Take Full Advantage of Your Freedom
The enemy wants your focus to be on “dying to self” by your own efforts. That way, he guarantees your failure and is quick to condemn you for it. But your NEW life in Christ frees you from this cyclical life sentence of guilt and shame, into an accelerated experience of joy and peace in the accomplished work of the cross.
Every aspect of your new life in Jesus has a divine advantage. It’s your Newness Advantage!
Freedom is one of your primary benefits as a new creation. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
God has given you a quickening spirit, so that you can respond immediately to the truth. Your New Man is alert and active, no longer sluggish and slow. You have the potential for every situation to be an occasion to discover who God is in you and for you.
When we walk in relationship with God, His life makes us sensitive to the Truth, which compels us towards freedom.
Your first freedom is: You are dead to sin! And your second freedom is that you are alive to Christ!
Freedom begins when you consider yourself to be dead to sin and alive to Christ. He who is dead is free. Dead people rest in peace. They do not struggle with life. Now we can focus on simply practicing being alive to God. What does that mean?
It means we become preoccupied with Jesus.
His life becomes pre-eminent in all of our circumstances. It means we are not working from our old nature, desperately trying to be Christlike. Instead, we are new creations in Christ, confidently using every situation as a place to practice our new identity in Him.
From this living perspective, we have a Newness Advantage. We process all the events of our new life with joy and peace believing.
What the cross was for Jesus, it can never be for us. For Him, the cross was pain, anguish, suffering, separation and death. His death was death to sin once and for all.
Jesus didn’t just die for us. He died as us.
For us, the cross is joy, peace, Presence, life and freedom! Because of the cross, you are free to abound in the joy of His constant Presence, regardless of circumstances. In the power of the Holy Spirit, you are cheerful, energetic and full of life in Jesus. This is what it means to be alive with Him.
When an advantage is present, we want to take full advantage of it. What other freedoms are part of our Newness Advantage that we have yet to discover?
That’s a good exploration to pursue!
P.S. My newest book: The Newness Advantage, begins pre-sales next week! Watch your email for more information and check back in the next couple of weeks for exclusive podcast readings!
P.P.S. And for processing all of your learning through a devotional lifestyle, be sure you’ve read my October 3rd blog on “The Kind Intentions of God” and listened to the special track offered.
