Does Your Heart Know Who You Are?

“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood…” (Rev. 1:5, ESV).

Did you know you are passionately loved? Did you know that Jesus has freed you from your sins by His blood? Do you believe these two truths, deep in your deepest heart?

Sometimes, we assent to what His Word says in our minds, but not with the depths of our hearts. Here His Bible says that He freed us from our sins. “Yet,” our hearts protest, “What about my temper that still gets the best of me way more often than I would like? I don’t seem to really be free from this sin!”

One of the most important aspects to walking in freedom from sin is to believe what He has said about it… at the deepest level of our hearts. What His Word says about us is Reality “with a capital R.” We need to hold onto that when our own life experience seems to disagree with His Word.

The way to approach this is to view that undesirable behavioral pattern as part of reality “with a lowercase r.” It may truly be what you have experienced. However, that reality is inferior to God’s Reality. The more your mind is renewed by His Word, the more His Reality is going to envelope, infuse, and transform your daily living. The inferior reality of defeat is going to metamorphose into a new experience that flows out of God’s superior Reality. You are going to personally discover that God’s realm – the heavenly places – triumphantly dictates to the physical realm every time.

“So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11, ESV).

Even if you are still struggling with a sin, consider yourself dead to it. Come into agreement with the way God sees you, and what He has said about you. He says you are alive to Him. He says His blood has freed you from your sins. He says He has given you a new nature, a victorious nature. This is the right perspective. This is Reality.

Here are two truths to keep in mind as you set your heart to embrace God’s Reality:

1. “For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:14, NLT). This verse acknowledges that we are in a process. These are complimentary truths: We are being made holy. We are already perfect. They go together. The more you receive the revelation that you are perfect by the blood of Jesus, the further you will move into the process of being made holy. The one flows from the other.
2. “Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy” (Eph. 4:23-24, NLT). You have a new nature. When you were born again, you became a new creation. Astoundingly, God has allowed us to share in His own divine nature. (2 Peter 1:4). This is the true you. This is who you are. Yet, Holy Spirit instructs you to “put on” this new nature He has given you. How? By letting Him renew your thoughts and attitudes. By letting Him change the way you think about yourself… according to His superior Reality.

Have you been interpreting your stumbles as evidence that you are hopelessly stuck in a pattern of failure? Have you pictured yourself as a helpless sinner in that particular area, unable to change? If so, that is a false picture of yourself. I encourage you to see that picture as a piece of paper crucified to the cross with Jesus. That picture is a lie that contradicts God’s Word. Your mistakes are not who you are. On the contrary, you are a new creature. The old has gone, the new is here.

Any time you stumble, run immediately into His arms. Receive the instantaneous cleansing in His blood that is yours. You have been bought with a price. Your cleansing, as often as you need it, has been bought with a price. Embrace what has been paid for. Agree with His pronouncement that you are forever forgiven. Decree with Him that you are dead to that sin. Speak over yourself that you are alive to God; that you are spiritually vibrant in that area of your life. You are pulsating with His new life in you. Consider that your stumble was “lowercase r” reality. Consider that your ever-increasing victory and strength is the “capital R” Reality given to you in Him.

Your new nature wants what God wants. Your new nature is perfect. Your new nature is victorious. Your new nature is just like Him. See yourself this way. Consider yourself vibrantly, eternally, abundantly alive by His new life in you. The more you consider yourself this way, the more you will live it out in your day to day actions. You are free indeed, victorious child of God!

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Has God’s words about who you are transformed the way you see yourself?