Know Who You Are in Christ

One of my earliest recollections of God was in school, around thirteen. I read about the life of St. Francis of Assisi, and for whatever reason, something about his gentle way of life and hunger for God sparked a spiritual curiosity in me. I remember forgoing my lunch for more than a week, and instead, I spent my lunch money on a loaf of bread and went to a nearby park to feed the birds, desiring to be like St Francis. The quest for God soon faded, unfortunately. Living in this world has a way of putting other things before us instead of God.

In my late teens and early 20s, after several near-death experiences as a commercial fisherman with my father on his boat, Why Worry, I began to fear what would happen to me at death. My earlier desire to be like St. Francis of Assisi awoke and I started to desire a new way of life. I had not encountered Christ and did not know anyone who was a Christian, or if I did, they did not “blow their cover” in my presence. Seeking to become a better person, I tried to live a moral life by self-reformation. As a seeker of truth, I reached out for spiritual experiences in several ways, and some paths were not good. I picked up a copy of a Bible and tried reading it but found it difficult to put into practice or understand. I found the 10 Commandments and thought that keeping to them would be the secret to living a good life. I thought it would take away my guilt about my sinful lifestyle. No matter how hard I tried, though, it did not work. I was a sinner by nature and by choice.

I would make resolutions to change but found myself repeating my old habits. I did not understand the Gospel, but I believe God saw that I was searching. At that time of my life, when I was contemplating the existence of God, the police charged me with allowing my house to be used for the smoking of cannabis. I was faced with a choice. After making the court declaration that I would tell the truth and nothing but the truth, I could have lied on the stand in court and got out of being convicted, but I thought of the Ten Commandments, and one of them was “Thou shalt not lie.” I told the truth and hoped for the best, but due to an earlier marijuana conviction, they gave me the maximum sentence, which was six months imprisonment. While in prison, I went to a church service for the first time but still did not hear the Gospel. I remember sitting in the chapel crying, not tears of repentance at that point, but tears of despair because of how my life had been and feeling powerless to change it.

The Ten Commandments served to show me that I fell short of God’s law and caused me to realize that I could not live up to His standard. It was not until later, while on a trip to America, that I heard the Gospel for the first time and understood that I was guilty before God and needed the Savior’s forgiveness (Romans 7:7). I saw how futile it was to overcome my sinful nature by trying to live a moral life in my own strength. I needed a new life! Only then were my eyes opened to the good news that Christ took my sin upon Himself and that if I repented and believed the Gospel, I would be saved. From then on, it was like I was learning who I was, who I AM in Christ! Forty-five years later, I am convinced that all believers need to know who they are in Christ to walk this life with faith in God. We need to know our identity.

Trying to live a good life was admirable, but I needed to connect to the presence of Christ to see a change in my character and overcome my sinful nature. God saw my hunger for a righteous life and showed me His righteousness, giving me more than I could have imagined; a real relationship with Him. How beautiful it was to lay my burden of sin down at the foot of the cross. My conversion was pretty radical because my life had been so dark up to that point. Now, I was aware of the Holy Spirit leading, teaching, and convicting me when tempted to sin. Now, I experienced God’s strength helping me to live differently. The Bible became alive and finally made sense to me.

If you are a Christian, Satan plans to thwart your growth in Christ; his objective for your life is mediocrity. Can you think of ways that he might try to accomplish this?

Over half a century ago, Donald Grey Barnhouse, the pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, was asked the question, “If Satan could take control of a town in America, what would he do? He surprised everybody by saying, “If Satan were in charge in Philadelphia,” he said, “all the bars and the pool halls would be closed, pornography would be banished, there would be pristine streets and sidewalks, occupied with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing, the kids would answer, “Yes sir, no ma’am,” and the churches would be full on Sunday where Christ is not preached.”

Satan has been very busy seeking to make people religious and respectable. If he can produce a pseudo-Christian, he can lull that person into a mediocre state, keeping the individual from hungering for a real relationship with Christ. On the surface, everything may look fine. That is the nature of a good counterfeit. There is more than one way Satan can deceive someone to follow him. If the enemy can lead an individual down a path of public self-destruction, a life full of recklessness and harm to others, he will do so, causing as much destruction as possible. Our enemy often takes a more subtle, less noticeable approach, but just as effective. He leads multitudes down a path that seems safe and self-righteous, keeping them unaware of their need for a new life with Christ; he will still succeed in leading those individuals in the darkness. In Satan's view, either strategy will suffice for his purposes.

In the Christian classic entitled “The Screwtape Letters,” the author, C.S. Lewis, wrote a fictional story about temptation from the point of view of an elder demon writing to his nephew and giving him helpful tips on how to tempt humans. Although it is a work of fiction, it is a very insightful account of the temptation of one particular man and how, in the end, the man overcomes temptation, much to the dismay and disgust of the elder demon, Screwtape. The younger demon’s name is Wormwood. After giving Wormwood some helpful tips on how to fritter away this man’s life in meaningless pursuits, boredom, and mediocrity, he writes: “You will say these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are, provided their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one- the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, milestones, or signposts.” Your affectionate uncle SCREWTAPE.

There are two things that Satan tries his utmost to hinder: 1) He seeks to keep the “not-yet Christians” from entering churches that preach Christ. 2) The other strategy is to keep the true Christians in the dark concerning who they are in Christ so that he may hinder their fruitfulness. The enemy’s first objective, in other words, is to keep us from experiencing life in Christ. If he fails in this task, the second objective is to keep the life of Christ from spreading to others (his plan of "damage control"). After all, if we live a life of fulfillment in Christ and realize the available power, it will attract many others to true faith. People are attracted to the "real thing." They know it when they see it. If we are ever to live a life of faith in Christ, we must view ourselves as God sees us. When this happens, we will have the boldness to come before God as His children with greater faith, faith that is based on His goodness, not our merit. Our faith will grow stronger as we learn more about God’s character. What we believe about the Lord and how He views us changes the way we come before Him, for we will not hesitate to come before the throne of grace for our needs and the needs of others. When Satan tries to plant doubt or accuse us and make us feel unworthy, we will respond with God's Word, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). We will say, Get behind me Satan, I do not agree with you, I agree with God! He is for me! His plan for me is to go from glory to glory!

Satan is a Defeated Foe

The prophecy of Joel 2:28-29 tells us that God is pouring out His Spirit on all people. The phrase all people include each of us reading these words. God is opening our eyes spiritually, making us aware of the power and authority available to us when we step out in faith in Christ. At the cross of Christ, the Lord broke the enemy's power:

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil (Hebrews 2:14).

Satan was not annihilated at Christ's cross, but Christ's death broke his power over all who come to Christ for new life. Christ has given His Church the mission to enforce what Christ accomplished at the cross. Christians are the Body of Christ; Christ is the head. Jesus said, “I have given you the authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you” (Luke 10:19). We are the extension of our Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, in carrying on His work in the world. We are now to do the things He did when He walked on earth by the power of the Holy Spirit living in us. “Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did (1 John 2:6).

John the apostle wrote, “The one who is in you is greater than the one [Satan] who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). When we begin to believe what God says about us, we can step out in faith and take steps to minister in the power of the Spirit of God. Satan attempts to keep us from receiving a God-given vision of who we are in Christ through all kinds of lies and deception. More than at any other time in history, Satan is losing ground to the Church as Christ’s followers learn to walk in obedience to the Spirit and His power. As we said in the last two studies, it is not about how great your faith is; it can be as small as a mustard seed; it is about our obedience to the Word of God and the Holy Spirit’s promptings, stepping out with the faith we have. Let me tell you the story about the faith of Nneka, a Nigerian pastor’s wife:

On the morning of November 30, 2001, Daniel Ekechukwu, the pastor of Power Chapel Evangelical Church in Onitsha, Nigeria, with his friend Kingsley Iruka, took a goat as a Christmas present to a village near the town of Owerri. On the way home, going down a steep road, the brakes failed on Daniel’s 20-year-old Mercedes 230. Gathering speed, it hurtled downhill and smashed into a stone pillar. Without a seat belt, Daniel was catapulted violently forward. His head hit the windshield, and the steering wheel knob punched into his body. Iruka was not severely hurt, but Daniel was bleeding from the nose from a head injury and vomiting blood from severe internal bleeding.

Rescue came soon. Marvelously, Daniel held up until he was placed in the local hospital's intensive care or the best Nigerian equivalent. They sent for his wife, Nneka. She found Daniel still alive, but just barely. He hung onto life long enough to ask her to take him to his family doctor's hospital in Overri— a grave mistake. It meant anything but a smooth ride for one-and-a-half hours. Within minutes of being lifted into the ambulance, Daniel felt himself dying. He tried to whisper his last words and instructions to Nneka. But his speech slurred, became incoherent and stopped as he drifted into unconsciousness.

The ambulance driver pushed on at full speed with warning sirens blaring. Reaching the Owerri Regional Hospital, they ran in shouting, "Emergency! Emergency!" Daniel's doctor was not on duty, so a medical staff member took charge and checked Daniel's limp form. He turned to Nneka with a sad face. He could only certify that Daniel was already dead. Nneka was brokenhearted, but a Bible verse came to her mind from Hebrews 11:35, “Women received their dead raised to life again.” Then a non-rational conviction seized her: This meant her! The text in Nneka’s head made it impossible for her to accept the plain evidence that Daniel had gone or allow him to be buried. Her agitation dictated that something had to be done. But he confirmed the death at 11:30 P.M. when they brought Daniel's body to Dr. Jossy Anuebunisa at the St. Eunice Clinic.

From there, they took the body a short distance to the Ikeduru General Hospital Mortuary. The resident mortician, Mr. Barlington R. Manu, performed routine checks at 1:00 A.M. on Saturday. The mortuary had no cold storage facilities, so the mortician administered the usual chemical preservative injection and prepared the body for embalming the following morning. With help from a staff member, he laid the body out on a mortuary slab between two other dead people. Everyone then retired for the night.

Convinced her husband would live again, Nneka wanted the body taken to the church in Onitsha, where Reinhard Bonnke, the famous German evangelist, was to speak at a dedication ceremony of the Grace of God Ministries. So the following day, Sunday, December 2, they went to the mortuary to take the body, but the mortician was worried about their intentions. To hide that a body was being taken to a church service, she dressed it for a funeral as a pretext, placed it in a coffin, and shut the lid. They took Daniel in his coffin and set off on the long drive to Onitsha.

Arriving at the Onitsha church compound, the state security officer and the ushers saw them driving up with the coffin and ordered them to turn around and leave. But Nneka pled and persisted, so after checking the coffin for a terrorist bomb, they relented and allowed the body to be taken out and carried into the church, but only to the downstairs area.

The church bishop’s son, Paul, and another pastor on the church staff, Bathcomery Nkwando, laid the body on a table and found rigor mortis had made the limbs "stiff as an iron rod," they said. Two other staff pastors, Lawrence Onyeka and Luke Ibekwe, joined them to guard the body. Meanwhile, Reinhard Bonnke was upstairs preaching and praying with no knowledge of the body downstairs. Before long, the pastors noticed a slight twitching of the corpse's stomach. Then they saw the corpse draw a breath and begin breathing "in short bursts." Encouraged, they called for a video camera and threw themselves into powerful petitionary prayer, stripped the body of the mortuary gloves, socks, and shirt, and began massaging it from head to foot. As this news broke out in the sanctuary above, it created pandemonium. Then at 5:15 P.M., nearly two days after his death, Daniel opened his eyes, sat up, and leaned on Pastor Lawrence. To give him a clear space, they seated him on a chair on the platform, where hundreds of people saw him slowly recovering. He had not yet collected his thoughts and, for a while, could not recognize anyone, not even his son. By evening, however, he was entirely coherent and is 100% lucid today. This miracle of God was a public event and documented like no other resurrection.[1]

We don’t know where Nneka was in her faith journey when this event happened. How many times had she responded before to the promptings of God? A gift of faith came because of a Spirit-inspired Word in her heart, which she grabbed hold of and did not let go. Where did this faith come from that arose in Nneka's heart? It originated when the Spirit of God prompted her with a Scripture read sometime previously. The Holy Spirit reminded her of God's Word, and she did not dismiss the Spirit's promptings. A Rhema word (A Holy Spirit prompted word) from God caused faith to arise, believing that even death could not hold her husband down. This kind of Rhema word drops into one’s mind as a distinct thought separate from the usual chain processes of the mind. What do I mean by that?

Let me give you a simple example of hearing a Rhema word. In 1983, my wife Sandy left me in England to visit her parents and family in the USA. She was gone for two weeks with her plane due at Heathrow Airport in London at around 5:30 A.M. It was a two-hour drive from our home for me to pick her up from the airport. I was exhausted when I arose at 2:30 A.M., but as I was getting dressed, a sudden thought dropped into my mind, "take your passport." I thought, why would I want to take my passport to the airport? I wasn't going anywhere to need my passport, so I immediately dismissed the thought. Twenty minutes later, I was getting my car keys together to go out the door to the car when the sudden thought dropped into my mind again, "take your passport." It was a ridiculous thought, but I immediately remembered where it was and responded by dashing upstairs and getting it, just in case.

When I got to the airport, I checked on the screens everywhere to find the carrier and the flight number. The plane was on time and had just landed. Two hours went by, and still no Sandy. I was worried and wondered if she had a problem and couldn't get on the plane. Amid my fear for her, a voice came over the loudspeaker system, “Would Mr. Keith Thomas come to the Information Office?" Now I was scared! As I walked to the office, a man in uniform was waiting for me. "Mr. Thomas?" he asked. "This can all be cleared up quite easily if you happen to have your passport with you." Smiling, I happily pulled out my passport and showed it to the British Immigration Officer to release my wife. Sandy just needed to prove she married a British citizen to enter as a Resident of Britain. They had not given her the correct stamp on her passport when she initially left the States. She happened to have a copy of our marriage certificate in her passport case, so all she needed was to prove that Keith Thomas was a British citizen to enter the country. How glad I was to have heard God whisper in my ear to bring my passport. That is a much smaller matter than the previous story, I know. The point is that faith grows as we exercise it. Why do I share that story? To share that often God is speaking to us—our problem is that we are not always listening:

For God does speak—now one way, now another—though man may not perceive it (Job 33:14)

I wish I could always be that perceptive, but I, like you, am learning how to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. The voice of the Spirit does not always come as Scripture, but it could come as a distinct thought that does not always follow a pattern of cognitive reasoning. Nneka had a Scripture drop into her mind along with the thought of how specific it was to her situation. Armed with that word, she could stretch her faith to believe that God would raise her husband from the dead, even though such a proposition was a crazy thought. God is looking for His people to see things from His perspective and step out in new ways to trust Him to continue His work of the Kingdom here on earth. We are empowered and authorized to be His hands and feet to exercise His will on earth.

Why does the enemy want to keep people in the dark concerning the power of the cross and what happened there?

Sir Francis Bacon once said, “Knowledge is power.” Our worldview about God's power and authority affects our actions and choices. Four times in the sixth chapter of his letter to the church in Rome, Paul the apostle wrote about truths that they should know, using phrases such as “don’t you know…” that would help them become mature in their faith (Romans 6:3, 6, 9, 15). Knowledge of what God has given us in Christ is crucial to living a life of faith. We can expect God to move in supernatural ways when we understand how He works in and through us. Faith in God is but expectation. What are you expecting God to do at any given time? Do you input your mind and heart with God’s Word for the Spirit to use as Nneka did? Each of us, I hope, can believe that with God, all things are possible (Matthew 19:26), but can you dare to think that it is possible for you? Faith does not just accept that God can do something for you; faith believes that God will do something you ask.

Satan would like us to think that Nneka was a super saint, and that kind of miracle is way beyond the scope of you or me to believe God for anything miraculous. But as we considered in the previous study, when we thought about the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15, we saw that the supernatural acts of God are the children's bread, the staple diet of one in a covenant relationship with God. The Canaanite woman was not in a relationship with God, but her faith made up for it. This intimacy with God is part of our inheritance as His children, bound by a covenant with Christ. Paul the apostle was clear to Gentile believers that we are grafted into the nourishing sap of the Olive Tree of the covenant God made with Israel. With our being joined together with them, we can receive the same promises made to Abraham and his descendants (Romans 11:17-24). All things are possible with God. Whether we believe Him for small items or things that seem like a vast mountain, they are all the same to God. Paul the apostle wrote the following:

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us (Ephesians 3:20 ESV).

Believers in Christ are in Covenant with God

When God wanted to enter into a relationship with the human race, He called one man, Abram, telling him to leave his country and go to a land God would show him (Genesis 12:1), the land of Canaan, later called the land of Israel. It was quite a leap of faith for Abraham. He went, not knowing where he was going. “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). His faith was strong because he listened to God and learned that He could expect God to keep His word.

When Abram, under the direction of God, arrived in the land of Canaan, God told him that He would give all the land to him and his descendants after him (Genesis 13:14-17). God confirmed this to Abram by entering into a covenant with him:

⁸But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?" ⁹So the LORD said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon." ¹⁰Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. ¹¹Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. ¹²As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. ¹³Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. ¹⁴But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. ¹⁵You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." ¹⁷When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. ¹⁸On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants, I give this land (Genesis 15:8-18).

The covenant was sealed with the shed blood of innocent animals. The heifer, goat, and ram were cut in half, and God walked between the animals to confirm and assure Abraham that He would keep His side of the covenant. In ancient covenant contracts of that period, people pledged their blood to be shed if they broke their side of the covenant. God put Abraham to sleep (v. 12) because this covenant was not conditional on Abraham doing anything; it was all because of God’s grace. The Lord was the only one that shed innocent blood. Later, He told Abraham that the sign of the covenant between them was that he and his descendants would undergo the rite of circumcision, an outward sign of an inward change.

This agreement between two or more persons to do or not do something specified was known as a covenant. Blood Covenants were solemn and binding on those who entered them, and they were not to be entered into lightly. When one violated or defaulted on their side of the covenant, there were consequences for such actions. There were great blessings to be in a covenant with God, blessings for obedience, and curses for disobedience (Deuteronomy 28). I believe this nation, America, has been under the benefits and blessings of the covenant of God for many years now, and my longing, and yours too, I'm sure, is that we may stay obedient to God so that His blessings may continue to us as a nation.

Interestingly, the most solemn covenant between a man and woman, the union of a man and woman in marriage, is taken before God and relatives and ratified by the shedding of blood. The act of marriage breaks the hymen of the woman, and blood is shed on the wedding night. The marriage was not considered ratified until the act of marriage occurred, and blood was shed (Deuteronomy 22:13-22). Blood has always been a vital part of the meaning of covenant relationships, as it is a message that God has woven through His contact with the human race. The shedding of blood is a frequent theme, like a shadow and image of the blood covenant He would establish through the shedding of the blood of His Innocent Son.

A New Covenant Promised

Despite their painful trials as a nation, God never left them without hope. He spoke to them through the prophet Jeremiah about a new covenant:

³¹"The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. ³²It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, “declares the LORD. ³³"This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. ³⁴No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:31-34 Emphasis mine).

What things stand out to you about this New Covenant relationship?

In the above passage, God says that the relationship the Israelites enjoyed was one of the most intimate, that of a marriage relationship. He said He was their husband (v. 32). For thousands of years, God has been preparing a body of people that will lovingly enjoy God forever in the most intimate of terms: a marriage relationship. He invites Jews and Gentiles (Non-Jews) to enter into a covenant relationship by the shedding of the blood of an innocent substitute, the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, to remove the sin barrier to the kind of relationship God wants for all of us. In the books of Leviticus and Hebrews, Scripture says:

For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life (Leviticus 17:11).

In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22).

This covenant relationship makes us one with Him. When we repent (change our minds and the direction of our lives) and trust the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross, we enter into a relationship likened to a marriage relationship where the Spirit of God comes and takes residence upon the throne of our lives. In this relationship, we share our suffering and joys and become one with Him. Jesus prayed for us at the Last Supper with His disciples:

²⁰"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me (John 17:20-21).

Can you imagine Christ praying for something the Father would not give? No, never! If Christ prayed that we might enjoy life so intertwined in God, it is not only possible but also His will that we experience this. Just so we may know that God’s ultimate purpose is that we may be one with Him, He says it elsewhere:

To them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).

But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17).

What difference does it make for us to be in covenant with God? It makes a great deal of difference, for He has promised that if we ask anything in His name, He will do it (John 14:14). God has given us a signed check to ask what we will, and it shall be done for us (John 16:23). What is lacking is our perception of our marriage relationship with God and who we are in Christ. When we are in a covenant relationship with someone, our desires change. If it is a genuinely loving relationship, the things important to God will be important to us. We need to align our will with the will of God. He wants to give us the desires of our hearts, but those desires must be in line with His will and purposes. If we ask according to His will, we know He hears us and that we will receive what we ask for (1 John 5:13-15). John the apostle wrote, “Ask, and you will receive that your joy may be complete” (John 16:24).

Knowing who we are in Christ gives us the confidence to live life soaring far above a life of mediocrity. So many possibilities open up to us when we truly believe what God says about us and our standing with Him. He wants us to take steps of faith, considering that He WILL work on our behalf. What things do you believe God wants to do in your life? Are there positive changes you desire but have not dared to think possible? God wants you to experience the joy of answered prayer and the reality of living in a covenant relationship with Him!

In closing, let me finish with an excerpt from a book by Paul E. Billheimer entitled: “Destined for the Throne." In it, he has an affirmation which he calls "Affirmation of Identity." As a child of God, I encourage you to repeat this affirmation and make it personal by reminding yourself of who you are in Christ:

"Because I am a part of Christ, "accepted in the Beloved," I hold the same place in the Father's bosom as Christ does. Because I am a part of Him, the Father loves me as much as He loves Christ. Because I am a part of Christ, I have His wisdom—because He is made wisdom to me (1 Corinthians 1:30). Likewise, I have His righteousness. My righteousness is as good as His in the eyes of the Father because it is His righteousness. Because I am organically a part of Him because Head and Body are one unit, all Christ is and has is accredited to me."[2]

Prayer: Father, thank You for bringing me into a covenant relationship with You. May Your Spirit living in me have the reins of my heart so that I may be led and guided by You.

Keith Thomas

Email: keiththomas@groupbiblestudy.com

Website: www.groupbiblestudy.com