Transformation by Reckoning on Position

We were talking about how everything is focused on Christ, right? That's the way we relate to God. And we are predestinated in Him. These in-Him truths, accepted in the Beloved, predestinated by Jesus Christ, chosen in Him. Those are called positional truths. They are things that are true of you, regardless of your experience and your condition. And as a Christian, we live increasingly by faith in positional truth. What is true of a New Testament believer, a member of the body of Christ, from God's perspective. And we learn to agree with Him about these things, and that is what brings the power of the Gospel into our life. The Gospel is just all the things that God has accomplished for us in Christ, and how we benefit from His death and His resurrection. And we've said many times that the Bible has a lot to say about the death and resurrection of Christ. That's not just the beginning of our Christian life, that is the entirety. That's the entire menu. It's not an appetizer, it's the entire menu. It's the death and resurrection of Christ, our death with Him, our being raised together with Him. And that is called positional truth because, again, it's our position in Christ that is unshakable and it is true in God's eyes. It's what He actually accomplished, whether or not you're experiencing it. We don't look to our condition first to determine our position. We look at our position until it affects our condition. You know, the first condition that needs to be affected for believers is their joy and their peace. If you don't have joy and peace in your salvation, your life is going to be a mess because God's given you the freedom to make messes. Most people are living...well, okay, many people, a lot of things come to them that is not their fault, you know. They're actually things sent from God to bring them to a place of need so that they will look away from their circumstances and their own responsibility and their record and their history and look back to Jesus Christ. So they're a blessing in disguise. Our troubles are a blessing in disguise because they transfer us out of the flesh and into the Spirit. But our joy and our peace is not to be based on situations and conditions and what's happening in the world and what's happening in my life.

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