Lifetime Guarantee (33 page)

1. The Bible says that “God is love.” He (God) created you with a need for love so that you would need Him. If you didn’t have a need for love, you wouldn’t have a need for God.

2. Given the fact that a child learns primarily about himself during the early years, the environment of the home and society can be evaluated to find out what kind of learning took place. The message coming to the child will determine his beliefs about himself and his ability to get his needs met
his
way from the world around him. This will translate into thought, emotion, and behavior (the flesh). By the time the child is able to reason abstractly and see what the circumstances really were, it will be “too late.” The habit patterns will already have developed, and the individual will be looking for reinforcement of his feelings, thoughts, and behavior. This will only act to strengthen the fleshly habits.

3. Your answer to this question will be unique to you. The question is designed to help you determine what kind of acceptance methods you have employed independently from God and His provision through Christ. For some, your tools of the trade will be ugly and gross, such as manipulation, profanity, illicit sex, and so on. For others, your acceptance tools will be very socially acceptable. Examples might be service to others, giving gifts, hard work, achievement, and excellent physical condition. Note in regard to the last things mentioned that these characteristics, in and of themselves, are very good. The thing that makes them wrong is the
motive
for doing them: to gain acceptance independent of God’s provision. The “Flesh Inventory” at the end of this book (next section) will assist you in discerning your flesh’s traits.

4. The answers to this question and the previous question will be basically the same. This is not intended to be a trick or a redundant question. The emphasis is to be placed on understanding that the methods used to gain acceptance in the world are the
same methods
used to cut God out of the picture. If this is grasped, the purpose of the question will have been successful.

1. Paul’s flesh was primarily developed by Saul, the old, lost man. Prior to finding Jesus on the Damascus road, he was independent and rebellious toward God’s perfect plan. In order to gain an understanding of
Paul’s
flesh and its development, we need to look at
Saul’s
lifestyle. The same will hold true for you. In addition, all saved people can develop fleshly patterns
after
salvation simply by failing to walk in the Spirit, trusting the Lord Jesus Christ to meet their needs.

2. Your answer to this question will be similar to questions 3 and 4 in Chapter 1, except that this question is challenging you to go a step further in terms of understanding. You should recognize at this time the dynamics of how your flesh developed, as well as how it manifests itself from time to time. In addition, we trust you will experience a growing disdain and dissatisfaction for what you are seeing in your fleshly motives.

3. Salvation alone! You must be born again. There must have been the acknowledgment of sin, repentance, and an asking of Jesus to be your Savior and Lord. The ways in which this takes place in a person’s life are as diverse as God’s creative call can be. Trust the Lord to be your guide as you look at your personal relationship to the Lord Jesus. And remember, salvation is all that is required to be accepted by God.

1. Now that you have come to recognize your fleshly patterns, you should be looking for specific ways in which God is choreographing circumstances, challenging you to deal with these areas of fleshly disobedience. He could be doing this in a variety of ways, from something you have read in His Word to a specific circumstance that is causing your flesh stress and pointing you to Christ as the answer.

2. The time that we live here on this earth is the only opportunity we’ll have to walk in trust and obedience to the Father. If He automatically erased the learning opportunities that we have (stemming from having to deal with our old, fleshly ways), we would have no chance to grow in the character and likeness of Jesus Christ. We must face these challenges in order to recognize the Lord Jesus’ sufficiency in our lives.

3. Although there are many reasons that you could be experiencing frustration at every turn, perhaps the primary point that should be focused on is this: Your loving heavenly Father may be trying to break your self-sufficiency, strength, and independence so that you can adequately and willfully cry out to Him as your sufficiency. Unless the Father helps you to realize your insufficiency, you might never recognize His sufficiency. This is often a difficult lesson to learn.

1. The Bible simply states in Romans 5:12 that all men died in Adam. This means that as a descendant of Adam, you are spiritually dead, separated from God, in desperate need of God’s salvation through Jesus Christ. There is no solution for this problem other than the execution of the old self and the birth of the new man in Christ. No amount of good works will have an effect as far as earning God’s favor on behalf of the old, dead self. This is only rectified through Jesus Christ.

2. Your basic nature is determined by who your spiritual father is. If you are a spirit-descendant of Adam, your basic nature is sinful, rebellious, and independent toward God. If you are a spirit-descendant of the Lord Jesus and a joint heir with Him, you have the laws of God written on your heart. You joyfully concur with the laws of God, and you desire to walk in obedience to the will of the Father.

3. Prior to knowing Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, you were dead spiritually. With salvation, Jesus Christ literally became your life in the complete fullness of that meaning. He is your purpose. He is your source. He is eternal life. This in no way makes you a hollow tube, a nonentity, or a nonbeing. It simply means that Jesus Christ is wishing to use your personality and earthsuit to manifest His will, character, and nature. On the other hand, you
do not
become a Jesus clone, a little Jesus, or a god. Quite the contrary, you are not Christ, and Christ is not you. Christ is your life, and He wants to live and express His life through your personality, talents, and abilities. A good review of this point is the workshop tools illustration.

4. It is never a sin for a Christian to be tempted. Jesus “has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Therefore, it is very normal for a Christian to be tempted to get his human needs met by rebelling against God’s perfect plan. However, it is
not
normal for the Christian to go ahead and sin, as sinning is contrary to the saved person’s new nature. The new person looks to Christ to supply all his needs as He promised. Temptation is not a sin until it is accepted by the mind. We aren’t saying that the Christian can obtain sinless perfection. As long as we are on this planet, in an earthsuit that is vulnerable to the law of sin, we will be faced constantly with failure to trust Christ’s life through us.

1. Side “B” truths pertain to your being “in” Christ. These principles are imperative to you when you’re facing an identity struggle. They will stress to you who you literally are in Christ, your total acceptance in Him by the Father, and what your situation really is.

2. The thing that died in Christ on the cross was the old, Adamic life. Some synonyms for this would be the old self, old man, and sin nature.

3. God never intended for
you
to live the Christian life. As a matter of fact, the Christian life is impossible for you to live. There is only one Person who ever lived the Christian life, and that is Jesus Christ. Now, God has placed Christ in you to live and express His life through you.
De
pendence, not
in
dependence, is His plan. Christ through you, not you for Christ.

4. In this chapter you will find a list of Scriptures entitled, “My True Identity in Christ.” As you review this list of Scriptures as well as track down the many, many more you will find in the Word of God, you should find unique passages that speak to you personally. For example, if you are struggling with feelings of inferiority, perhaps you would find Galatians 3:28 especially meaningful. If you find yourself struggling with guilt, Ephesians 1:7, Romans 3:24, and Romans 8:1 will speak to your being forgiven in Christ.

1. Satan works through the law of sin, speaking to you with first-person-singular pronouns: I, me, myself, my, and so on. He uses a masculine or feminine “tone of voice,” depending on your gender, and he will accent his statements according to your personal accent. In other words, he impersonates you. Using this technique, he offers up a temptation that correlates with one of your fleshly patterns. Thus, the temptation sounds like you, it seems normal enough to you, and it is something you readily identify with and struggle against. He often tries to get the believer to opt to get a perfectly good human need satisfied via rebellion against God’s plan.

2. The original, sinful thoughts the Christian experiences are not generated by the Christian, but by the power of indwelling sin under Satan’s control. Sin serves temptation, deception, or accusation up to you, the new creation in Christ, via the flesh. This communication can come to you during your quiet time, a prayer time, or during a point of great vulnerability. You haven’t generated this sinful thought. It has been served up to you by the law of sin. However, the moment that you choose the thought as yours, you are covertly sinning in your thought life. Then if you take it for yourself and act upon it, you have overtly sinned. Only after choosing to accept the thought do you have sin to confess to the Lord and repent from, not before! The law of sin cannot
make
you sin.

3. This question is challenging you to take your understanding of question 1 from this chapter and personalize that information to your unique version of the flesh. For example, if one of your fleshly patterns is for self-condemnation, the law of sin might say to you, “I can’t believe I’m so stupid. What an idiot!” Notice the first-person pronouns that were used. Another example might be the person who struggles with inferiority: “If I only looked like she looks, I could feel better about myself.” Once you begin to get the hang of this, you will find that you recognize Satan’s temptations and accusations much more readily as you trust the Lord Jesus and walk in the Spirit. Make sure you use first-person pronouns in your answer to this question.

4. The emphasis of your answer to this question should be that if you are setting your mind on the fleshly perception you have of yourself, you will manifest the ungodly behavior that is characteristic of your flesh. On the other hand, if you are focusing your attention on your true identity in Christ, you will find that you begin to manifest behavior commensurate with who you are in Christ. The Scriptures refer to this as the fruit of the Spirit.

5. Your answer should contain something referring to understanding your true identity in Christ and how to cooperate with Jesus to let Him live the victorious Christian life through you. This reflects both sides of the principles we’ve discussed: Christ in you and you in Christ.

1. To say that the old man died in Christ is to say that the part of you that was by nature and birth independent and rebellious toward God no longer exists as a result of its execution in Christ at the cross. You are no longer sinful by nature, separated from God by your heritage, and lost in your trespasses and sins. You are no longer the generator of sinful thoughts; these come from the law of sin. The significance of the death of the old man is evident: You are no longer separated from God by your old spirit, but have been
reborn
as a child of His, a joint heir with Jesus Christ, holy and blameless before Him. You
have become
a new creation in Christ Jesus.

2. On the surface, this question may appear to repeat question 4 in Chapter 5. But this question is challenging you to reiterate to yourself the truths of who you are in Christ. The list of verses given in Chapter 5 pertaining to your true identity in Christ is only a small sample of the vast number of verses that springboard off the verses that are given and illuminate who you really are. The clue to locating these verses will be the word “in” followed by Christ’s name or a reference to Him: “in Christ,” “in Him,” “in whom,” and so on. Remember, though, that these verses will do you absolutely no good unless you take them for your own personal use.

3. “Set your mind on the things above” (Colossians 3:2). This is important because God’s Word states it imperatively (with great urgency). It is vital in that it is only through setting your mind on things above that you will begin to see the victory of Christ and the characteristics of your true identity manifested in your daily life. Remember how the illustration concerning the rattlesnake demonstrates that the emotions respond to what the mind is set upon. If your mind is set on inadequacy, you will inevitably begin to feel inadequate. If your mind is set on the fact of your acceptance in Christ, given some time your emotions will begin to respond to this fact. Though you will never
feel
completely accepted lest you begin to walk by feel rather than faith, you will begin to experience more points on your emotional Richter Scale than you previously had. It is imperative that you set your mind on things above.

4. This exercise will be unique, of course, to the situation you have chosen in your life. You should have stressed in your answer two primary ideas: First, there should be an emphasis on the side “A” truth of Christ’s being your life, living and expressing His life through your personality and earthsuit, and your cooperating to allow Him to do this. Second, there should be some mention of the side “B” truth that you are
resting
in the security of your true identity in Christ within the situation. This is what the Word refers to in Hebrews as “entering into God’s rest.” This does not refer to salvation, but to walking in the fullness of the Spirit.