Jesus is Not Merely Your Helper. He’s Your Life.
What happened at salvation? Did Jesus become a way to help you do life better? Or could it be that He arranged for an exchange? Today in Paul’s short video, he reveals why knowing the truth of Him as your very Life changes everything!
In our North American Christian culture, there's a common misunderstanding of what happens when a person comes to faith in Jesus, the event we call salvation. Unless the truth is clearly explained, people often mistakenly think that when Jesus, by His Spirit comes to live in them, they now have a Helper. He is now helping them to live a new way, helping them to make better decisions, helping them to be a better husband or wife, helping them to love people more. It sounds good on the surface, but the Bible teaches something very, very different.
We don't merely add Christ to our life when we get saved.
The Bible tells us that at salvation, the person we used to be gets put to death. It was crucified with Christ, and we have been resurrected from that death into a brand new person.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 (NIV)
Another passage that supports this says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)
God arranged for a complete exchange to take place.
We exchange our old existence in Adam's life into a newly created eternal Life in Christ's Life! We exchange our old sinful nature for a new righteous, holy nature. We exchange our weakness for His strength. We exchange our pain for His comfort, our anxiety for His peace, and the list goes on and on!
Isaiah prophesied of this. He said that God would give His people “...a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair...” Isaiah 61:3 (NIV)
We have been given a brand new Life, a brand new identity with access to all the resources of Jesus!
We no longer have to rely on our old, flawed, and extremely limited ways of living life. Do you see how this is good news?! We're not just enlisting the help of Jesus and joining Him in our best efforts to try and improve our former selves. Jesus is not merely our Helper to live the Christian life.
Jesus is now our very Life!
We have His mind, His desires, and we have His identity. We can now love people with the love of Jesus. We can be patient with people; not with our extremely limited patience, but with the patience of Jesus that never runs out!
Knowing this, do you see the impact this would have on your day to day life? I encourage you today, not to just know it, but believe it to be true..it is true. Let Jesus become not just your Helper, let Him become your very Life!
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