As Christians, we should not identify ourselves as merely human beings. It should come alive to us that we are divine beings who are having a human experience. We accept that we are born again. And if we are born again then we have died to our old self and are raised up in newness of life, having put on the new self that God created. In that case why continue to identify with the old self and its fleshly life? Focus on your new identity as a child of God that the Father is perfecting.
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Show Notes:
When we receive Christ, we become eternal beings who are born of God, but our experience of living in the flesh on the natural plane clouds our awareness of this reality. It needs to be real to us that our experience of living in the flesh on the earth is only a small part of our eternity and not the focus of who and what we are. It is certainly not God’s focus. During our time here on earth when we are clothed in these human bodies, He is focused on perfecting us as divine beings for an eternal life with Him.
The problem is that we give our focus and energy to our own concepts of what we are by virtue of experiencing this human life—what we are to be, how we are to act, who the people around us are. That becomes to us our identity. And we need to focus on the fact that we have a completely different identity. Instead of perishable beings in a temporary existence, we are imperishable beings created in God and maturing through this process of life in the flesh so that we will emerge perfected, just like Christ emerged from the flesh perfected as the Son of God who was able to receive all that the Father had.
We are in a process of being renewed into the true knowledge of who we are, and that process may not be easy. In fact, it may even seem impossible. But Yeshua (Jesus) said that what is impossible for us is very possible with God. Therefore, we reach into God and say, “Lord, by Your grace and with Your help, I put on the renewing of my mind to the true knowledge of the being you created in me to dwell with You in eternity. And I believe that I will be able both to lay aside the old and to put on the new.”
Key Verses:
- John 1:12–13. “… born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
- Romans 8:29. “He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”
- 1 Corinthians 15:50. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”
- John 3:3–6. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
- Colossians 3:9–10. “Put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.”
- Mark 10:17–27. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.”
Quotes:
- “This flesh and blood, this body that we know and are so familiar with, will not inherit the Kingdom of God. It does not go forth into the Kingdom of God. There is a transformation that has to take place because the perishable, that which is temporal, that which is non-permanent, has to put on that which is imperishable.”
- “We must grow and mature into that which is eternal—not be looking for what we are right now in flesh and blood to be the focus of our becoming. It is an assistant to us. It is a methodology that God is using to bring us into His perfect will.”
- “This new self is truly you. It is the eternal you. And our knowledge and understanding of that true new self, that true image that was created by Him when we were created, must grow in us.”
Takeaways:
- Our experience in this life is that we are eternal beings living momentarily in the non-eternal housing of our fleshly body, surrounded by that which is temporal. The purpose of this experience is to perfect us into the image of God as our Father and us as His children. We are having the same experience Christ had, who as a divine eternal Being was perfected by the things that He suffered during His life in the flesh.
- Part of the problem with the flesh—this body we are in and the life we are living—is that it becomes the image of ourselves. It becomes the understanding and knowledge of ourselves as to who and what we are. We begin to see ourselves after this perishable image. That is what we relate to. That is what we cling to. That is what we work to try to perfect and grow in. But it clouds the true image of the One who created us as imperishable beings.
- We know that it is as difficult to lay aside this old self that we are immersed in as it is for a camel to try going through the eye of a needle. We know this is not possible in ourselves. But the promise in God is that we can “put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.” As divine beings who are only having a temporary human experience, we can lay aside everything of the perishable that we identify with, and we can put on this new self.
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