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 Am I just a sinner Saved By Grace?

" I am just a sinner saved by grace." Now I understand what people mean when they say that but to me it is firmly in the negative column and is a pendulum swing too far. We who know and love the Lord are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. We are sons and daughters of the Living God and His love and thoughts towards us cannot be measured. He has raised us up to heavenly places, He causes us to walk in His kingdom and not the kingdom of the world. Ours is no mere legal fiction, ours is a glorious living reality and I believe that the greater part of Christendom has forgotten that. When was the last time any of us heard the song ” Victory in Jesus,” or ” Stand up stand up for Jesus ye soldiers of the Cross.”

How we view ourselves is very important and no hyper grace or prosperity teacher should rob us of our glorious truth just because they mis-interpret it for fleshly gain. Our identity, who we see ourselves as, is vital. When you say I am a sinner saved by grace, you have just identified yourself as a sinner. No, if genuinely saved, you’re a child of the Living God. And if you are a child of God then the world will see the fruit of it, not perfection, but it will see the fruits of your salvation. I genuinely believe that this phrase ” I am just a sinner saved by grace,” is a phrase that was invented to explain the “carnal Christian.”

I have found that the same people who use this phrase love to talk about Romans 7. They use Romans 7 to justify their own lives as if Romans 7 was the last chapter in that book. Oh wretched man that I am is no rallying cry to the Body of Christ. I thank God that Paul continues on and says that there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ. We who are in Christ are free from the law of sin and death. The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk after and in the Spirit of the Lord.

But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.(Rom 8:11)

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. (Rom 8:14-17)

Do you see it brothers and sisters, do you see your identity? A child of the Living God. An heir of God and joint heirs with Christ. God is our Father and we have the glorious privilege of coming before His throne and crying out “Father.”

Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? (Rom 8:30-31)

Can you see what you have been called to? You have been justified in the eyes of God and He has shared His glory with you, you have been glorified. The God of all that exists is for you, for you, not against you. This is the word of God. And do you know who desperately does not want you to ever grasp that? The enemy of your soul. He would be at peace all day long if he heard the children of God identify themselves as “just,” a sinner saved by Grace. These are not the words of warriors, soldiers in the army of God. These are the words of people who have no real desire to glorify God. We as children of the living God are sanctified vessels whose chief aim is to glorify the living God. We are called to be living epistles read of men. When men read our ” book,’ what will be the title? Will it be ” Merely a sinner saved by Grace?” Or will our books title be “To the Glory of God on High.”

Here is the thing brothers and sisters. I believe we get to title our own books. What is the title to the book of your life? Will it be Victory? Will it be glory to God? Will it be over-comer? Will it be child of the most High? Will it be Living stone? Will it be Dearly Beloved? Will it be Apple of His Eye? Will it be More than Conquerors? What will it be? Will you walk in victory? Will you glorify God? Will you overcome and endure for His namesake? Will you identify yourself as a child of the Living God who is a living stone rightly shaped to fit into the temple that houses His glory? Do you know that you are dearly beloved and the price of that love was Calvary? You are the apple of His eye, never be tempted to take on the mantle of ” sinner,” under any circumstances. You tell the world of His glory and you confess to your Father in heaven your sins. He is faithful and true to forgive His children, let us be faithful and true to give Him all the glory for the wonderful things that He has done for us.

 2016/2/9 12:59









 Re: Am I just a sinner Saved By Grace?

brother I think of that hymn that says only a sinner saved by grace. How about only a sant saved by grace. I think that is more positive. And speaks of our eternal destiny in Jesus.



 2016/2/9 14:04
AbideinHim
Member



Joined: 2006/11/26
Posts: 5185
Louisiana

 Re: Am I just a sinner Saved By Grace?

Thank you brother Frank for addressing the
believers true identity in Christ. We were
sinners, but now we are new creations in
Christ Jesus, and have been made the
righteousness of God in Christ.

It is still possible for the Christian to sin,
but he is no longer under the dominion of
sin.

The flesh will always bring us down if we
yield to it, but the good news is that we
can walk in the spirit and not fulfil the lust
of the flesh.

We still need the grace of God every day
of our lives for the same grace that saves
us, keeps us, and causes us to stand.


_________________
Mike

 2016/2/9 17:45Profile
twayneb
Member



Joined: 2009/4/5
Posts: 2256
Joplin, Missouri

 Re: Am I just a sinner Saved By Grace?

Frank: Thank you so much for the post. I would like to add:

How we see ourselves is HUGE. I am afraid that we often view ourselves as still being sinners, but having accepted that God will overlook our status in the end and welcome us into His eternal kingdom because we simply acknowledged or confessed Him. The result of this view is a life of defeat. We are always struggling, always fighting battles that, quite frankly, have already been won.

I think a careful study of Romans 6-8 will reveal that Romans 7 does not refer to the struggle of a born again man, but rather with the struggle of a man who was married to the law and trying to earn God's favor by self-effort. Unfortunately, many of us are still locked in that struggle of self effort. But we should not be. We have been translated out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of His Son. We are a new creature. We have been given all things that pertain unto life and Godliness through Christ.

Many believers struggle with some besetting sin in their life. Many have almost given up hope of ever having lasting victory over those things. They have settled for an existence that resembles Paul's struggle in Roman's 7, not realizing that they have been set free from that kind of struggle. There comes a time when we see who we really are. We see what God has truly done in us through the transforming work of the cross. We see that we no longer have to put up with defeat.

When we see that, there is a decision to be made. Am I going to allow this thing that has stolen so much from me to continue to beset my life, or am I going to put my foot down and say, "That is enough! I have been given victory over you, and I am making the decision today to enforce that victory." With this steadfast decision from which there is NO RETREAT, we open up the door for the power of God to flow in and through us. We allow Him at that point to bring into manifestation the victory He has already given us. We decide to have victory and He supplies ALL of the power and ability for that victory. We submit ourselves unto Him and resist that devil, and the result is a running devil and victory in our lives.

Over the years, this revelation has been progressive in my life. I have had things that I held onto that I should have let go. Often it was something that my flesh desired, and I did not make the decision that I was going to be free. In that state, God's hands are tied. He cannot provide anointing and power where it is not welcomed. But when I surrendered that thing to Him, got a revelation of who I was in Christ, and decided that because of who I was that I was no longer going to allow it or put up with it, the floodgates of God's empowerment were opened, and the victory came.

We must have a revelation of the new man.


_________________
Travis

 2016/2/12 11:01Profile
havok20x
Member



Joined: 2008/9/14
Posts: 980
Pineville, LA

 Re:

Thanks, Travis for referring me here.

 2016/2/12 12:17Profile









  Are Christians Just Forgiven Sinners?

Are Christians Just Forgiven Sinners?

How would you feel if you turned on Television and heard on the news that the President of the United States had just issued a blanket pardon to all of America's prison inmates? Would you have a problem with all these prisoners being completely forgiven and released without any restrictions? How would you feel if a few of them moved into your neighborhood? The problem would be that these people would remain unchanged and many would just continue in a life of crime. They would need to be returned to jail or continually forgiven every day since there would were still the same person with the same nature as before. Forgiveness and pardon for their crimes is not the solution because forgiveness could never change who they really were deep down inside. The only possible cure would be a change of their nature. They need a complete change the very essence and core of who they really where.

As a result of Adam's sin, we were all born sinners and we received a sinful nature. This is the actual, factual nature that we inherited from Adam and we all born alive to sin, dead to God, and without the "LIFE OF CHRIST".

It is impossible to overstate the seriousness of man's condition as a human being apart from God. They bible refers to sinners as, judged, condemned, guilty, sons of the devil, dead in trespasses and sins, lovers of darkness, deeds are evil, under the wrath of God, children of wrath, enemies of God, hostile, rebellious, foolish, unrighteous, filthy, without Christ, without hope, desperately wicked, corrupt, abominable, workers of iniquity, under law, children of disobedience, deceitful and more. Some people only look at the sin of those who are not Christians but their real problem is far worse than that. The Bible clearly teaches that they are totally dead in sin and dead to God. Their continual sinning is the just normal consequence and result of not having God's Life inside them to depend on.

This problem of our sinful corruption was so bad and thorough that even God, Himself could not repair us. There was nothing God could do with that sinful nature, no touching up, no revising, no improving it and no adding to it could ever make it acceptable in His sight. Our sinful nature was entirely hostile to him and we were His actual enemy. We were so corrupt, so wicked and evil that the only thing God could to do with our sinful nature was to crucify it with Christ. The only possible cure for your old life was death. The Good News is that God has already provided the solution for us in Christ. When you were born again you were crucified with Christ and you were buried with Him. Your old sinful nature died and you received God's Divine Nature to replace it. The only solution was to have us crucified with Christ and then He gives us His LIFE. So we died, and we became a New Creation. God made us righteous, holy, clean, purified, and justified. We have no need to become a better person, because God has already made us into a new person.

If you are a Christian then you become one with Him. He made you a NEW CREATION. You were made 100% righteous and perfect. You are one with Holy Spirit or the Spirit of Christ. You are no longer in Adam and you now hove a new pure heart and God's very Divine Nature. You have received His all-sufficient Life in exchange for you old corrupt self. Now the Christian life isn't yours to live. God does not depend on you to live His Life for Him. He knows that it impossible for you to live His life, so He gave you His life when you were born again. You do not live for Him - He lives for you. Now you can fully depend on God's Life rather than depending on what you do or do not do. You no longer need to make promises that you can never keep or try to dedicate and rededicate your life to Him. You now have Christ living His Life through you. You no longer have to try to make the Christian life work through your own efforts and resources. It is only made possible by your union with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection.

This is all God's gift to us gift from God. We can never deserve it or earn it. We seem to take it very lightly that Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ" and "I died." But those are powerful statements! So, what died? What was crucified with Christ? Our bodies obviously didn't die. Our souls didn't die, we can still think and feel and we still have make choices. So what died was our spirit that had been born in Adam - our sinful nature. When we were born again, we still had these old bodies and souls, but our sinful nature was killed - dead, gone, crucified - forever - and we were raised to life with the righteous nature of Christ.

If you're a Christian, you died and were created anew. This is referring to the very essence and core of who we really are. This is the reality of who we really are in our spirits. God didn't take the "old us" and change us into a "better" or "improved" us. Rather, we died and we were re-created as a brand New Creation. We haven't been revived. We've been regenerated and re-created completely! In other words, God didn't take the old us and pump some life into it. Rather, we died and God made us into something completely new - a New Creation. Our old life wasn't changed. It was exchanged with a real life - the very life of Jesus!

When I was born, I was a descendant of Adam. I was related to Adam in every sense. Adam's very DNA was passed down from person to person and it became my DNA. I was born with Adam's DNA. I was born with Adam's nature. What became true of Adam after he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil became true of me. I could not separate myself from the fact that I was a child of Adam. Adam died to God after the tree, and sin entered the world, and death began its reign. I was therefore born alive to sin and dead to God. It wasn't when I first sinned that I died to God. It was my relationship to Adam that made me dead to God. I didn't do a thing to get into this relationship and I couldn't do a thing to get out of it!

Now, however, I've been given a new life! I have been made alive together with Christ. I have died to who I was in Adam and now my "DNA" is Christ's! I no longer belong to Adam. I am now Christ's. I am no longer a descendant from the line of Adam; I am from the line of Christ. I am now fully related to Christ. Who Jesus is has been passed on to me - I have now become a partaker of His very nature, glory and holiness. I have died to the nature of Adam and taken on a new nature. I cannot separate myself from the fact that I am a child of God! I have now died to sin and have been made alive in Christ. The bible tells me to "reckon" my self as dead to sin. That simply means that I understand my being dead to sin as a done deal. I daily count it as fact and live in that fact. LIFE has begun its reign! It wasn't when I first performed a righteous act, and it's not because of any continuance of me performing righteous acts that I have died to sin and been made alive to God. It's my relationship to Jesus that made me dead to sin and alive to God, and keeps me alive to God. I never have to worry about my old sinful nature getting resurrected again because after you've died to something, you can never "live to it" again!

I cannot add anything to maintain this relationship and I can't do a thing to get out of it! I am forever His and He is mine. I dwell in Him and He in me. It's an inseparable union! I have His very DNA! I am identified with Him and no longer with Adam. Even when I sin, it's not that I still have an identity in Adam. Sin dwells in my corruptible, mortal body, but my body is not who I am! One day this corruptible and mortal body will be replace with incorruption and immortality. "Who I am" is not my body. I am a spiritual being who has become one spirit with God. I am in Him and He is in me, and that I'm no longer related to "the first man Adam," who "became a living being," but I'm now related to "the last Adam," who "became a life-giving spirit!"

So it is impossible to for a Christian to be a forgiven sinner. Forgiveness could not change the fact of our sin nature. Forgiveness and pardon can never be the solution because forgiveness could never change who we are in essence and who we really are deep down inside. Forgiveness could not change the fact of our sinful nature. We were totally rotten to the core. We were totally dead to God and our very nature was hostile and an enemy of God. No amount of reformation, or improvements could make it better. God demands holiness, perfection and righteousness. The only way for Him to solve this problem was to kill us and then GIVE us His Divine Nature in place of our own nature. This is the FREE Gift of God - Christ's Life.

Please read these scriptures prayerfully and slowly and let the truth set you free.

1 Cor. 6:17, "But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit."

Col. 3:3-4, "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

Acts 17:28, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring."

Gal. 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ: neverthless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

2 Cor. 5:14, "For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead."

John 1:12, "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name."

Rom. 6:3-6, "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin."

2 Cor. 5:17, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

1 Cor. 3:17, "If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."

1 Cor. 6:15: "Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?"

1 Cor. 6:19, "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?"

2 Peter 1:3-4, "According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust."

1 John 5:11-12, "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life."

Rom 8:8-10, "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness."

2 Cor. 5:21, "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

Col. 1:12-14, "Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet (qualified) to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins."

Eph. 1:3-4, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love."

Romans 5:19, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."

 2016/2/12 13:54
Christinyou
Member



Joined: 2005/11/2
Posts: 3710
Ca.

 Re: Are Christians Just Forgiven Sinners?

There you go again tuc, sounding just like Paul. What a blessing to hear the truth again and again, for it is the only way we can truly understand who we are in Christ. It is so easy to come back into the condemnation of our old nature and begin to mistrust God with these silly questions of why God, are you doing things this way and not doing the things that set men free and keep them from being burned alive and beheaded and seeing evil prevail.

Thank you tuc for reminding me of who I am and what God has done in Christ for me and me alone, even if I was the only one left on this earth.

This has come at the perfect time for me, because I was blaming God again for all the evil being put upon His creation. What freedom there is in The Christ of God who has truly set us free, and only him, in His works has truly set us free indeed.

I pray that as you, I will always speak the truth of who I am in Christ and that He the Spirit of Truth lives in me and that we are truly sons of God in Christ Jesus who is now our only lives. Truly: "Christ in you the hope of Glory". Thank you brother in Christ.

With the greatest love of all in Christ:

Phillip




_________________
Phillip

 2016/2/12 15:23Profile









 Re:

Excellent post brother, you write...........

"How we see ourselves is HUGE. I am afraid that we often view ourselves as still being sinners, but having accepted that God will overlook our status in the end and welcome us into His eternal kingdom because we simply acknowledged or confessed Him. The result of this view is a life of defeat. We are always struggling, always fighting battles that, quite frankly, have already been won. " And again.........

"Over the years, this revelation has been progressive in my life. I have had things that I held onto that I should have let go. Often it was something that my flesh desired, and I did not make the decision that I was going to be free. In that state, God's hands are tied. He cannot provide anointing and power where it is not welcomed. But when I surrendered that thing to Him, got a revelation of who I was in Christ, and decided that because of who I was that I was no longer going to allow it or put up with it, the floodgates of God's empowerment were opened, and the victory came.We must have a revelation of the new man. "

Every young believer should listen to these words from a mature saint, it may just save you years of heartache and struggle................bro Frank

 2016/2/12 15:31









 Re:

Mike writes.......

"We still need the grace of God every day
of our lives for the same grace that saves
us, keeps us, and causes us to stand."

Amen brother, amen, every day...............bro Frank

 2016/2/12 23:56





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