January 13

“The old “good dog, bad dog” teaching that we all cut our spiritual teeth on is the devil’s smoke-and-mirrors baloney.  It’s not biblical.  The Bible teaches unequivocally that the old man died in Christ and was buried with Him (Romans 6:2-8).” Bill Gillham, “What God Wishes Christians Knew About Christianity”

Gillham’s book is putting into biblical terminology that which God has been revealing to me concerning my self-worth and why I struggle so to be obedient.      The way Gillham explains it is that because we were crucified with Christ we are now new creatures no longer subject to our old sinful natures.  Our new nature wants to obey Christ who is now in us and we in Him.  Any sinful thoughts that now arise do not originate in us, but rather are planted there by Satan.  He uses the first-person-singular “I” or “me” to confuse us into thinking it is our desire.  This is easy to do because the old thought pattern is still burned into our brains and if we are lazy, fall easily back into the old pattern.  Our diligence, then, is not in being new creatures, but rather in not allowing our minds to be deceived into thinking we aren’t new creatures.  Our new natures hate sin.  Our battle, Gillham says according to scripture, is “the new man fighting against the power of sin” (Romans 7:23). What this revelation does for me is to settle once and for all my self worth issues as well as give me a handle with which to hold the pan I will use to beat Sin over the head!  So then, if I act according to what I think, and if I think as though I’m a new creature because I am, then Sin won’t make any sense to me.  I’ll be aware that if “I” wants something that doesn’t reckon with what I know to be true about Christ, that it’s not me but Sin that desires this thing.  This will be my power over it.  I understand now why I’ve battled with feeling deprived.  I did not think as though I believed I was a new creature--a new creature whose every need is supplied.   My new nature never feels deprived because it is in Christ and Christ is in it.  If “I” feel deprived I can be sure that “I” is that smoke-and-mirrors trick!

“We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.”  Romans 6:6