Things I Wish I Had Known Sooner

Things I Wish I had Known Sooner
Overview

• I will not live beyond what I believe and if what I believe is a lie it
  affects what I think, my behavior, and the choices I make.
• God choose me In Christ before the foundation of the world and ordained
  that I be holy and blameless in Him.
• I am a spiritual being with a soul and a body (earthsuit), not a physical
  being with a spirit. God’s Spirit gives life.
• The old sinner ceased to exist. A new, righteous Saint was raised in his
  place. I am a completely new creation. I can no more be a sinner saved by
  grace. I am now a saint who sins. There is nothing sinful about me at all.
• My ‘old man’, my sinful spirit, was crucified with Jesus. He was removed.
  I received a new heart, born of God’s spirit. I am holy and righteous.
• God put the fullness of Himself into me so that I no longer have to be the
  ‘source’ from which to live life.
• I live from God as my Source of power over sin, nenewing my mind,
  transforming my life and meeting my needs.
• The power of sin is going to work in the same way as the Holy Spirit, but
  with the opposite intent. I don’t have a sin nature; Christ lives in me.
  Knowing that I am completely forgiven destroys the power of sin in my life.
• The difference between the ‘Old Covenant’ and the “New Covenant’.
  Living the Christian life is easier than I thought because I already have
  everything I need ‘In Christ’ to live it.
• There are two sides of the Cross…the ‘Sin’ side and the ‘Life side’. Jesus
  shed his blood once, and it needs no repeat. It’s a done deal. I am forgiven
  once for all my sins. God gave me a new identity in Christ. Christ is my life
  and source for living. I am a new creation: old things have passed away.
• The ‘old me’ is gone forever. God sees my ‘old me’ and old identity being
  crucified with Christ on the cross. Everything is in the present time with
  God. It is a mystery how this works.
• Forgiving my sins, removing my old heart, and giving me a new heart are
  necessary steps. But they are not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is
  God fusing Himself to me forever to make us one.
• I have no works to do in order to attain eternal life. Eternal Life is Jesus,
  not a reward for good works and obeying the Law.
  Living In Father’s Unconditional Love
• I am eternally, infinitely loved. I have a Father who loves me more than
  any other human being on this planet ever has or ever will.
• Everything about my life is in the Father’s hands. Without God being the
  initiator of His work in me and the producer of change, there wouldn’t be
  significant change in my life.
• If I am in a circumstance, God means it for good. The universe is
  completely safe for me. Nothing comes to me—and Christ in me—unless it
  passes thru God’s loving hands. I have no reason to fear.
• I am born again into God’s family. I am a new superior type of creation.
  A child of God. I am not the ‘old me’ I’ve always known.
• Even while I am here on earth, I am seated in Christ at the right hand of
  the Father. I am a unique, one-of-a-kind expression of Jesus.
• The entirety of my existence now depends upon my ‘oneness with Christ’.
  I relax into this reality and receive it like a child. I have no life apart from
  Christ. I have His life and we are identical in nature and character.
• Nothing I do today will make God love me more, and nothing I do today
  will make God love me any less. My behavior doesn’t determine my identity.
• I am accepted and acceptable in Christ. God is not disillusioned with me
  because he had no illusions about me to begin with.
• God wants an intimate, personal relationship with me. That’s why He made
  us ‘one’ and fused us into an inseparable union.
• My sufficiency can only be found in Christ. I live ‘from’ God and not ‘for’
  Him because He is my source from which to live life.

Growing in Trust

• The result of my life lived by faith in Christ results in changes in my
  thinking, beliefs, behavior, and my choices.
• When I trust Christ to BE those things that I need, that step of faith
  RELEASES God’s power and I receive the FULLNESS of Christ’s life (all of
  His peace, strength, unconditional love, etc.) in that moment.
• WHETHER OR NOT I feel or experience Christ’s life in the moment
  when I ask for it, I know by FAITH that He is supplying His peace,
  patience, etc. and I will EVENTUALLY experience the transformation that
  God promises. As I experience these changes, God will produce in me a
  GOD-CONFIDENCE.
• I know by faith, whether I feel it or not, that as I walk by faith God IS
  working in me to free me, to give me victory, to heal me, and to transform
  my life. Transformation is a life-long process. It is a journey, not a sprint.
  Our soul is continuously being transformed to believe the truth.
• Trust is the fruit of my growing confidence in Father’s love for me.
• Christ lives His life through my receptivity. Christ didn’t come to help me
  live the life. He came to live it in me! This entire life is lived by grace, by
  receiving, from faith to faith—one episode of faith in Christ living in me to
  the next. Christ, not me, is the source to produce the Christian Life. My
  part is to totally depend on God.
• Dependence on God is faith in God. God created me to be dependent upon
  Him to meet my needs. Everything comes as a gift from God. My very life is
  a gift from God. My next breath is a gift from Him. All I can do is receive
  it. That’s grace, what God gives freely, without my behavior earning a thing.
• Walking in the Spirit requires me to choose to walk by what God’s Word
  says rather than by what I feel.
• If I don’t engage God to fight the fight of faith, I have ALREADY lost.
  However, if I ask God to fight, and I STAY in the fight, I will eventually
  experience His VICTORY over all the obstacles to my walk of faith.
  Embracing Freedom
• God will set me free from my false beliefs, my defeating sin patterns, and
  my ongoing inner struggles.
• The greatest freedom in this kingdom is from the tyranny of my own
  desires, agendas and plans.
• The second greatest freedom is from the tyranny of other people’s
  opinions about me.
• I completely died to the law, was resurrected in Christ, led by the Spirit,
  and have no need for the law in my life.
• As long as my personal well-being depends on someone else’s actions, I will
  manipulate them.

Sharing Life in the Body

• God is a community and not an individual…He lives as a trinity.
• Christian community is a gift that God gives, not something my human
  effort can produce.
• The ‘church’ is not a building. We are the ‘church’. Community isn’t based
  on need, but on the joy of sharing relationship with my fellow-travelers.
• Jesus is my life, He wants to connect with people. The life of Jesus flows
  from the individual into the body, not from the body to the individual.
• The life of the early church was defined by their relationships with each
  other not their meetings or activities.
  Incarnating His Love In the World
• When I realize sin didn’t make me worthless it just makes me lost, I know
  God’s compassion for people caught in sin, not His contempt for them.
• God wants to demonstrate his love for the world in the naturalness of
  my life living transformed and that is far more powerful than anything.

God is Patient

• God is patient with us because He understands us fully and completely.
  He sees straight past sin and straight into our heart. He knows why we do
  what we do.
• Within the heart lies the truth about who we really are.
• God is patient with the speed of our personal growth. He will wait as long
  as it takes for us to complete each step in our journey.
• God never tallies up our mistakes in an effort to build a case against us.
• When our end comes, it is God’s great pleasure to make it a wonderful
  and peaceful experience.
• God has patience with us because he already knows the end of our story.
  It’s a happy ending!