Month: May 2021

When you believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ … you received a NEW NATURE.

You no longer have a sin nature.  You have a righteous nature.  You no longer have a propensity toward sin.  Your new nature is wired for righteousness.

Does that mean a believer cannot commit sin?  No, no, no.  We still have a capacity to sin.  But the propensity toward sin, our helpless default mode to sin, is gone.  Big difference between propensity and capacity.  And when we do sin, we have an advocate, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself as the payment for our sin.  But that is another post for another day.  For today, let’s focus on the new nature.

“For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires.”   II Peter 1:4

“No one who is born of God practices sin, because God’s seed [God’s nature] abides in him.”   I John 3:9

“By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.”   I John 4:17

When you believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ … you received a NEW PURITY

Another beautiful piece of your salvation experience is that you are declared “clean” in the sight of the Lord.  Your “sins of scarlet have been made white as snow”.  The slate of your sin has been wiped clean.

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”   Romans 5:1

“The Holy Spirit declares, ‘Their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more.’ “   Hebrews 10:17

Regarding the Gentiles, Peter said, “and God made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.”   Acts 15:9

“How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”   Hebrews 9:14

“Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”   Hebrews 10:22

“And everyone who has this hope fixed on Jesus purifies himself, just as He is pure.”   I John 3:3

“Blessed are the pure in heart (this is who you are right now!), for they shall see God.”   Matthew 5:8

When you believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ … you were given a NEW SPIRIT.

The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, came to you the moment you believed and now lives in you.  By the presence of His Spirit, you have become one with Christ and one with the Father.  Christ is living His resurrected life through you by the power of His Spirit in you.

“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”   John 14:16-17

“Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”   I Corinthians 3:16

“Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.”   II Timothy 1:14

“However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.  But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”   Romans 8:9

Since the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit first descended and filled Christ’s followers, the Spirit has been a never-ending presence in the hearts and lives of God’s children.

“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.  And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.  And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”   Acts 2:1-4

When you believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ … you received a NEW HEART.

Just like your new creation, your new heart is not a remodeled or improved or cleaned up old heart.  As Watchman Nee writes in The Normal Christian Life, “The heart, God says, is ‘desperately sick’, and He must do something more fundamental than cleanse it; He must give us a new one.”

You have a new heart that is soft toward God; a new heart with God’s ways written upon it.  Never let a minister, preacher, or teacher tell you that you have a “deceitful and desperately wicked heart” (Jer 17:9).  It is not true.  That wicked old heart is long gone.  In fact, your new heart is literally the repository, the fuel, the energy, for your righteous living.

“Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”   Ezekiel 36:26.

“I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”   Jeremiah 31:33

“The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.”   Luke 6:45

When you believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ … you were given a NEW IDENTITY.

You are now identified as a child of God.  This is who you are.  And as God’s child, you are now called “holy and beloved”.  Your sinner identity is gone forever.

“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are!”   I John 3:1

“So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”   Colossians 3:12

“Therefore from now on we recognize no man by what he is in the flesh.”   II Corinthians 5:16