but painful, but afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”  So… while the Lord makes it clear that He loves us, He also makes it clear that His love motivates Him to allow negative consequences for our sin to encourage us to repent and return to trusting obedience to Him.

God loves us too much to allow us to willfully sin without consequences

We don’t lose our salvation when we willfully sin, but as these passages describe, things can get very unpleasant. There are two outstanding examples in Scripture.

The Sinning Son

1 Corinthians 5 tells the story of a church member sinning worse than even the pagan Gentiles tolerated. In response, Paul said, “I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”

This man was sinning so egregiously that he was to be kicked out of the church and somehow delivered over to Satan to potentially have his body destroyed. But his spirit would still be saved.

The Sinning Celebrants

1 Corinthians 11 tells the story of Christians who were sinning by violating the spirit of the Lord’s Supper, perhaps repeatedly turning it into a drunken party. In response Paul said, “For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep” (1 Corinthians 11:30).

That is, this had been going on so long that a number of them were weak, some were sick, and some had even died. Then, he went on to say that if they would repent, they would escape the Lord’s discipline. But if not, they would be “disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world” (1 Corinthians 11:32).

Drawing on these two examples, we learn that if we persist in flagrant sin, we do not lose our salvation, but God may bring his escalating discipline into the life of the believer with the result that he/she may suffer greatly and even die. It is not smart to abuse God’s grace.

Conclusion

So, this is who you are:  You are a born-again spirit, “trapped” (as is were) in a still-unredeemed body. For our entire life, the inner man and outer man are locked in a battle for supremacy for living like Christ. That is what Paul is describing in Romans 7:14–8:1.

Our task as Christians is to submit in faithful obedience to the teachings of Scripture (Hebrews 4:12) and the work of the Lord in our lives (Philippians 2:12–13) so that the Lord may give us increasing dominion over our outer man.

If we do not understand this, we may get confused, discouraged and even defeated in our Christian walk. But when we understand who we are as a Christian, what happened to us when we were born again, it helps us see ourselves more completely as God sees us. And since we tend to act consistently with our self-perception, it helps us cooperate with God in the process of conforming our behavior into the character image of Christ. That is why it is important to embrace your true spiritual character.

Everything God asks of us, He does so to give something good to us and keep some harm from us.  Therefore, the shortest distance between us and the life we long for is total obedience to God.

The bottom line is “trust.” If we believe this… if we truly trust God… if we trust His character and His plan for us…  we will be “obedient from the heart” to whatever He asks of us (Romans 6:17).

So, to unleash the power of an eternal perspective, we must embrace the inconceivable. To embrace the inconceivable, (1) we must accept our redeemed inner man as holy and righteous and (2) we must accept our inherent and true worth as a child of God. Next week, we ‘ll look at (3) we must pursue God as our only source of ultimate happiness. See you then.

Get a Moving from Checkers to Chess At-a-Glance-Overview: Click Here

As we have been studying these concepts for quite some time (including in some prior blog series), and I am excited to now be connecting all the “moving parts” from those posts and combining them into a “spiritual game plan” in this “Moving from Checkers to Chess ~ 5 Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective” series.

For an overview of the game plan, so you can see at a glance where we begin and where we’re headed, I’ve created an overview/outline you can download for free: Click Here

For the full discussion of each of the steps, begin with the first post in this series, Moving from Checkers to Chess, and then continue with the following posts thereafter.

In case you’re new here, below are two resources I’ve created for additional help in your Christian discipleship journey:

Share this Blog