Do You Know....

..Who You are in Christ? Or who He is in you? There is freedom in the answer to these questions. I have a fabulous little book titled "Who You are in Christ Jesus" by Sylvia Nelson. When I start to feel down or defeated during the week when I am at work and not at home where my word is readily available or at church where the truth of the word is being preached, I can flip through this book and get some great insight that is encouraging and uplifting. I think I'm going to start posting some of these scriptures and maybe even some personal thoughts about them occasionally, we'll see. (It's a spiral bound book full of scriptures in alphabetical order).

Let me start with the introduction in the book:

As a human being you probably have a name and you live somewhere. Perhaps you belong to a church and quite likely you are citizen of some country.

You will have acquired a reputation of some sort - it will vary according to the one who is asked to describe you.

Are you able to describe yourself with any sense of clarity or truth? What is the basis for your judgement of yourself, or anyone else for that matter? Is it the world and its ideas that are your standard?

The world may have an idea of who you are. You may have an idea of who you are. But the Word of God is the truth. THE WORD OF GOD IS HOW GOD SEES YOU. It alone is the basis of how you can see yourself.

As a Christian, realize that you are NOT the person you used to be, or that you thought you were. Neither are you who your friends, family or enemies thought you were.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new."

What does it mean to be "in Christ"? It means that when you received Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord, He immediately came into you, and you immediately became a part of Him. You are in Him as a result; you are a part of His body.

God said in Romans 4:17 that "we are joint heirs with Jesus". What does that mean for us? It means that God gave you, as an inheritance, everything that He gave to His Son.

To begin with, you have a new name: Christian. You have a new home. You dwell in "heavenly places with Christ Jesus". You may belong to a church but now you have a personal relationship with God through His Son Jesus. And - you now belong to the Kingdom of God.

But that's just the beginning. Listen to some of God's description of you:

• You are the head and not the tail.
• You are accepted in the beloved.
• You were healed by His stripes.
• You are forgiven all of your sins.
• Jesus became poor so that you might become rich.
• You have been raised to newness in life.
• You have been made the righteousness of God in Christ
• The blood of Jesus cleanses you from all unrighteousness.

As Christians, you are no longer victims, but Victors! Allow God's word to stir you up, to bring you out of negative circumstances, out of self doubt, into faith in God's Word. God's worth is the TRUTH.

Read each Scriptural Description of yourself out loud, and receive it for yourself. God loves you. He wants to be and have all that Jesus bought for you on the cross. Remember that All that He is, He is in You. He told us that "we would do all the things He did and more"

Say it! Believe it! Act as though it is so, because it is! God's Word is telling you WHO YOU ARE IN CHRIST!

POWERFUL! CONFIDENT! FULL OF LIFE!