Hi Everyone,
Below is an excerpt from the book The Cure: What if God isn't who you think He is and neither are you. Enjoy!
"The goal is not to change me. I'm already changed. The goal is to mature. When I depend on the new creature I've been made into through the work of Jesus at the cross, I begin to live healthier, more free of sin, more free to love. I learn to believe all His power, love, truth, and goodness already exists in me, right now. Even on my worst day."
"...Jesus says we really are new people, completely righteous. Jesus became sin so we might be righteous. Jesus didn't become theoretical sin. He actually became real sin, in every possible way that sin can be sin. And if the corollary holds, then we didn't become theoretical righteousness. We became real righteousness in every possible way that righteousness can be righteousness. That didn't happen to anyone before Jesus. Now we're free. But it isn't the freedom to get away with stuff, to give ourselves permission to have three glasses of wine instead of one. It isn't freedom to care less or walk the tightrope of right and wrong without remorse. The motive of a righteous heart is not to get away with anything. The motive of the righteous is to be loved and to love! That's what we've all been wanting all of history for. That's the freedom Jesus died for. We can now love each other well, because it's who we really are."
"Nothing you believe and depend upon is more magnificently freeing than this single truth: You are no longer who you were, even on your worst day. Trusting and leaning upon 'Christ in you' is the source of every shred of strength, joy, healing, and peace.
"What we believe happened in that first moment of trusting Jesus affects everything. That start is called 'justification,' which means to be made right. Think about what it means to believe you were made right.
"Some believe they will eventually, through sincere diligence, change into someone better. Their confidence to change centers on sanctified self-effort.
"Others believe the very essence of who they now are is completely changed. They are convinced of absolute fused union with the God of the universe. Their confidence to mature is place squarely in trust of their new identity in Jesus. This does not mean they don't fail. They do fail. But in the end they trust who God has made them.
"If I follow the first path, I'm trying to change from who i was into who I should be. If I follow the second, I'm maturing into who I already am. In the first, I'm working toward becoming more righteous. In the second, I'm already righteous, made right by God in the moment I believed."
Grace=Peace,
Jeremy
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