Tree of Life Blog

Before you were born again and became one spirit with Christ, so identified with Him that the Scripture can boldly say “just as He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4.17), we were dead in our sins and transgressions.

The person who has not yet received Christ is by their nature selfish, sinful, at war with God, opposed to God and cannot do anything to please God. When you are born again, the Father looks at your new spirit and is well-pleased! You deep down in your spirit only want to serve God, love God, obey God, believe God, extend God’s kingdom, give God honour, serve God’s people, find your place in the church, and be a zealot for Christ, the church, the gospel and world mission.

But have you noticed ever, since you became a Christian, that you still want to sin. If no one told you that would happen, like no one told me that would happen, it comes as a huge disappointment the first time as a Christian you really want to do something other than serve God, in fact you want to do something mean, unkind, selfish and opposed to God – just like you weren’t even a Christian! That’s not a fun place to be, and when you know you are identified with Christ, it sometimes does not make sense. But I want to give you some real hope and some practical wisdom today – firstly wanting to sin is not sin. It’s temptation not sin, and the two are different. Let’s unpack this:

Part of you wants to obey and please God, and part of you wants to ignore God, disobey Him and do whatever you want. Now – those two ideas cannot be merged or reconciled – they are exact opposites. You try and live both of these and you will be confused, ineffective in life, unhappy and self-conflicted.

So what do we do when we want to sin? We need to do three things when we want to sin:

1. Remember Jesus Christ knew this would happen, and prepared for it in advance. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He did not just die so you could be forgiven of past sins. You did not change from sinner to forgiven sinner, you changed from sinner to saint. In your spirit you identify with Christ, you are as holy, as pure, as full of faith and life and glory and power as Jesus Christ is. The power to walk above sin is INSIDE YOU, you can resist temptation – you have a new nature. You are not a hybrid old and new creation, you are a new creation – and you are identified with Christ.
   
   “For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been freed from sin” (Romans 6:6-7)
2. Realize that a temptation is not sin. You identify with Christ BECAUSE you are being tempted, not despite it! Hebrews 4.15 tells us something about Jesus you have to know – He was “tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin”. There were times Jesus was tempted to sin – He might have wanted to smack one of the disciples’ in the face for being so unsupportive, He might have wanted to give up while carrying the cross and just lie down and give up, He might have wanted to kiss one of the ladies who were supporting his ministry, loving Him and serving Him. I know for some people that sounds silly to say, or even disrespectful, but Jesus was tempted in all the same ways you are. I bet when those women ministered out of Jesus from their substance He was tempted to not tithe and just keep all the money. I bet He was tempted to fire Judas a few times. I bet He was tempted to call down fire on a Roman soldier or two! I bet He was tempted to drink a little too much wine, eat a little too many of the pastries with the honey in! He was tempted in EVERY WAY, just as we are. Identifying with Jesus does not make you immune to temptation, because Jesus Himself was tempted. As long as you are on earth you will be tempted, and satan will actively encourage that in our lives. The devil knows where you are most vulnerable and will ensure that you are tempted on earth!
3. Knowing that we are tempted because we are like Jesus and knowing that our old self was crucified, the final step is this: believe boldly and unashamedly no matter what temptation is coming your way, you are dead to sin. This is not a matter for discussion. You are dead to sin, it’s in the Word. Whether you feel dead to sin, or feel that you really want to sin, you are dead to sin. Whether you feel dead or not is irrelevant, you are dead to sin. You dying to sin is according to the BIble as much the truth as the truth that Jesus died on the cross. You can boldly laugh at the sin you are tempted to commit right now and say “I AM DEAD TO THAT, I AM IN CHRIST AND I AM DEAD TO SIN” – do not let feelings cover that, you may feel like drinking alcohol, but you are dead to it! Your old nature is dead! You are crucified with Christ. That’s not a feeling, it is reality. No matter what your feelings are – there is no temptation, no sin, no behaviour, no attitude that you could ever have that undoes what Christ did – my favourite Scripture to stand on in these moments is 2 Cor. 5.14:
   
   One died for all, and therefore all died
   
   All died to sin. That includes you. You are part of this. You have been crucified with Christ and are dead to sin, and you should believe that today! When Jesus died on the cross, the old you died with Him, and the power of sin over your life is broken – even if you are being tempted today!

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ…” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18)

Selah!

Now we have been talking about IDENTIFICATION WITH CHRIST for many weeks – the challenge now is that you need to believe it to receive it. The blood of Christ, by itself, has cleaned us and removed every barrier to access God and His kingdom.

Now there is only one thing for us to do: BELIEVE what Jesus has done on the cross. Have faith! Only believe!

I often have people contact me and ask me “how can I get near to God”, “how can I be healed, “how can I be prosperous”, “how can I live the abundant life” – I will say why are you asking that question, and their answer is something like “I don’t feel close to Him, I don’t feel my prayers get answered, there is a blockage” – and often these people are scratching their brains for weeks and months trying to work out what it is.

Sadly, many of these people have come to other advisors before me, who have told them they need to do this or that, they need to break a generational curse, they need to repent of all sin, they need to sort this or that out.

But that is not the issue. The blood has covered us, redeemed us from every curse, rescued us from all sickness, forgiven us from all sin and given us all free access to the Father. Your only problem is unbelief. You were born again, transferred from Hell to Heaven, transformed from sin into righteousness just by believing. So you can receive your healing, your answered prayer and access God by believing.

Well, my last pastor told me I had to give £300 and pray 3 hours and I would break the curse and be back in God’s presence and I did it and it worked. What happened is after you did it, you believed that you would be back in God’s presence and so it worked. You could have believed, accessed the presence of God – still gave the £300 and prayed 3 hours, but you would have then given in faith, and prayed in the presence of God instead of praying to try and get into the presence of God. I know which one is better!

You were not there at the crucifixion, you weren’t even born then, so you have never seen it! But you can believe it – believe what JESUS has done and then receive all the benefits from it!

Why not believe you are forgiven right now? Why not believe you are healed right now? It’s not your works, it’s HIS BLOOD and HIS WORK. As you believe you are forgiven, you will be free from shame and come to a place of peace. As you believe you are healed, your body will respond and you will start seeing, hearing, moving again, the pain will leave and you will start to do what a healthy person does! It’s an awesome deal.

All you have to do is believe! Only believe! Only believe! You were made acceptable to God when Jesus died for you and that’s the true – thank Him right now for what He has done (thanksgiving is an expression of faith) and thank Him until you start feeling joy knowing that God has accepted you through Jesus Christ.

“I have complete confidence in the Gospel; it is God’s power to save all who believe. For the Gospel reveals how God puts people right with Himself: it is through faith from beginning to end. As the Scripture says, ‘The person who is put right with God through faith shall live!’” (Romans 1:16-17 GNB)

When I fly to another nation, I need my passport. When I arrive at the airport they check my passport – they are looking for two things: firstly, is my passport an official genuine government document and not a forgery, secondly, does the image of me on the photo look exactly like me. If those two things match, all will be well and I will be boarding the plane. if they think the passport is a forgery or the photo does not look like me, then I may be in trouble.

If someone looked exactly like me and had my official document they could take my place and have access to my flight.

Now, here is the good news – because you are born again, because you identify with Christ, because you are one spirit with Christ, because you – in the spirit look identical to Jesus – you have access to everywhere He has access to. You have the same access to the Father He does because no one can tell the difference between you and His picture in the passport! You are one with Christ.

The way God chose to let us know this powerful truth is that when Jesus died on the cross, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. That curtain kept God and the people separate and only one man could enter in, and only on the right one day of the year. But when Jesus died, and shed His blood, we now have been made in His image, and now have access to God. We can live continually in His presence, identified with Him, because the blood of Jesus cleans you from all sin and leaves you looking just like Jesus.

You have official citizenship of Heaven and a passport with Jesus’ image in it, and you look like Jesus, so start going places by faith – start praying some big bold prayers, start worshipping freely, start enjoying God’s presence. Before you were saved, your sin put you on the equivalent of a no-fly list – you couldn’t go anywhere, but now you have free access to the throne of God, free fellowship with God, and access to Christ’s inheritance! What a deal!

When we hear the phrase “eternal life”, there are two images that Christians have. The majority of Christians sadly have the wrong image. They think of eternal life being on the other side of this life, being something you get in Heaven. It’s like there is a big gap between us and eternal life and when we die we cross over this big gap and finally get some eternal life. Some Christians even believe that they need to earn eternal life as a Christian by behaving well and getting a good report from Jesus on their Christian life and then get into Heaven on that report. That is the exact opposite of the gospel.

What does the Word of God say?

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. (1 John 4.15). The moment you declare and announce Jesus is the Son of God, God Himself lives in you! That’s eternal life.

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. (John 5.24). If you hear the gospel, and believe in the Father, you have eternal life. Do not try and earn, and do not wait for eternal life – you already have it! You have had it since you heard and believed and declared!

The truth is that the moment we get saved, we have eternal life. Our spirit is transformed into one spirit with Christ and the substance of that spirit – the stuff it is made out of – is eternal life. We are one with Christ, that is what I am trying to get through to everyone in this series on identification. I don’t need to earn or wait for eternal life, I have it right now – I have all of it right now. I have the same portion of eternal life as Jesus Christ has – that’s my identity and my identification.

You are now made of the same substance as God! You are one with Him! Yes, when you die, you will go to a place called Heaven, you will go to be with Jesus, but right now – you are in Heaven and right now you are with Jesus! That’s some good news right there!

The moment we are born again, we are one with Jesus. We are the same spirit as Him, we are one with Him, just as He is so are we!

There are many facets to this wonderful diamond of the new birth, but today I want to focus our attention on acceptance. You are one with Christ, so you are right now as accepted as Christ. You are as righteous as Jesus, as acceptable to God as Jesus Christ is. We can fellowship with God, no matter what we have said and done (or not said or not done) as easily as Jesus can.

Many people disagree with that, not because of their great Bible study, but because they just don’t feel accepted. They doubt God’s Word, they doubt God’s truth and they doubt God’s goodness to them. They doubt their identification with Christ. But here is something I want you all to realize – no matter how much you doubt, your doubts cannot change the truth.

Right now I am typing this blog on a laptop, it’s a Lenovo laptop and I am sitting on a grey sofa, my favourite piece of furniture in my house. I might doubt that I am using a laptop, I might doubt that I am on a sofa, but how I feel, how I doubt, all of that will not change what is true, and what is true is the laptop I am using is a Lenovo and I am sitting on my sofa. It’s the same in the spirit – you are righteous, you are accepted, you are acceptable. It doesn’t matter what you feel, the reality, the truth is that you are accepted. Your feelings do not result in the truth of yoru acceptance changing.

The truth is that Jesus Christ of Nazareth died your death on a cross, shed the most precious blood that there ever was so that you would no longer be a reject, but be accepted in the Beloved. You moved from separated from God to united with God. He paid the price for you to be totally forgiven, utterly accepted and completely righteous. That’s the truth.

A facet of the redemptive work of Christ that we do not focus on enough, in my opinion, is that Jesus died firstly for His Father, and secondly for us. The Father wanted to reach out to us, to embrace us, to love us, but our nature was a sin nature. Before the redemptive work of Christ transformed us into righteousness, Jesus took the full punishment for our sin.

We have grown up in a generation where the world, and many parts of the church – due to a misunderstanding of what grace truly is – have not realized how serious sin is. God cannot just close His eyes and forget we sinned and simply forgive us. Sin caused all of humanity to fall short of the glory – the life of glory and love and increase and peace that God designed us all to have. It twisted humanity, it broke the entire planet and brought death into every part of our lives. Grace is not magnified by ignoring sin, grace is magnified by realizing how horrific sin has been to God and to us. We cannot actually realize or grasp how much sin has cost us all as the human race.

Sin is so bad that God cannot ignore it or fail to punish it. Sin separates us from God, from Heaven, from life and ties us to God’s righteous punishment and judgment.

When we realize this we will celebrate – the grace of Jesus on the cross has completely made us perfect. You weren’t even close before then. What you might have claimed to be small failings are sin before God, and only through the substitute of Jesus taking our place can we be right with God.

What has this got to do with our identity? Well, it means our identity is rooted in how righteous we are, but it is rooted in how righteous we are in Christ. Our whole identity and whole right standing before God comes from who we are in Him, and it is healthy for us to never forget that. Look at how Peter expresses this:

¹⁸ knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. ²⁰ He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you ²¹ who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

(1 Peter 1.18-21, ESV)

Through him we are believers, not through ourselves. So in all our understanding of identity, understand the source, and be grateful to God for making you what you are in Christ.

“God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

God loves you so much that He sent Jesus to die for you on the cross. Christ died for you. That needs to seep into how you see yourself.

You see you know that you have sinned, you know that you have fallen short of God’s glory, you know that you have failed to meet your own standards let alone anyone else’s. You know you needed to pay a steep price to both be forgiven and to break the power of selfishness and sin in your life.

The good news is that you could not pay that price, but someone who could did – Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The price He paid by dying on the cross took all the punishment for your sin, paid for your forgiveness, your freedom from sin, and brought you into His family, and made you part of the Kingdom of Heaven!

You do not deserve this at all, but God loved you so much He did it even though you did not deserve it. You deserved judgment and punishment, but God loved you so much He did not want to judge you or punish you, and sent Jesus to die your death to make salvation possible for you.

Sometimes people cannot work out how Jesus’ death makes God able to forgive them? Surely there must be another way people ask. Can’t God just choose to forgive?

Paul answers this for us clearly:

God offered Him, so that by His death He should become the means by which people’s sins are forgiven through their faith in Him. God did this in order to demonstrate that He is righteous. In the past He was patient and overlooked people’s sins; but in the present time He deals with their sins, in order to demonstrate His righteousness. In this way God shows that He Himself is righteous and that He puts right everyone who believes in Jesus.” (Romans 3:25-26 GNB)

God is love (1 John 4.16) – so God can only love us. But God is also righteous, He cannot allow things that are imperfect into Heaven. So, until sin is dealt with you cannot rightly be allowed into Heaven or allowed to have Heaven on Earth. But Jesus put us right with God, now it is the right thing to do for God to allow us into Heaven and allow Heaven on Earth for us right now.

Jesus said “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14.6), that is because no one else ever took the full punishment for your sin, became sin with your sin and made you right with God. But Jesus did and He did it because the Father loves you and the Son loves you. Make that part of your identity today, because it’s true, and it’s more relevant than what any family member, any school teacher, any neighbour, or anyone else has ever said about you!

One of the most famous parables told is the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:

³ He told many stories in the form of parables, such as this one:

“Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seeds. ⁴ As he scattered them across his field, some seeds fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate them. ⁵ Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seeds sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. ⁶ But the plants soon wilted under the hot sun, and since they didn’t have deep roots, they died. ⁷ Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants. ⁸ Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted! ⁹ Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.”

The disciples did not immediately understand the parable, so they asked what it meant. It meant that when the Word is preached, different people respond differently, because things in their hearts hinder the message.

It’s not any different when it comes to our identification with Christ, people have ideas and thoughts and religious traditions in their heart that stops them identifying with Christ. The first hindrance to you knowing who you are in Christ is the footpath. A footpath is created when we walk the same way again and again, and create footpaths. Many of us have walked the same way in our thoughts so often even since childhood that we cannot think another way without great pressure and energy.

You see you have to realize something – satan enjoys you not knowing who you are in Christ. One of his favourite things is you rejecting moving in the kingdom, operating in the kingdom, and ministering the kingdom because you do not know you are one with Christ. Until you know you are in Christ and in the kingdom, and can do the works of Jesus, and can walk like Jesus, live in love and peace like Jesus, and can operate in the kingdom without fear of reprisal or grief, that we have every spiritual blessing, satan will walk all over you. He will steal your lunch and pop the bag to quote someone.

If you do not know that you are in Christ, satan will walk all over you. In what ways will he do this?

1. He will try and convince you over and over that you are not really saved or that you are in danger of losing your salvation. You cannot rejoice over an insecure salvation and you cannot have peace then.
2. That your life is a treadmill of doing things to earn your place in Heaven.
3. That you will never be anything other than a failure, doomed to repeat the same sins over and over and over.
4. That God will not even lift a finger to help you or bless you, and why should He.
5. Your prayers will not be answered.

If you are having these thoughts over and over, rest assured they come from satan not God. And you can also be sure that satan is a liar. He is trying to deceive you to stop you getting the Word in your heart and having a harvest, from getting the truth inside you and setting you free.

If you finally understood who you are in Christ, everything gets reversed – you overcome satan, you resist the powers of darkness, you resist temptation, you heal the sick, you cast out demons, you trust God and what His Word says. The only way satan can stop you operating as the powerhouse you already are – is by convincing you that God’s Word isn’t true and you are not really in Christ. And the best way satan stops the Word from working in your life is the footpaths – the ideas and traditions you have had from birth, things that are in your culture, your upbringing, well trodden paths of feeling like you are a loser, nothing works for you, and nothing goes well for you, and you cannot change.

You need to absolutely fight in your mind to get this revelation. You need to find the Scriptures that say who you are in Christ, and repeat them over and over until they start breaking these footpaths and start creating new paths in your mind – paths of righteousness. That when trouble comes you don’t instantly walk the old path of “oh, that must mean I am a scumbag, that God is against me, that I am in trouble” – but you think “awesome, there’s a demon out there dumb enough to mess with me, I am going to fight and win, I love fighting and I love winning, glory to God”

Work on this – find some people around you who do not share your culture and upbringing – and start to create new paths in your mind.

I hope you all realize the truth and know that your first birth wasn’t up to much. I’m sure your parents rejoiced and everyone thought you were a beautiful baby, but you were born with a sinful and selfish nature, your live from the moment you were born is totally centred on your self and your needs. You do not give mum a break, you do not give anyone a break, you want what you want and you scream until you get it.

We are not acceptable to God in that natural, sinful state. It’s a selfish and unholy state and we were born that way. And I hope you all know that there is nothing you can do, no action you can perform that can tidy up this old selfish nature. It would be like putting a bandaid on a missing limb. It just isn’t enough. Your best work is like a filthy stained rag to God!

There is only one way out of this dilemma, and Jesus told us what it was so clearly and succinctly: I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God (John 3.3). You must be born again because the first birth was not good enough! You were born with the wrong nature, and now you must be born again to get the new nature! If you think there is a way around this, read what Jesus said next: The Spirit gives live, the flesh counts for nothing (John 6.63)., WIthout the new birth, you cannot even SEE God’s Kingdom, let alone live in it!

The new birth is not achieved by any ritual or ceremony, it is only achieved when a person puts all their faith in Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross taking their old nature and the penalty for all their sin. It was only through the Lamb of God taking our sin and selfishness on Himself on the cross that sin and selfishness and our old nature can be dealt with. When someone believes that, then they are born again, and their new live is one that in their spirit is marked only with righteousness, glory, power and life. Your newborn spirit is now perfect – or to again quote Jesus: the flesh gives birth to flesh, but spirit gives birth to spirit – you should not be surprised when I said you must be born again (John 3.6-7).

If you are reading this and you are a Christian, I have good news for you – you are born again. You can now not just see the Kingdom, you are part of it. Your old nature no longer dominates or controls you, you can live in the Kingdom of God and live a life that glorifies our King! You have new life, new freedom and are totally right in God’s sight. What you could never have done by any work, you just did by believing in God’s grace on the cross!

If you are not born again, believe in what Jesus did on the cross, and be born again. If you are born again, ask the Lord to show you how to live in the light of your brand new spiritual nature. That’s your real identity now. That’s who you are in Christ – as righteous as Christ, as holy as Christ, as anointed as the Anointed One. What a deal, and it was all by grace!