REVIEW
 
Now today, I believe we will be concluding the series we have been studying entitled “In the Mirror” where we have been looking into the mirror of God’s Word and seeing what we look like from God’s perspective—which is truly the only opinion that really matters. So, if our Father says that we are loved and chosen, then that’s what we are. It doesn’t matter what others say or what our own heart says. We are who He says that we are! Also, if the Bible says that we are holy and righteous, then that is what we are. It might not look like it every day, but we must believe what God says over what we see.
 
And as we’ve learned, another benefit of us beholding and believing who this spiritual mirror says that we are is that it will change the things we see in the natural. Our kickoff Scripture out of Second Corinthians 3:18 teaches us this when it says, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
 
Church, we must realize that who we are in the spirit is the “same image” as the Lord Jesus Christ. It is His righteousness that we have been made. It is the same love that His Father loved Him with that has been shed abroad in our heart. It is His anointing that we have been anointed with. And as we saw last week, it is the same blessing of Abraham that we have as well.
 
And like we learned last week from the truth that we are blessed in Christ Jesus, this is not something we need to wait to happen before we believe it. No, you and I are blessed because of what Jesus did for us, not because we necessarily see any evidence of it yet in our lives.
 
We saw from Ephesians 1:3 which says that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. It might feel some days that we are not blessed because a lot of things in this natural, physical world don’t indicate it, but we have to determine whether that is true or not. And I am here to tell you that the truth is that we have received the same blessing of Abraham. And we learned that this blessing of Abraham is not to be confused with Abraham’s blessings. There is a big difference between the blessing on his life and the blessings He possessed in his life. The blessings were the physical, tangible things he possessed, but the blessing was the intangible divine empowerment that enabled him to be blessed with tangible things.
 
So, it boils down to us believing that all of these spiritual blessings that we possess are already ours in Christ Jesus. Are we going to look in this mirror and believe that we are blessed, anointed, redeemed, delivered, healed, etc. even though when we look at our lives, we look as broke, busted, and disgusted as Joseph did in Genesis 39:1?
 
But, again, notice that this mirror called him a successful, prosperous, and blessed man before anyone saw the evidence of it (including himself). That is where we need to see ourselves—as blessed before we see any evidence of it. Amen?
 
Church, this mirror reveals to us that we have been blessed, and it is up to us to stand up in our situations and circumstances that might not reflect that we are blessed, and say, “I am a successful man! I am a blessed woman!” We say it because that is what we see in this mirror. Amen and amen!
 
Now this week, in the conclusion of these teachings, I had on my heart to wind up these teachings with the victory which is ours in Christ Jesus. So, as we have been learning— “I Am Loved, I Am Righteous, I Am Holy, I Am Blessed, I Am Anointed”—today, you and I will learn this about ourselves— “I Am A Winner.”
 
GOD BELIEVES IN WINNING
 
Did you know God is all about winning? He sure is! I know we live in a society today that wants to hand out trophies to everyone, but that is not the way things work in the kingdom of God.
 
You see, God is not into socialism and the mentality that revolves around it. Everyone is not going to receive the same slice of the pie. No, in His kingdom, there will be winners and there will be losers. There are those who get rewarded and those who won’t. Sure, Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, but there are those who will receive His sacrifice and those who won’t. On top of that, there are those who after receiving this salvation will be rewarded more than others who are saved just like they were.  
 
Church, we see this throughout the Scriptures—that there are rewards awaiting us in heaven. There are things like robes, crowns, and other prizes promised to us for overcoming in this life. So, God evidently is in the rewarding business. Therefore, He desires for us to win in life and receive the reward for doing so! Amen?
 
The apostle Paul echoed these sentiments as he aspired to win His own race of faith. We see him speak of this in many of his epistles, but a really good description is found in First Corinthians chapter 9. Let’s look at it:
 
First Corinthians 9:24-27 – “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”
 
So, what do we see in these verses? Evidently, as in a race, there are multiple competitors in the kingdom of God, but only certain ones will receive the prize. And Paul calls this prize not a perishable crown, but an imperishable crown. He also goes on to speak of how one can be disqualified in this race of faith, but that is obviously not God’s will. God’s will is that we win all the time and every time! And do you know why? It is because He Himself is a Winner! Let’s look at some truths in this mirror that reflect this to us …
 
GOD IS A WINNER
 
Now we know that God only has one rival, and that is obviously Satan. Yes, the devil is the only one dumb enough to try and take God on. Well, let’s look how well that went for him …
 
Most of us are aware of that event that transpired before the foundation of this world, when Satan, being an angel in heaven named Lucifer, rebelled against God because his heart was lifted up in pride to be like Him. The Scriptures teach us that he was able to deceive a third of the angels in heaven to war against the Lord of hosts.
 
And can you imagine how that went down? Jesus told us in Luke chapter 10 exactly what happened: He told His disciples that after that old dragon did his best to overthrow God with a third of the angels of heaven, He said that He saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven (Luke 10:18).
 
So, this shows us that if we were to have ordered this so-called “War in the Heavenlies” on pay per view, then we wouldn’t have gotten our money’s worth. LOL! It was no match, whatsoever! Just like when He was being accused of casting out demons by Beelzebub, Jesus said that He was casting them out by the “finger of God” (Luke 11:20).
 
So here is what I imagine happened. Lucifer and all his angels ganged up, roaring as they came against the Most High God and the Lord just simply “flicked” him with his finger and the devil fell like lightning from heaven!
 
So don’t be deceived, brethren! This wasn’t like the main event at Wrestlemania, where you get a good back and forth 30-minute match! No, if you would have paid to see this, the only thing you would have been impressed by was the knock-out ability of our God! Hallelujah!
 
And what we need to understand about what Jesus was saying here is that it was being said in response to His disciple’s excitement over the demons obeying them when they took authority over them. So, what Jesus was doing here was explaining to them that the demons obeying us is not really that big of a deal. Jesus told us right here what happened when He said that He was there to witness Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Now as we know, when it comes to lightning, if you blink, you’ll miss it.
 
So, again, I believe that Jesus was attempting to communicate to His disciples that what they had experienced was not as spectacular and miraculous as they thought. Why? Because He saw Satan lose His place of authority when He was cast out of heaven some time before that. In other words, it was really no big deal that the demons were responding to His name—because their leader had already been cast out of heaven before by that same authority! Amen!
 
All of this to say that this original head to head matchup between Almighty God and the devil was no contest. In other words, it was severely one-sided.
 
CHRIST, THE CONQUEROR
 
But, of course, we know that the devil didn’t let that stop him. He still raged against God and decided to attack those created in God’s image and likeness. And by being successful at tempting man to sin against God, it opened God’s creation up to sin and the curse. But as we know, what the First Adam lost in the Fall, the Last Adam has regained through His Resurrection. Yes, through Jesus, God has notched another victory in the win column!
 
Which brings a good point: Like it was in the Fall of Adam or the crucifixion of Jesus, it might seem at times that the devil has gotten the lead in the game a time or two, but it’s not how you start that makes the difference; it’s how you finish the game. And God has never lost one game! He is the undefeated One! And the greatest victory was won on Calvary.
 
Let’s look at some verses which explain what Jesus did through His death, burial and resurrection:
 
First John 3:8 tells us one of Jesus’ purposes for coming to this world. John says, “… For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” The word used for “destroy” here literally means to “loose” or “untie.” This means that Jesus came to set us free from sin’s control and sin’s effects. That is why sin no longer has dominion over us (Romans 6:14). Yes, we have a new master and are no longer slaves to our former master!
 
In Hebrews 2:14 we are told how Jesus lived as a man and then died in the sins of mankind “… that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” The word “destroy” here means “to make of non-effect, to paralyze, or to render inoperative”. One translation said that Jesus made the devil an absolute “zero.” So, this verse is saying that Jesus “paralyzed” the devil through His triumph at the cross, and therefore, took away Satan’s power over our lives.
 
And Jesus didn’t just whoop the devil in a quiet, nice way. He literally rubbed his nose in it: We are told in Colossians 2:15 how Jesus “having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”
 
This verse describes what Jesus did when He was resurrected on the third day. When He was made alive after spending three days and three nights in the pit of hell, Jesus plundered the enemy’s camp—totally defeating him.
 
Now notice the first two words in this awesome verse— “Having disarmed.” Like it is with everything we’ve been learning in this series, this isn’t something Jesus is going to do. It is something He has already done— “Having disarmed!”
 
The word “disarmed” describes “stripping the garments and/or armor off.” This word was used to depict the stripping of the enemy’s weaponry and artillery and leaving him without any weapons with which to respond. One scholar even noted that this word describes “stripping to the point of complete nakedness.” The King James Version translates this word as “spoiled” which would describe Jesus as taking the possessions of the principalities and powers. This means that when Jesus was resurrected, He totally whipped and stripped the enemy and left them with nothing. He took all of their armor away from them!
 
This gives new meaning to the Old Testament verse that says, “No weapon formed against you will prosper,” doesn’t it? Under the New Covenant, Satan has been stripped of his weapons that he used to keep us in bondage before Jesus came. Now the only effective weapon that he can form against us is the illusion that he even has an effective weapon! In other words, his only effective weapon now is deception!
 
So, we can gather from these first two words “having disarmed” that Jesus has already (past tense) taken away the enemy’s weapons. So, how could he ever defeat us if he doesn’t even have any weapons left? The only way he can is if he can convince us that he’s got an effective weapon against us. The only way he can win is if he can get us to give up, thinking he’s won. His only effective weapon left is deception. It is like someone who robs a bank with his pointed finger in his pocket. If that robber convinces the bank employees that what he is pointing at them is a real gun then he can cause them to give him all the money but if they know that he does not really have a weapon then they will not give him squat! 
 
Now the words “public spectacle” came from two different Greek words: The first is deigmatidzo and it means “to display, to exhibit; to expose to public disgrace.” This Greek word was used to denote “the display of captives, weaponry, and trophies that were seized during war on foreign soil.” In those times when the war was over and the battle was won, the victorious king would return home and “display” the treasures, trophies, weaponry, and even the captives that he had seized during his conquest.
 
So, what we see here is that after Jesus stripped the enemy of all their garments and weapons leaving them totally naked He exposed their pitiful condition for all the hosts of heaven to see. He forever has “exhibited them” and “put them to an open shame.” This is why God prophesied that there would come a time when we would look upon (i.e. gaze at and consider) Satan and say, “Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world a wilderness and destroyed its cities” (Isaiah 14:16). It’s going to be amazing to us when we will be able to see him for who he really is. We will be so awestruck that we will gaze upon him and ponder how in the world that he ever “shook kingdoms, destroyed cities, made the earth tremble, and made the world a wilderness.” It will be very amazing and also very disappointing to realize that it was all through DECEPTION—his only weapon!
 
So, what we are learning through all of this is that the devil has been whipped and stripped. Jesus took the teeth of the roaring lion. And the reason it is so important to understand this is because too many times we perceive the devil as this huge juggernaut. But he’s not! Greater is He who lives in us than he who lives in the world. Period!
 
Now another word that the apostle Paul included in Colossians 2:15 is the word parresia which describes “boldness, confidence, openness.” By adding this word, Paul was showing us that this grand celebration was no quiet affair! On the contrary, Jesus “boldly, confidently, and loudly” exposed His disarmed and defeated foe. He completely humiliated the enemy when He exhibited him as defeated for all the world to see. Jesus rubbed his nose in it in a not-so quiet way!  
 
When was Paul referring to this “public spectacle” happening? The word “triumphing” is the Greek word triambeuo. It referred to a “Roman triumph” which was “a glorious triumphal parade”.  This was the triumphal procession (or, parade) that the conquering leader would lead back into his kingdom after defeating his enemy.
 
So, what we can gather from these verses is that Jesus has already totally defeated Satan and his cohorts. It is a finished work! The devil is not going to get any more defeated than he already is! Therefore, we must always approach everything in life with this mindset—that the enemy has already been defeated and we already have the victory!
 
MORE THAN CONQUERORS
 
Which leads us to: Because our God is a Winner and because the devil has been defeated by Christ Jesus, we are now winners! Yes, He Himself is a Winner, and desires for His children to win as well. And the good news is that He has done everything that needed to be done to make us victorious and triumphant.
 
Let’s look at some verses that clearly declare this to us, the church …
 
First of all, in First Corinthians 15:57, the apostle Paul said, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
 
So, our victorious God has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! In other words, because of the victory that Jesus won on Calvary, we have the victory over every trial and tribulation that comes our way! We are victorious in Christ!
 
In a similar Scripture (Second Corinthians 2:14), the apostle Paul said, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.”
 
Now the word “triumph” here is the same word used for “triumphing” in Colossians 2:15 which again describes a victory parade for a conquering army and its leader. So, by saying that He is leading us in this victory parade, Paul is saying that we are the soldiers that accompany Jesus after He spoiled the principalities and powers and led them in this humiliating parade. In other words, we partake in His victory without ever having to fight the battle.
 
That’s why Paul said what he did in Romans 8:37— “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
 
What does this mean to be more than a conqueror? How can you be more than a conqueror? Let me give you a great example: There are many athletes who, week-in and week-out, train and practice to become the best at their respective sports. They work extremely hard to defeat each of their fellow competitors. But when these hardworking athletes are victorious, they are not true examples of someone who is "more than a conqueror." So, who is the one who is "more than a conqueror" in this situation? It is their spouse! Yes, their spouses are the ones that are more than conquerors because they never had to go through the countless hours of training and they never had to compete; yet they partake of the prize money from their spouse's victories. In other words, they get to spend the money their spouses worked so hard to earn. The successful athletes are conquerors, but their spouses are more than conquerors.
 
Here is how this applies to us: We, the bride of Christ, never had to step into the arena with the devil and earn our salvation. Our Divine Husband fought the battle for us, so that now, we can partake in the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness, and  reign in life (Romans 5:17). Jesus died and rose again to purchase everything that we could never afford. He came to give us life and life more abundantly when we did not deserve it. Therefore, as the bride of Christ, we get to partake in the spoils left behind by our Glorified Husband's victory over death, hell, and the grave. Amen. We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Glory to Jesus!
 
So, based on Second Corinthians 2:14, what is our responsibility? If our Divine Husband won the victory for us, what do we have to do? Paul said to just be thankful. Just show gratitude and appreciation to the one who “graced” you with said victory! And then just let the fragrance of that victory be with you wherever you go. In other words, allow your life to reek of victory!
 
Church, do you know what stinks? Losing stinks. Anyone who tells you they enjoy losing is lying to you. Now you can still have your joy when you lose, but you are not going to be happy with losing. On the contrary, winning is a pleasant aroma, and a smell that should follow our lives as children of God.
 
So, it is clear that God has given us the victory and He always leads us in triumph! Victory is ours and we always win in Christ! That is who we are! Glory!
 
Therefore, you are not a loser. The world might have told you that you’re a loser, that you’re not cool and it doesn’t accept you, but the gospel is that you and I are truly winners! We are made acceptable in the Beloved! We are more than conquerors as His beloved! Therefore, it couldn’t get any better for us! This should keep a smile plastered across our faces—to where an attitude of gratitude is the fragrance we are putting off and we are rejoicing like any fanatic does out there when their team wins the championship! I’ll tell you—we’ve won the greatest championship there ever was! Therefore, we are more than winners! Now let’s go home and eat our chicken dinners!

REVIEW
 
Today we are continuing our look at our spiritual identity through a series I’ve entitled “In the Mirror.” And what we have been doing for the past couple of months is looking into the mirror of God’s Word and seeing what we look like from God’s perspective.
 
How many of you know that His is the only opinion we need to pay attention to? If He says that we are loved, chosen, holy, righteous, free, etc. then that is all that matters. People will not always choose us. They will not always value us. But if God has said that we are precious to Him and has decided to indwell us, then what difference does it make how others view us?
 
But it does make a difference how we view ourselves—for if we do not put faith in what this mirror says we are, then we will by default seek the approval and commendations of men.
 
And as we’ve learned, another benefit of us beholding what we look like in this spiritual mirror is that it will change us on the outside. Our kickoff Scripture out of Second Corinthians 3:18 teaches us this when it says, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
 
What this means is that, like Moses who radiated the glory of God when he came down from Mount Sinai from being in the presence of God, we too will reflect God’s glory when we get into the presence of God and see from His Word the glory within us! But as we have learned—it’s going to take us climbing this mount and spending time in the presence of God like Moses did, letting Him speak these truths to our hearts and revealing to us who this mirror says that we are! Glory, indeed!
 
So, what we have been doing in this series is beholding each week one of the things that this mirror says that we are as born-again believers. Thus far, you and I have learned that … 
 
1.I Am Loved
2.I Am His New Creation
3.I Am Chosen
4.I Am Holy
5.I Am Righteous
6.I Am Free
7.I Am Healed
8.I Am Anointed
 
I AM BLESSED
 
So, let’s continue today by looking again at Ephesians chapter 1—because we see something else that God has made us when we look in the mirror of these powerful New Testament Scriptures.  
 
In Ephesians 1:3, the apostle Paul begins this “love sentence” with— “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”
 
Now the phrase “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” is just an old English way of saying that our Father God is to be praised. And how many of you know that is the truth!?! He is absolutely worthy to be praised because of all that He has done for us in Christ Jesus. Amen?  
 
But notice what the first thing is that Paul says God deserves to be praised for— “…who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”
 
So, the very first thing that the Holy Spirit inspires the apostle Paul to mention that Christ Jesus has done for us is that He “blessed” us.
 
Now, first of all, what does it mean to be “blessed?” To be blessed can be described as “divine empowerment.” It means to be favored, empowered, enabled and destined to succeed. The following are some ways that we can accurately identify God’s “blessing”: It is God’s protection, His favor, or His grace. It is a “beneficial thing” like an “advantage, benefit, or a bonus.” It can also be described as “approval or support” like when we say that someone gave a project their blessing. For example, when God called Abram to go to the Promised Land, He promised to bless him & make his name great, and through him, to bless all the families of the earth (See Genesis 12:1-3).
 
You see, this was God's original design in creation—for His creatures, including mankind, to experience prosperity, peace, and fulfillment. But that design was ruined when sin entered the world. Therefore, many of the things that we see in the world today are not here by “God’s blessing.” They are a product of the curse placed on this world through Adam’s transgression.
 
But being blessed is not a hard thing to define. However, religion has helped us in misunderstanding what is a blessing and what is not. They will call many horrible things that people experience in this life “blessings in disguise” when God actually called those same things that steal, kill, and destroy our lives, “curses.”
 
No, church, a blessing is a blessing and a curse is a curse. Let’s keep that straight. And if it comes to rob us and take life from us, it is not a blessing at all. Amen.
 
So, the first thing that we see in this awesome section of Scriptures that Paul says God has done for us is that He has blessed us! Glory to God!
 
HE HAS ALREADY BLESSED US
 
But notice that this does not say that God will bless us or even that He is blessing us; no, the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle Paul to say that He has blessed us! So, what this means is that God has already done this for us. Yes, He has already put this to our account. We already are the blessed of the Lord because our God and Father has blessed us. Amen!
 
Again, this is another one of those examples of God revealing to us that something spiritual is already ours to where we are going to have to look in this spiritual mirror in order to see it. And like it is with many of the other things that we have learned in this series, we might not see it by looking in the natural. Yes, we might not look blessed, we might not feel blessed, we might not see any evidence of this blessing in our lives right now. But we must believe what we see in this spiritual mirror over what we see in this physical mirror.
 
You see, the blessing of the Lord that is on our lives will not always be apparent. I think of the patriarchs in the Old Testament, beginning with Abraham. They didn’t always appear to be blessed. They went through wilderness seasons on their way to the Promised Land that God had for them. We see this in the life of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and perhaps the best example of this is in Joseph’s life.
 
Joseph was always blessed of the Lord and God even gave him a dream of how he would experience the fruits of that blessing. But before he reached the palace, he was in the pit. Yes, he appeared to be the least blessed person on the face of the earth at one point, but like that cork that always rises to the top, Joseph ascended to the second most important position on the earth.
 
So, while being blessed might have the promise of life being a bed of roses; we need to remember that there are thorns in there too. However, the beauty of the blessing is that even though there likely will be times that the enemy will try and suppress us, we are like the corks that will always rise back to the top when we embrace the blessing that is on our lives. Amen?    
 
Church, I’m here to tell you that this same blessing that was on Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph is on our lives as well! It is a tangible thing that empowers us to experience increase, favor, prosperity, and everything else that is included in God’s best in our lives.
 
But someone might say, “Yeah, but doesn’t Ephesians 1:3 say that what God has blessed us with is every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places?” It sure does, and that is absolutely the most important thing we have been blessed with!
 
You see, this spiritual mirror clearly reveals to us that we have been blessed with all things that pertain to life and godliness (Second Peter 1:3). Therefore, we are RICH spiritually—nothing missing, broken, or lackin’ in our spiritual lives. But this does not mean that we cannot see the fruit of this blessing in our physical lives too—because when we study the lives of these patriarchs, they experienced physical, tangible blessings in their lives along with their spiritual virtues of faith, hope and love. My point is that it does not have to be one or the other. We can and should have both! Yes, the blessing that is on our lives is to be both spiritually and physically.
 
Isn’t this New Covenant described as a “new and better covenant” (Hebrews 8:6)? I believe what makes this covenant you and I enjoy today a better covenant is that, yes, while it now includes being born again, receiving the Holy Spirit, etc., these new blessings are not just a substitute for the promised blessings they had under the Old Covenant. No, I personally believe that what Jesus came to provide us with is these New Testament spiritual blessings and the Old Testament physical blessings! Yes, I’ll have that. Amen.   
 
THE BLESSING OF ABRAHAM
 
So, with that in mind, let’s look over at Galatians chapter 3 where the apostle Paul gives us a good word on what Jesus has done for us in this respect. Let’s begin in verse 7 …
 
Galatians 3:7-9 says, “Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’ So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.”
 
You see, the Jewish community has a whole thought that because they were Abraham’s physical descendants that they were children of Abraham. John the Baptist corrected this wrong thinking by saying to the Jewish religious leaders at one point, “Don't think you can say to yourselves, 'We have father Abraham!' because I tell you that God can raise up descendants for Abraham from these stones!” (Matthew 3:9) In another instance, Jesus said that if they were Abraham’s children, they would do the works of Abraham (John 8:39). Then he went on to tell Abraham’s natural descendants that they were of their father the devil (John 8:44). So, all of this adds up to the fact that natural lineage does not make one a son of Abraham. As Paul says here, only those who of faith are sons of Abraham. Are you of faith? Then you are a son or daughter of Abraham! And guess what else you are if you are a son or daughter of Abraham? Verse 9 tells us that we are blessed with believing Abraham!
 
Saints, believers are blessed! As Paul says, those who are “of faith” are the blessed ones. Which brings up an important point as Paul goes on to describe in verses 10-12—it is not those who place themselves under the works of the law that are blessed. Those people are doomed to live under the curse. Why? Because the blessing does not occur in one’s life by the things they do or don’t do. The blessing comes to those who believe in what Christ has done! Friends, we don’t want to be “under the curse.” I personally want to be “under the blessing!” Hallelujah!
 
But as Paul says in verse 13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law because He became the curse for us. And if you recall, we have looked at what this curse of the law entailed from Deuteronomy 28:16-68 and it was not a pretty thing. It basically describes the worst possible things that can happen to someone. It summarized everything from poverty, physical sickness, oppression, mental illness, all the way to physical death of themselves and the affliction of their children. It was horrible!
 
I encourage you to read through these verses, but what we must remember when reading it is that Jesus Christ has redeemed us from all of these things! So, if we find it in these verses, we know we have been redeemed from it and, therefore, the price has already been paid for us not to experience any of these curses in our lives. Amen!  
 
So, let’s look at what it means to be “cursed” in general: The dictionary defines being “cursed” as being “damned, doomed, devoted to destruction, (We don’t want to get “D’s” in this class, amen? We want to get “A’s and B’s”- Absolutely Blessed!) afflicted or plagued.” In our modern-day terminology, we might say it is to be “jinxed or unfortunate.”  
 
How many of you know that this should not be the testimony of a follower of Christ!?! We are not to live lives that reflect that we are jinxed, unlucky or unfortunate! In fact, the exact opposite should be true for a Christian! People should look at our lives and say, “Man, they are so blessed. Things just work out for them. They are always happy no matter what they are going through. Etc. etc. etc.”
 
Yes, our reality should reflect Paul’s words in Galatians 3:14— “that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
 
So, what Paul was saying is that not only are we redeemed from something; we are redeemed unto something! And this is such an important point when it comes to the faith: Jesus did not just come to save us from not experiencing the penalty and punishment of sin; He came to provide a more abundant life (John 10:10). Yes, He has made the way for us to experience a new, blessed, resurrection life!
 
And here we see what Jesus died that we might have—the blessing of Abraham.
 
So, what exactly is this blessing of Abraham? Many read this to say, “the blessings of Abraham”—thinking that being blessed is just having a lot of stuff. But this is something that we need to renew our minds to because there is a difference between being “blessed” and having “blessings.” Being blessed is the empowerment to prosper and obtain blessings, but the blessings are not the root of the blessing. They are simply the fruit of the blessing.
 
We are told in Proverbs 10:22— “The Blessing of the Lord makes one rich and adds no sorrow to it.” Notice that in this Scripture, the blessing of the Lord is separated from riches. We, likewise, need to separate the two because the blessing is not wealth; it is the power to get wealth (See Deuteronomy 8:18).
 
You see, the blessing of the Lord is an intangible thing. If our house were to burn down today, we are still blessed. Abraham’s blessing is not a donkey, a camel, a tent, etc. It is the root of the things he possessed. So, the blessing of the Lord is an intangible thing that affects tangible things.
 
To the Jews, they understood the blessing because they grew up in it. We here in the United States do not understand this as well. We like to label blessings as things, but the Jews did not see it that way. Therefore, the blessing of Abraham is not his things; the blessing of Abraham was God’s favor, grace, protection, and empowerment to prosper that was upon Abraham’s life. And now that same blessing is ours as well! Glory!
 
So, what I would like us to focus on now is what this blessing of Abraham that we have been blessed with looks like. In other words, I want us to look at the characteristics and qualities of the Lord’s blessing which we can see described in Deuteronomy 28:1-14.  
 
Now someone might say, “But this is the blessing of the law in Deuteronomy chapter 28, not the blessing of Abraham.” Yes, but the blessing of the law is simply more of a thorough description of the blessing of Abraham—for it was passed on to the descendants of Abraham, showing them what their forefather’s blessings were and still are. 
 
Now as we begin looking at the different examples that the Lord used to describe how they were to be blessed, we need to understand that He was referring to the specific things they could relate to because they were primarily farmers and shepherds.
 
I AM BLESSED IN THE CITY AND IN THE COUNTRY
 
So, with that in mind, let’s look at this first example from that perspective: What does it mean to be blessed in the city and blessed in the country? (Deuteronomy 28:3)
 
This basically just describes whether we are in one kind of area or another, we are to be blessed. Now by understanding who this was that He was referring to, you can tell why He said this. Why? Because these farmers and shepherds by trade might have been able to see themselves as blessed “in the country,” but they might not have been able to see themselves blessed “in the city.” 
 
You see, some people just seem to have a hard time if they are in a particular situation and cannot see themselves successful in something that is outside of their familiarity or comfort zone. While they might do well if they are in the “city” which is where commerce, people, technology etc. surround them, they don’t do well in the “country” where things operate a little differently. On the other hand, some people just seem to be “cursed” no matter what their situation is or where they are at. They fail in the man-made places, and they fail in the God-made places.
 
The Bible tells us that Isaac sowed in the year of famine and reaped a hundredfold harvest (See Genesis 26:12). This was in the worst economic situation imaginable, and he didn’t just “make it,” he actually prospered and prospered greatly!
 
I am reminded of the story of Abraham and his nephew Lot: When the strife came up between their herdsman, Abraham gave the choice to Lot which land he would take. Of course, Lot pitched his tent towards Sodom (i.e. the city) while Abraham took the lesser land. Do you know why? First off, because Abraham loved Lot and preferred him above himself (this is the way the blessed man or woman will act), but also because Abraham knew God’s blessing was upon him and it didn’t matter who had the better land. He was going to be blessed no matter where his “lot” was (pun intended). Amen!
 
Friends, as the blessed of the Lord, we do not need to have the right situation to prosper. I am blessed whether I am in the place that has the most or if I am in the place that has the least. No, we are not limited by our situation; we are only limited in our unbelief of this particular truth—that we are blessed no matter what and no matter where. 
 
Someone will say, “Well, I just have a tough time if I work out of town where I don’t know people etc.” No, don’t say that! Rather say, “I’m blessed no matter where I am! I’m redeemed from failure no matter where I am positioned! Amen!”
 
You see, this is why you see the strange consistencies in people who win the lottery going bankrupt within a short period of time. How is that possible? Well, it’s because prosperity is not just having more stuff; true prosperity begins on the inside, not the outside. So, until we see ourselves as blessed and act like a blessed person acts (i.e. being a wise steward, etc.), we will not keep it on the outside.
 
BLESSED IS THE FRUIT OF MY BODY AND THE PRODUCE OF MY GROUND
 
Verse 4 goes on to say, “Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.”
 
The “fruit of your body” is a reference to your offspring. Did you know that just as our children could be cursed simply by the failure of the parents to obey all of God’s commandments under the law, our children can be blessed simply by the obedience of Jesus to go to the Cross for us? Amen! Yes, we can expect the fruit of our body to be blessed—to increase financially, to do well physically and to love and serve God passionately!
 
It doesn’t matter how far gone they seem, just let your confession be that of Deuteronomy 28:4— “The fruit of my body is blessed, and I’ll have nothing less!” This is yours, saints! And don’t let the devil lie to you, telling you that they can’t succeed because you didn’t raise them right, or that you didn’t teach them in the ways of God when they were young, etc. No, this promise is just as good for someone who gets a hold of the truth at middle age as it is for anyone else. God can reverse the curse upon your children—when you begin to mix faith together with these truths! Amen! 
 
Then this verse says, “(Blessed shall be) the produce of your ground!” Now, again, the Lord was using the terms that the Israelites understood because they were farmers and shepherds.
 
Their “ground” was the place where their increase and provision came from. So, this would describe our workplace—the “ground” by which our increase comes from. Since this refers to our ground, this could also refer to our own businesses, etc. Regardless, the place where our provision comes from will be blessed! Amen!
 
Did you know that the place you work for is blessed simply because you work there? It sure is—whether you know it or not. We see this in the life of Jacob—how the Lord blessed Laban for the sake of Jacob. Laban himself said, “Please stay, if I have found favor in your eyes, for I have learned by experience that the Lord has blessed me for your sake.” (Genesis 30:27) We also see this in the life of Joseph that the Lord blessed the house of Potiphar because of Joseph. (see Genesis 39:5)
 
Saints, this is the kind of blessing that we should carry into our workplace! He said that He would bless us in all that we set our hand unto (Deuteronomy 28:8).
 
But herein lies a very important principle concerning this blessing: You need to set your hand to something! If you do not set your hand to something—God has nothing to bless. The Lord said if you do not work, you do not eat (Second Thessalonians 3:10). Now I understand that there are people out there who are physically incapable of working, but there is always something that we can set our hands to.
 
Let me also take this from the standpoint of seeing God’s blessing in ministry: If you do not follow the Biblical mandate to lay hands on the sick, you won’t see many people healed. Sure, we can just speak the Word, but my point is that we need to get off our hands and start putting those hands on someone. Just sitting in our home asking God to bless, use and provide for us without getting out there and making ourselves available to be blessed, used, and provided for is not God’s best.
 
Hard work, diligence, integrity and faithfulness—these are marks of a blessed man or woman of God. And if we want to walk in the blessing to where whatever we set our hand to, will prosper and be blessed, our hands need to be working that which is good. (Compare Ephesians 6:5-8)
 
You see, saints, God’s will is for our lives to reek so much of the blessing that all you are seeing is increase, after increase, after increase. This is why Deuteronomy 28:4 goes on to say that He will bless “the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.” Amen! I don’t have to tell you what your herds, cattle and flocks represent, do I? This is your stuff! Man, my house is blessed! My yard is blessed! My car is blessed! My pets are even blessed! I am blessed, blessed, blessed!
 
BLESSED IS MY BASKET AND KNEADING BOWL
 
Notice verse 5 now: It says, “Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.” Now I know that these two examples don’t mean a lot to us today, but let’s look at what they represent:
 
The “basket” was what they used to collect their harvest from the fields (i.e. it was what they used to contain and carry their increase). Amen! So what would this be for us? How about our bank account, investments, purse or wallet? That’s where you put your increase, right?
 
I can’t help but think of Jesus feeding the multitudes and how, after He had given thanks and blessed the bread and the fish, he gave them to His disciples to distribute to the crowd. Now I envision that if they were feeding thousands of people, the disciples distributed the loaves and fishes in something—maybe in the baskets that they used to collect the fragments, right?
 
But can you see what was happening here? These five loaves and two small fish actually began multiplying as the disciples were distributing them. Now I don’t personally believe that they even physically saw how they were multiplying; but that after they took some out of the baskets to give to people, it just seemed like more was there the next time their hand went to grab some more.
 
Saints, this is how the blessing works, glory to God! Your basket is blessed! So, as you become this “distributing disciple”—that is, that believer who sees themselves as a sower—God will supernaturally multiply your account’s bottom line, Hallelujah!
 
Saints, if you are living in such a way that seems like you have holes in your basket and it disappears just as quick as it you put it in there, that’s the curse—and you are redeemed from that! Jesus paid the price for you to be redeemed from having holes in your pockets! Amen!
 
Now for the kneading bowl: This was the device that was used by the women of their day to knead dough for the purpose of making bread. So, our “kneading bowl” would be described as the thing that we use to make our bread. No, I am not necessarily talking about that thing you use to make natural bread; I’m talking about your money maker, or you could say our “kneading bowl” is the thing that creates our increase. Amen!
 
So, our basket and our kneading bowl describe the things we use to carry our increase and the things we use to create our increase.
 
BLESSED COMING IN AND GOING OUT
 
Deuteronomy 28:6 goes on to say, “Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out.” (Compare Psalm 121:8)
 
This means that we are blessed when we start out, and we are blessed when we go out—from beginning to end, we are blessed! 
 
Now, again, being blessed does not mean that we will not incur challenges—where it does not seem like we are blessed. You will have times and seasons where you will have to operate by faith and not by sight. Job did.
 
The Scriptures teach us that he was the greatest of all the people of the East, living in the land of Uz. And the Bible describes his “greatness” as him, first of all, being “blameless and upright, one who feared God and shunned evil.” (Job 1:1) But then it goes on to describe his possessions—7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys and a very large household. (Job 1:3) Yes, this man was super blessed coming in!
 
But then everyone seems to get hung up on the trials of Job and miss one of the greatest historical points of his story: Although he suffered more than any man should have to suffer—losing his family, his health and his possessions, the Bible tells us in the last chapter of the Book of Job that “the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.” (Job 42:10) Also, verse 12 said, “Now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. (Sounds like He was blessed going out, huh?) He also had 7 sons and 3 daughters (Job 42:13). Lastly, we are told— “After this Job lived 140 years, and saw his children and grandchildren for 4 generations. So Job died, old and full of days.” (Job 42:16-17). This verse reminds me of Psalm 91:16— “With long life I will satisfy him, and show him my salvation.” Saints, we should become so old that even old people call us old—living out fullness of days and experiencing the fullness of His salvation all the way!
 
We should be blessed coming into this world and blessed going out of it too! Amen! 
 
And there are many other blessings the Lord goes on to describe in verses 7-13—blessings which include being the head and not the tail, above only and not beneath, lending to many nations but not needing to borrow. This is what God’s blessing on His people looks like.
 
THE TRULY BLESSED MAN
 
And in conclusion, the key to all of this is seeing ourselves this way. Not basing this on our past or recent experiences, but like it is with all of these things we’ve been learning, looking in this mirror and letting it tell you what you look like. Amen? 
 
One of my favorite examples of this is found again in the life of Joseph: In Genesis chapter 39, after Joseph was sold by his brothers, it starts off by saying, “Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. And Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him down there” (Genesis 39:1). Have you felt like you are “down there” too? At some point in our life, I’m sure we’ve all felt like we are lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut. But again, that is not where the blessed man or woman of God stays. Like cream, we will always rise to the top! Hallelujah! 
 
So, picture what was happening here with Joseph: He was in his lowest state. He had just been betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery for 20 shekels of silver (Sound familiar, huh? Wasn’t Jesus sold for 30 pieces of silver by Judas?). Now Joseph, being stripped of his tunic of many colors, was standing stripped of his coat that represented his favor, being sold into slavery. So, for all intents and purposes, Joseph looked as though he had been stripped of all favor and had hit rock bottom being sold into slavery. But then in Genesis 39:2we are told that the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a “successful” man! Most translations say that he was a prosperous man, which is a more accurate translation when you look at the Hebrew word being used.
 
Now, mind you, this statement that Joseph was a prosperous man was on the heels of him being in the lowest place of his life. And it was before verse 3, which goes on to tell us how Potiphar saw that the Lord was with him and made all he set his hand to prosper.
 
But notice that this mirror called him a successful, prosperous, and blessed man before anyone saw the evidence of it. That is where we need to see ourselves—as blessed before we see any evidence of it. Amen?
 
Church, this mirror reveals to us that we have been blessed, and it is up to us to stand up in our situations and circumstances that might not reflect that we are blessed, and say, “I am a successful man! I am a blessed woman!” We say it because that is what we see in this mirror. Amen and amen!

REVIEW
 
This week, we are continuing our look at our spiritual identity through a series I’ve entitled “In the Mirror.” In this series, we have been looking at various things that our spiritual mirror says that we are: We have seen that we are loved, we are His workmanship, we are chosen, we are holy, we are righteous, we are free, and most recently, we are healed. All of these being things we see when we look into the mirror of God’s Word.
 
So, let me quickly review what we’ve learned thus far: We have seen in this series where Paul said as we behold the truths of this New and Better Covenant, that we are changed into the same image from glory to glory (Second Corinthians 3:18). That means that just as Moses was physically affected when He beheld God on Mount Sinai when He gave the law to Him, we too will be affected by the glory of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we have learned that it’s going to take us climbing this mount and spending time in the presence of God like Moses did, letting Him speak these truths to our hearts and revealing to us who this mirror says that we are! Hallelujah!
 
So, you and I have learned that when we climb that mountain and get into the presence of God, He will reveal to us that:
 
1.I Am Loved
2.I Am His New Creation
3.I Am Chosen
4.I Am Holy
5.I Am Righteous
6.I Am Free
7.I Am Healed
 
So, let’s move on to something else that this mirror shows us that we are:
 
Now you have likely heard me say that you are anointed before in one of my messages, in one of the blessings that we say on Sunday’s, or just in casual conversation, but it is true—In Christ Jesus, you and I really are anointed! Just as much as we are righteous, chosen, loved, free, healed, etc. in Christ Jesus, you and I are anointed.
 
So, let’s look at some verses that verify this, shall we?
 
WHO IS THE ANOINTING?
 
Now there are some squirrely ideas in the Body of Christ regarding the anointing. A common misconception is that some are anointed, and some are not. There are those who preach, prophesy, or are used to work miracles, and then there is you. They are anointed and you are not. But that is simply not true! And while it is true in regard to whether one has received the Holy Spirit or not, it is not true that some Spirit-filled people are anointed and some are not. The truth is that everyone who has had the Holy Spirit poured out on them is anointed.  
 
Let me take you to a couple of Scriptures that verifies this:
 
In First John 2:20, we are told we have an anointing from the Holy One. It doesn’t say that we hope to be anointed or we will be anointed by Him someday. No, it says that we all—every born-again, Spirit-baptized believer—have an anointing from the Holy One Himself (i.e. Jesus)! And in the context of First John chapter 2, the Holy Spirit is obviously the anointing being spoken of (See verse 27).
 
Now do you remember when Jesus said in Luke 4:18, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to…” This means that Jesus was anointed for service unto His Father. Therefore, since we have been anointed with the same anointing that He was anointed with, then the same Spirit that He had, we have! Amen!
 
But notice here that we see the equivalent to being anointed is having the Spirit of the Lord upon us. Again, this quote from Isaiah 61:1 is saying that because He has anointed His Messiah, the Holy Spirit is upon Him. In other words, being anointed is having the Holy Spirit poured on us like the anointing oil was poured on the kings & priests. Thus, the reason we can see the Holy Spirit being what the anointing oil represents.
 
Also, do you remember when we studied the 23rd Psalm and saw how David said that “He anoints my head with oil” (See Psalm 23:5)? Well, when we looked at that, we saw that the good life that God wills for all of His children to live is the anointed life. In other words, like David, we all can declare that He anoints our heads with oil.
 
So, the anointing is not just some special thing bestowed upon certain individuals. No, the anointing is the person, presence, and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. That is why the Bible says that we who have received the Holy Spirit from the Holy One Himself are anointed.
 
So, the appropriate question then is not “What is the anointing?” The correct question is— “Who is the anointing?” because the anointing is not a thing, it is a Person, namely, the Third Person of the Godhead.
 
You see, the Holy Spirit is the “Anointing” whom God has poured out on us in such richness and extravagance! He is Who has filled these cups up and Who flows out of our bellies like rivers of living water!
 
ANOINTED FOR WHAT?
 
Now when one studies this idea of the “anointing” in the Old Testament, they can find some very interesting things:
 
In the Old Testament, we see various people and things being “anointed” with oil: Originally, it was used exclusively for the anointing of the priesthood as well as the articles of the Tabernacle (Exodus 30:26) and subsequently, the Temple in Jerusalem. However, it was used later to include the anointing of kings for their role (First Samuel 10:1). So, according to the Scriptures, the oil was used to anoint the kings, priests, and the articles of the Tabernacle.
 
But why was this done? Well, let’s begin answering this question by looking at what the Bible says was the purpose of the oil. In Leviticus 8:30, the anointing oil is referred to as having sanctifying power. In this verse, it is described how Moses was instructed to “anoint” the priesthood: “Then Moses took some of the anointing oil and some of the blood which was on the altar, and sprinkled it on Aaron, on his garments, on his sons, and on the garments of his sons with him; and he consecrated Aaron, his garments, his sons, and the garments of his sons with him.” The word “consecrated” here literally means to dedicate, to set apart, and make holy. In other words, it essentially means to sanctify something or someone for some special purpose (Sounds a lot like we saw in this series about holiness, doesn’t it?). And in Exodus 29:7, we are told specifically how the oil was applied to Aaron and his sons. It says, “And you shall take the anointing oil, pour it on his head, and anoint him.”
 
So now we get some answers as to both how and why people were anointed with oil. It was to set them apart and consecrate them for their calling and purpose. And when it came to the Kings and High Priest, this occurred by pouring the oil on their heads—all of this being significant to the church today—because if we all have been anointed, then this is why—so we can be consecrated as His royal priesthood! 
 
Did you know that we too have been made Kings and Priests unto our God? Revelations 1:6 says that Jesus has made us Kings and Priests to His God and Father! So, guess what that means? If we have been made kings and priests, then God must have anointed us too, right? Amen! Therefore, we are the ones anointed to be kings and priests in this new and better covenant (see First Peter 2:9)! Praise God, He has anointed us to be His heirs and His ministers!
 
Also, did you know that we are now the Temple and Tabernacle of God? For He does not dwell in temples made with hands, but now dwells in the temple of our bodies (see Acts 7:48 & 17:24). So again, if we are the Temple of God today, then we must be anointed by God! Therefore, we are anointed to be indwelt by Him. Glory!
 
But let’s look in more detail at this thing we just saw in the mirror—the truth that we are now God’s anointed kings and priests. There is a difference in both of these terms that illustrate to us what we are anointed for. We are “anointed” to be His children (those born [again] to be His kings) and we are “anointed” to serve Him (i.e. priests).
 
GOD’S PRIESTHOOD TODAY
 
Let’s first look at the fact that we are God’s anointed priesthood today:
 
You see, the Levitical priesthood were called to be the Lord’s ministers—those who served God for Israel. Therefore, I see this as symbolically showing us one of the purposes of the anointing—to minister on God’s behalf to the people.
 
More specifically, all throughout the Scriptures when we see someone being anointed with oil that is symbolic of the Holy Spirit being poured out on them to set free and deliver one from a particular bondage.
 
We see it used in the latter way in James 5:14-15 where the anointing with oil is seen as a method to bring healing and deliverance to the afflicted. This, of course, is not saying that there is inherent power in the oil itself to heal someone; rather, it is using oil as a contact point between the minister and the one receiving ministry. And since “oil” is symbolic of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the anointing of the sick with oil is a symbol showing how it is the power of the Holy Spirit to set the captive free.
 
Now here is an interesting point: Regarding the New Testament usage of the word “anointed,” it comes from the Greek word chrio. This word was a medical term describing a physician pouring oil on his hands and then rubbing it into the body of the patient until the oil was transferred from the doctor’s hands deep into the skin of the patient. So, the word chrio has to do with “the hands” of the doctor as well as the oil itself. It describes God as being the Great Physician Who has the Holy Spirit as a type of oil on His hands, and once He has the Holy Spirit on His hands, He can’t wait to get His hands on the believer. Once He does, He begins to rub and rub until the believer is totally saturated (i.e. baptized) with the Holy Spirit.
 
Therefore, to be anointed with the Holy Ghost means to be totally saturated with the Holy Ghost. So, saying someone is “anointed” is another way of saying “God’s got His hand on them.” Amen! In fact, we see this phrase “the hand of the Lord” being upon someone used several times in the Old Testament, and it was accompanied with that person doing something supernatural.
 
Church, the hand of God is upon us! We are anointed—because of the baptism of the Holy Spirit! So, guess what our responsibility is…??? It is to put our anointed hands on people: Notice that the very last sign that Jesus said would follow those who believe in Mark 16:18 is: “and they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
 
Church, ministering God’s healing power to the sick is part of what we have been delegated the authority to do in Jesus’ name. It is a sign that is supposed to follow those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ! And the truth is—if we have been called to do it, then we have been anointed to do it!
 
Now we know that the laying on of hands is considered one of the elementary, foundational principles of Christianity (see Hebrews 6:1-2)—which obviously includes more than just administering healing to the sick but also setting someone apart for ministry work among other things. But what is it about the laying on of hands that passes healing on to others? It is simple: it is the transference of the Holy Spirit who is upon us onto them. Amen! 
 
But, saints, this is the lesson I want you to walk away with today: If we have been anointed to minister God’s healing through the laying on of hands, then healing is in our hands to give! Now I am making both a literal statement and a metaphorical statement—for while there is a literal transference of the healing power of God through our physical hands, we can see that healing is in our possession (i.e. hands) to give to the sick and infirmed. Amen!
 
We are all God’s priest’s today—not your pastor, not the evangelist, not the prophet. Every one of us who have received the Holy Spirit have been anointed to serve the Lord by doing exactly what we see in Luke 4:18-19 when Jesus proclaimed— “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”
 
Yes, although this passage of Scripture is an obvious reference to Jesus Christ and prophesied of the Anointed One’s ministry, we know that the same Spirit that was upon Him is now upon us. On top of that, First John 4:17 says that “…as He is, so are we in this world”—meaning, we already are positionally representing Him now in this life and are called to practically represent Him in our works and conduct. That echoes John 14:12 which affirmatively declares that we are called to do the same works He did and even greater works!
 
BORN AGAIN TO BE KINGS
 
But the anointing is not just what we have to demonstrate God’s power and serve Him with; it is what shows our worth and value to God. I see this as the part of us being anointed to be kings.
 
If you recall in Psalm 23:5, David said, “He anoints my head with oil.” Now the context of this phrase in Psalm 23:5-6 is of a gracious host honoring his or her guests, and the original Hebrew language paints this same picture in this phrase.
 
You see, this word “anoints” is not the common word used for the anointing of a king or a priest. It is for this reason that the Hebrew word David used here is only translated “anoints” this one time in the original King James version. And the reason why it is not translated this way any other time is because this word literally describes “to make fat, to thrive or to prosper.”
 
It is used this way four times in the Book of Proverbs:                           
 
1.     Proverbs 11:25 - “The generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will also be watered himself.”
2.     Proverbs 13:4 - “The soul of a lazy man desires and has nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.”
3.     Proverbs 15:30 - “The light of the eyes rejoices the heart, and a good report makes the bones healthy.”
4.     Proverbs 28:25 - “He who is of a proud heart stirs up strife, but he who trusts in the Lord will be prospered.”
 
Therefore, based on this choice of words of David, we can clearly see that this describes an anointing all right, but not an anointing for regal or priestly duties. Rather, he was referring to the anointing of a guest at some prestigious banquet with oils and perfumes as a way of honoring them. Yes, the allusion is to the custom of anointing the head on festive occasions, as an indication of prosperity and honor. Therefore, as a whole, it is indicative of the divine favor, of prosperity, and of joy.
 
So, this oil that our most gracious and honorable Host (the Lord of Hosts, that is) anoints our head with is poured out in such a “full, thriving and prosperous” manner. In other words, He pours oil on our head so abundantly--thus the expression indicates an abundance of oil.
But this is what the regal, wealthy, and prestigious enjoy, and since we are the kings that the King of kings is King of, then we are to enjoy this blessed, good life.
 
Now as I was studying this verse in Psalms before, I was drawn to our one, very solid biblical example of how this occurs, and it is found in the Gospels: It reminds me of Mary’s anointing Jesus found in Matthew 26, Mark 14, & John 12. For the sake of time, I would like for us to focus in on Mark’s account of this event.
 
In Mark 14:3-9, we are told that this event transpired when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper. Now Mark just described her as a “woman,” but we know from John’s Gospel that this was Mary, the sister of Martha & Lazarus (see John 12:2-3).
 
Now in verse 3, we are told that Mary came with an “alabaster flask” (some translations call it a “box”). In short, “alabaster” was a stone commonly found in Israel. It was a hard stone resembling white marble So, the container Mary used to carry the perfumed oil was made of a white, marble-like substance. Ointment, oils and perfumes used to be put in vessels made of alabaster, which kept them pure and unspoiled. The boxes were often sealed with wax, to prevent the perfume from escaping. And we are told in John 12:3 that when Mary broke open her alabaster box, “the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” Alabaster was a strong enough substance to keep the oil or perfume completely contained until the time of its use.
 
Mark goes on to describe this alabaster flask as containing “a very costly oil of spikenard.” Now "spikenard" was a plant that only grew in the Himalaya mountains of India and Nepal. Therefore, Mary's fragrant oil of spikenard was a rare, imported product in Israel.
 
Now, how expensive was this spikenard contained in the alabaster flask? Well, we don’t have to speculate because in John 12:5, Judas evaluated that it could have been sold for “three hundred denarii." Now, in their day, one denarius was the wage for one day's labor. So, if Judas' estimate of the value of Mary's spikenard is correct, then it would have been worth close to someone's annual salary, equivalent to several tens of thousands of dollars today.
 
Other sources tell us that “spikenard’s” great cost stemmed from the fact that it had to be transported over 6,000 miles to reach Palestine, and depending on quality, it sold for as much as 400 denarii per pound (or $750 an ounce in modern purchasing equivalent). That made this that Mary used to anoint Jesus’ body even more valuable than gold!
 
In fact, this ointment was worth at least 2½ times more than the 30 pieces of silver that Judas received for betraying the Lord, which is obviously why Judas got so upset about it (see Mark 14:4-5 & Compare John 12:5). So, an interesting note regarding this is: this perfume was worth 2½ times what Judas thought Jesus was worth.
 
Judas’ negative reaction to this act of pure honor and worship is typical of many people’s reaction toward worship today. Judas and some of the other disciples evidently thought this was a waste, but that was only because they didn’t value Jesus as highly as Mary did. Selah.
 
You see, something’s value is only determined by what others are willing to pay for it. So, even though Judas and some of other disciples thought this was a waste does not mean that the Lord did. Mary obviously thought blessing and honoring Jesus was worth more than a year’s worth of wages and more than silver and gold. Amen!  But I believe this reveals to us how much we are worth to Him as well!
 
Church, we are children of God! Therefore, we are anointed to be kings and rule in His stead! This is what the Holy Spirit living within us reflects to us! Glory!
 
SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED, I’M YOURS!
 
So, if the Holy Spirit is the anointing, then when we look in this mirror, we can see that we have the Holy Spirit and are anointed of God! And the good news gets even gooder—because if we have the Holy Spirit then we’ve got some other exceedingly great and precious promises!
 
Let’s turn over to Ephesians chapter one where we have been seeing many wonderful “In Christ” realities in the mirror of God’s Word:
 
As I’ve mentioned earlier in this series, Ephesians 1:3-14 is essentially one sentence in the original Greek language. And these verses contain many “In Him” realities that reveal to us our spiritual identity. Well, in the last couple of verses of this (what I like to call) “love sentence” Paul gives us some powerful truths.
 
Ephesians 1:13-14 say this— “In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.”
 
Here we see some specific things that the apostle Paul said happened when we received the Holy Spirit in our lives. Let’s look at them:
 
First of all, notice how in verse 14, Paul calls the Holy Spirit our “guarantee of our inheritance.” If you are using the older King James version, you will see how the word “earnest” is used. Now when we talk about the Holy Spirit being our “earnest,” we are not talking about Ernest from TV & the movies. You know what I mean, Vern? No, this word “earnest” is not a name but is where we get the term “earnest money” from. It describes a “deposit or down payment that is a pledge of giving more.” Thus the reason, we see it translated by the New King James translators as “guarantee.” 
 
We see this same word used in Second Corinthians 5:1-5: Now in Second Corinthians 5:1-4, the apostle Paul describes our present life in these physical bodies versus the eternal life that we will have in our resurrected bodies. He uses the examples of dwelling in a tent versus dwelling in a home, as well as being naked versus being clothed. So, understanding that, when Paul says what he does in verse 5— “Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.”—we can see that it is God who has made all things ready for us to be both fully clothed with our glorified bodies and to have our permanent residence of resurrected bodies on that Great and Glorious Day. And what He did in the meantime was give us the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of what lies ahead. 
 
Ephesians 1:14 says something similar: In it, Paul describes the Holy Spirit as “the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession…” Again, this is obviously talking about our inheritance of receiving the glorification of our physical bodies which were bought with a price.  
 
Therefore, when the Holy Spirit is described as being our “guarantee,” Paul is saying in both of these passages that He is our “down payment or deposit.” Therefore, we can clearly see that He is God’s pledge that more of the same is on the way. This would be similar to how when a buyer of a house pays the deposit, it is understood that he intends to pay the balance. Therefore, the Holy Spirit gives us a little foretaste and a guarantee of the good things to come—that is, when we experience the fullness of our salvation and are glorified. In other words, the Holy Spirit gives us a little heaven on earth—a little taste of the glory; a sample of the resurrection power that is to come! Hallelujah!
 
Therefore, when we experience Him in fullness, we can get a little intoxicated, a little free, and a little happy. Those experiences are just God’s pledge of the ecstasy that awaits us in heaven. Amen? So, just imagine the most you have experienced God’s glorious presence in this life. Well, that was just a small “deposit” of what we are going to experience in the kingdom of God. This is why it is called (a future) redemption: the inheritance is already ours but still needs to be “redeemed,” like a check you have already received, but is only redeemed when it is presented to the bank.
 
But He not only is our guarantee of the bliss of heaven, but He is also our promise of the marriage between Jesus and His Bride. In fact, the Greek word that is translated “earnest” can also be used to describe “an engagement ring.” Now what is an engagement ring? It is the pledge of the man to not only marry the woman, but to give her his life and share with her all that he possesses. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is the engagement ring that the Bride of Christ has now until the marriage takes place at Jesus’ Second Coming when we will become joint-heirs of everything our Husband owns! Glory and praise to God!
 
Now speaking of rings, another description of the Holy Spirit is given to us by Paul in Ephesians 1:13:  Alongside of the term “Earnest” is the word “Seal.” Again, Paul says that having believed, you and I were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
 
We see this same term used in Second Corinthians 1:22 and Ephesians 4:30 that when we believed the gospel of our salvation, we were “sealed” with the Holy Spirit. And notice that in all three of these passages of Scripture, this “sealing” of the Holy Spirit is spoken of as having already taken place. This is important as it pertains to what this term means.
 
So, what does this mean to be “sealed”? In their days, a “seal” was made by the signet ring of a king or any kind of authority figure when they had important documents or contracts. After wax was poured on the crest of the rolled-up paper, the authority would stamp the spot of wax with his signet ring to “seal” it and to leave his symbol on it.
 
Therefore, this “sealing” describes four important things:

1. Identification— Generally, the signet ring had on it the image or symbol of the owner. Likewise, when God impressed the Holy Spirit into our spirits, He impressed the image of Jesus into our spirits. Just as Jesus was spoken of to be the “express image” of His Father’s person (see Hebrews 1:3) and said Himself that His Father had set His seal upon Him (see John 6:27), likewise, the Holy Spirit has set His seal on us! Therefore, when God looks at our spirit, He sees the exact image of His Son. Yes, we are the brightness of Jesus’ glory and the express image of His person! Amen. So, number one, by being sealed by the Holy Spirit, we have our identification by this mark.
2. Ownership— Oftentimes in their days, all of a person’s significant possessions were marked with the impression of a seal. The owner marked even slaves and livestock. Likewise, God has sealed us, not with a physical mark, but with the Holy Spirit, who bears witness with our spirit that we are God’s children (Romans 8:16). We see this echoed in Second Timothy 2:19 when the apostle Paul said, “Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are His,’ and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.’” So, when God sets His seal on us, it states, “God knows His possessions” and now “let His possessions act like they are His.” So, secondly, being sealed by the Holy Spirit marks us as God’s property. 
3. Security— In their day, a seal also represented “a finished transaction” (see Jeremiah 32:6-15). You see, when a seal was placed on a contract or decree it was binding (Compare Esther 8:8, Daniel 6:17, & Matthew 27:66). Therefore, we can have security in the fact that we know that we have been redeemed through both the wisdom and absolute justice of God. This means that we have eternal security where no devil in hell can pluck us out of God’s unchanging hand (John 10:28). Amen. So, thirdly, our being sealed by the Holy Spirit shows us that our salvation is secure.
4. Completion— But a seal was not just the signature on a contract; in those days, it was also the mark that a product was fully inspected and approved. You see, a product was placed in a package but before it was sealed, it was thoroughly inspected to make sure there were no defects. After the product passed through the entire inspection process and was found to have “nothing missing and nothing broken,” it was sealed and delivered. Likewise, when we were born again, we (our spirits) were made complete in Christ (see Colossians 2:10) with nothing missing and nothing broken (definition of Hebrew word shalom), and then God sealed us with His Holy Spirit to validate His approval. Yes, we have passed the thorough inspection process of the Almighty (see Colossians 1:21-22). So, we can sing the old Stevie Wonder song to God— “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours!” Therefore, the fourth and final thing that our sealing by the Holy Spirit illustrates is that our salvation, redemption, righteousness, etc. is complete. It’s a done deal!

 
Therefore, the “seal” represents our identity and security, and it also teaches us of God’s ownership and promises. This is why our hope will not disappoint—because God has poured out the Holy Spirit in our lives, thereby confirming His love for us (Romans 5:5). His Spirit’s witness in us not only lets us know we are God’s children (see Romans 8:15-16), it also gives us little tastes of our eternal inheritance—that is, the redemption of our bodies (see Ephesians 1:13-14). Glory!
 
So, the Holy Spirit certainly is the mark of God’s grace in our lives—for He shows us that God has set His seal on us as He did with His Beloved Son, Jesus. He is our foretaste of God’s goodness that is to come as well. Praise God, that we have been baptized in the fire of the Holy Ghost and He is here to make these golden lampstands burn bright for God’s glory! Amen.
 
So, in conclusion, we have already been anointed—anointed to be His kings and priests. This means that we are anointed to reign as the King’s kids and we are anointed to serve the King as His ministers. In other words, we are set apart to be who we are and do what we do. And this anointing of the Holy Spirit shows our value and worth and declares the hope of glory we have before us! Amen and amen!

 REVIEW
 
This week, we are continuing our look at our spiritual identity through a series I’ve entitled “In the Mirror.” Due to the unique aspects of our recordings this week, I am teaching the following message which was aired exclusively for our online audience. So, today’s message will be entitled “I Am Healed.”
 
You see, we have been looking at various things that our spiritual mirror says that we are: We have seen that we are loved, we are His workmanship, we are chosen, we are holy, we are righteous, and most recently, we are free. All of these being things we see when we look into the mirror of God’s Word. But today, I want us to see that when we look into this spiritual mirror, we also see that we are HEALED.
 
So, let me quickly review what we’ve learned thus far: We have seen in this series where Paul said as we behold the truths of this New and Better Covenant, that we are changed into the same image from glory to glory (Second Corinthians 3:18). That means that just as Moses was physically affected when He beheld God on Mount Sinai when He gave the law to Him, we too will be affected by the glory of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we learned last week that it’s going to take us climbing this mount and spending time in the presence of God like Moses did, letting Him speak these truths to our hearts and revealing to us who this mirror says that we are! Hallelujah!
 
So, you and I have learned that when we climb that mountain and get into the presence of God, He will reveal to us that:
 
1.I Am Loved – This is the filter everything is to be viewed through – the filter of God’s love for us. I also made the point that since we are referred to as the Lord’s “Beloved” many times throughout the New Testament, then that means that not only are we loved by Him, but we “Be-Loved” by Him.
2.I Am His New Creation – Not only can we see that we are loved by God when we look in this mirror, but we can see that we are God’s own work of art, His masterpiece, and His new creation! This means that we are absolutely special, having His treasure placed in these earthen vessels!
3.I Am Chosen – This led us to another part of our spiritual identity—that we are chosen. We learned that in Christ Jesus we have actually been chosen, selected, and predestined. And one of our biggest takeaways is what we were chosen & predestined unto—and Paul says that is to be adopted.  
4.I Am Holy – A couple of weeks ago, we delved into the truth that we are also “holy.” And we learned that being holy does not just describe some state of perfection; it can actually mean that we are special, precious and different to God. We saw one of the predominant ways that God sees us by looking at how He refers to us—and we saw that over 50 times in the Epistles of the New Testament, we are called “saints.” Now we learned that “saints” describes “holy ones,” and is the same word used to describe things like the “Holy” Scriptures, the “Holy” Spirit, and the “Holy One,” Jesus Christ Himself. We also made the point that there is a difference between our “who” and our “do.” Yes, we need to be holy in all our conduct! Yes, we ought to live holy lifestyles! But what we need to avoid is basing our holiness on our actions. We are not holy because of what we do; we are holy because of what Christ has done.
5.I Am Righteous – Then the week before last, we discovered that in Christ not only are we holy; we are also righteous. We looked at several verses in the New Testament and saw that while righteousness is certainly not anything that we can acquire on our own—for there is none righteous, no not one, and all of our righteousness is as filthy rags—there is a righteousness that we can be made strictly by the grace of God. So, we looked over at Romans chapter 3 and saw how the apostle Paul beautifully explained this, and we also saw from Second Corinthians 5:21 how God accomplished this in our lives.
6.I Am Free – And last week, we learned that Jesus Christ became for us not only righteousness, and holiness, but also redemption. And we learned that redemption described the payment of a price to purchase someone from slavery or the ransom paid to set free a slave who is in bondage. We also saw that other words that are used to describe “redemption” are “to buy back, to purchase, and to release.” So, when we combine together the various little & subtle words for “redemption,” the word-picture we get is of a slave—a slave in satan’s marketplace to where they are in his possession and under his dominion. But we also learned what the price is that was necessary to secure our redemption—the blood of Jesus. No, it was not the traditional form of currency, silver or gold, that purchased our freedom; it was the precious blood of the Lamb. So then we looked at our redemptive story from Colossians 1:12-14 and saw the full picture of our redemptive story—how we have been delivered and sent away with a complete releasing from bondage to debt (i.e. forgiveness). We looked at the similarities between the word “forgiveness” and the Year of Jubilee because to be forgiven—sent away and dismissed—was not something we had to pay for! Our debt was totally cancelled and nothing else is left to be paid! Praise God, Jesus is our Jubilee—therefore, we are free indeed! So, we looked at a few New Testament verses that teach us about our freedom and learned that we have to stand fast in it (Galatians 5:1)—meaning, we will have to fight to live in it. We also learned from John 8:30-36 that whom the Son of God sets free is really free. But we learned that Jesus was saying that the key to walking in this freedom is walking in the Word—that is, abiding and continuing in the truth of His Word. This is how we will experience true freedom and liberty. Amen and amen! 
 
So now, as promised, I want us to move into something else that we look like in Christ: In Christ, we really are healed! So, let’s begin by looking at Isaiah chapter 53.
 
WHO SEES WHAT IS REVEALED IN THE MIRROR?
 
You know, the Book of Isaiah is a unique Book of the Bible. It contains probably more Scriptures about Christ Jesus than any other Old Testament Book. In fact, some have deemed Isaiah as the Fifth Gospel. So, I believe we have a lot of awesome truths reflected in this Prophetic Book that forecasts who we are and what we have in Christ. And chapter 53 is certainly one of the chapters that reflect this best.
 
Isaiah 53:1 begins by saying, “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Notice these opening questions asked by Isaiah— “Who has believed our report?” and “to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
 
The “report” that he is referring to is the “news or tidings” (Literal Hebrew for the word “report”) of this new and better covenant. Therefore, this report is the gospel—the good news of our salvation.
 
So, the question is—who has believed the good news? And did you know that this is the big question—for this great salvation is only available to those who put faith in it. So, based on what we have been studying on these Sunday mornings, I would word this question this way: “Who has believed what they see when they look in this mirror?” 
 
You see, it is all about us believing by faith what God has said is done and what has been made available. Faith in His grace is how everything works in the kingdom of God. So, as Jesus was well-known for saying, “The kingdom of God is like”—it is like this, by grace through faith. Amen.
 
So, in order for these awesome truths contained in the gospel to be appropriated to our lives, we need to believe them—faith which comes by hearing and hearing (Romans 10:17). Amen.
 
But it is not just about hearing and believing it; it is important that we have it revealed to us as well. That is why the second half of Isaiah 53:1 goes on to say, “And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
 
You see, one of the most important aspects of believing the gospel we hear is having it revealed to us. If you recall, I said a week or two ago that Peter had to have it revealed to him by God that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. That’s what Jesus said—that flesh and blood did not reveal this to Him, but His Father who is in heaven. So, I made the point that not only do we need to have revealed to us who Jesus is like this, but we also need to ask ourselves the following question—Who do we say that we are? And the truth is that “we are in Christ and we are sons of the living God!” But again, flesh and blood cannot reveal this to us! We need to get revelation of these truths by God! Amen?
 
And again, the way that we get revelation from heaven is by spending time in the presence of God, meditating on His Word day and night, and opening ourselves up to receiving this revelation from the Father—for the Lord promised us that when we search for these things with all our heart, we will find them. Amen.
 
But I want you to notice that Isaiah mentions something specific being revealed to us—the arm of the Lord. What is the arm of the Lord?
 
Well, when you study the Scriptures, you will find that the Lord repeatedly uses the description of His outstretched and mighty arm to show how He wrought salvation for His people. Here are some examples: Exodus 6:6, Deuteronomy 4:34, 7:19, Psalm 98:1, etc.
 
You see, God’s Word reveals to us the various times when God has used His power: The main references are to the creation of the universe around us.  Psalm 8:3 tells us that when God created the stars and the whole universe that He only used His “fingers.” That’s a wonderful testimony to how strong and mighty God is if it only took the strength of His fingers to create the sun, moon, stars, etc. An even greater testimony describing how much He cares for us is found in Psalm 102:25 where the Word tells us that He used His “hands” to create the earth and the atmosphere around it. How does this show how much He cares for us? It is because when creating the place that we were going to live, He used more of His strength and effort to make sure that it was “good” and suitable for His creation. In the first chapter of Genesis we are told little about the creation of the universe, but we learn much about the making of the earth because He spent six days on the earth. And He took more time with the earth than He did with the heavens because earth was going to be the home of those that He would create in His own image and likeness. Up to this point we’ve learned the greatest amount of power God has ever used is the strength of His hands to create the earth for mankind, but the “exceeding greatness” of His power that He used, according to Ephesians 1:19, was the power that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.
 
And as we are seeing here in the great redemptive chapter of Isaiah that describes what Jesus accomplished through His death, burial and resurrection, it was the arm of the Lord that wrought so great a salvation for us! Therefore, the exceeding greatness of God’s power used when raising Christ from the dead was His “arm!” Which again was a far greater power than the power it took to create a planet! Glory!
 
Needless to say, we need to have this awesome power revealed to us—for it is far greater than the natural mind can comprehend!
 
REGARD NOT THE FLESH
 
Then, in verses 2-3, the Prophet Isaiah begins to describe the Messiah by saying, “For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.”
 
First of all, in verse 2, when we are told that Jesus would grow up before His Father like a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground, what is being described here is how Jesus would come from a relatively obscure background—out of Nazareth—and how He would even have to grow up like a man does.
 
Then in the rest of the second verse, we see how Jesus would not come with any “stately form” or “splendor” (i.e. form or comeliness) and that there would be nothing special about Him according to the flesh. What this means is that Jesus would not necessarily give any evidence on the outside of who He was on the inside.
 
And, boy, isn’t that applicable to what we are learning here today—who we are in the natural certainly does not reflect to us who we are in the spirit! That is why the apostle Paul told us what He did in Second Corinthians 5:16 when he said that we are not to regard anyone according to the flesh. Church, who we are physically is not at all a clear reflection as to who we are on the inside.
 
Therefore, what verse 3 goes on to say is to be expected in us: Just as He was despised and rejected by men mainly due to the fact that He did not look the part, we need to avoid disesteeming and rejecting who God has made us because we are only being carnally minded.
 
Then in verse 3, Isaiah describes Jesus in the following way—"a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Now as we will see when we get to verse 4, these words “sorrows” and “grief” mean more than just what they mean to us in the English language. These Hebrew words literally describe “sicknesses” and “pains.” Now this does not mean that Jesus lived a life of sickness and physical pain. No, this is referring more to Him bearing and carrying our sicknesses and pains as can be seen in verse 4.
 
But as He hung on that Cross—afflicted with our sin, sicknesses, etc.—mankind was said to have hid our faces from Him (i.e. to turn away in disgust and horror) all because we did not see the value He held.
 
THE SCAPEGOAT
 
But now I want us to move on to verses 4-5—because here we begin to see a beautiful description of what Jesus Christ did for us on the Cross! It is awesome!
 
Isaiah 53:4-5 says, “Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.”
 
First of all, notice how these verses begin with the word “Surely.” This is a word that we see several times in the Word of God. Let’s look at few of them …
 
Psalm 23:6 says, “Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life…” Psalms 85:9 says, “Surely, His salvation is near to those who fear Him…” In Psalm 91:3, it says, “Surely, He shall deliver you…” Psalms 112:6 says, “Surely he (the righteous) will never be shaken…”
 
Now some synonyms for the word “Surely” are as follows: “assuredly, certainly, definitely; doubtless, easily, hands down; inarguably, indisputably; undeniably, undoubtedly, unquestionably, unarguably; clearly, plainly, really, truly.” Therefore, when we see the word “Surely” attached to a statement in God’s Word, this means we can take it to the bank! It is a done deal!
 
But do you know why we, under this new and better covenant, can particularly be so confident? It is because He already has delivered us! He already has healed us! He already has blessed us! Yes, He already has poured out His goodness and mercy on us through Christ Jesus! So, as far as God’s concerned, it has already been done! Amen! SURELY, God’s grace is in our account!
 
Well, here in Isaiah 53:4, we are told that “Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…” So, guess what we can take the bank? That Jesus clearly, really, and surely took care of our griefs and sorrows.


Now as I alluded to earlier, in the Hebrew language, these words “griefs” and “sorrows” literally describe “sicknesses” and “pains.” In fact, in the original King James version, the word for “griefs” is translated “grief(s)” just 4 times, but it is translated “sickness or disease” 19 times. The word “sorrows,” yes, describes mental pain, but it also describes physical pain. So, it is clear that these griefs that Jesus bore and these sorrows that He carried are not just our emotional sadness and sorrows; these are our actual sicknesses and pains! Glory to God!
 
Now Christians love to water this down by saying that this is referring to our spiritual sicknesses and pains. But if you look at Matthew chapter 8, you will see how this exact verse from Isaiah is quoted by Matthew to refer to physical sicknesses and pains. Let’s look at it …
 
In Matthew 8:16-17, we are told— “When evening had come, they brought to Him (Jesus) many who were demon possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, ‘He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.’”
 
So here we see the healing of all who were sick on that day as a fulfillment of Isaiah 53:4. But someone will say, “See! This just means that who Jesus healed on this particular day of His ministry fulfilled those Scriptures in Isaiah 53.” No, no, no! For Isaiah chapter 53:4-5 lump the wounding and bruising for our transgressions and iniquities together with the bearing of our sicknesses, diseases and infirmities. Amen! And if we are going to take the “our” personally when Isaiah 53:5 says that He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities (I doubt any of those unbelieving believers include themselves in that group of “our”) then we also have to take the “our” personally when he says that He has borne our sicknesses and carried our pains. We cannot just pick and choose which parts of the Word we are going to believe and we are not going to believe.
 
So, yes, Jesus’ going about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil (Acts 10:38) was certainly a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, but it was ultimately fulfilled for you and I who were not there when He physically walked on the earth by Him taking and bearing all of our sicknesses, pains and infirmities on His body at the Cross. In fact, the word “fulfilled” is oftentimes referring to “the action that extends throughout the whole church age” (The Spirit Filled Life Bible). Therefore, now we can live in a perpetual fulfillment of Isaiah 53:4! Amen!    
 
But my point in us looking at this passage of Scripture in Matthew 8:17 is to see that when Matthew quotes from Isaiah 53:4, he is specifically referring to the sick that Jesus healed thus verifying that the things that Jesus bore and carried were, in fact, our physical sicknesses and pains! But more specifically, it was Jesus’ healing of them all that fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy—proving to us that He has provided healing in the atonement for all and for us all! Glory to God!
 
Therefore, these sicknesses and pains referred to in Isaiah 53:4 are absolutely referring to our physical sicknesses and pains! Praise, God! And what we see is that they were actually “borne” and “carried” by Him on the Cross. 
 
These verbs “borne” and “carried” describe a literal taking and carrying of these things upon Himself. For example, the word “borne” described a load of sticks being laid on a horse’s back. So, we are talking about Jesus actually becoming our beast of burden and, like the scapegoat, carrying on His back certain things. And in this case, He literally did bear on His back the stripes needed to provide my healing! Glory to Jesus, He physically took my sicknesses upon His body and carried them out of my life! Hallelujah!  
 
Then in the second half of Isaiah 53:4 we are told— “Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.” What this is basically saying is that people would view this suffering of the Christ as Him being punished, smitten and afflicted by God for something He did wrong. But no, as Isaiah 53:5 goes on to say, “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities…”
 
So, no, He was not being punished for His own sins and sicknesses; He was actually taking our sins and sicknesses upon Himself so that we could live healed and whole lives—both spiritually and physically.
 
But I want you to notice how the Lord coupled together the spiritual with the physical: In one breath, Isaiah prophesies that the Messiah would bare our sicknesses and pains, and in another, he said how He would provide for our iniquities and transgressions. Time and time again, the Lord puts our spiritual provision together with our physical provision. We see this in Psalm 103:3 which talks about two of the benefits of our salvation as the Lord forgiving all our iniquities and healing all our diseases.
 
Now notice what Isaiah says next in verse 5— “the chastisement for our peace was upon Him…”
 
By referring to our peace here, we see that Jesus was chastised not only for our spiritual and physical well-being, but for every area of our life. The word “peace” describes nothing missing and nothing broken. Therefore, Jesus made provision for us so that nothing in our lives would be missing and nothing would be broken. That means that Jesus died so that our entire lives—spiritually, physically, emotionally, and financially—would be blessed and whole!
 
WE ARE AND WERE HEALED
 
And now for that last statement in verse 5— “and by His stripes we are healed.”
 
Now, again, there are those who want to spiritualize this statement, saying that the healing spoken of here is spiritual healing. But I can assure you that we are not “healed” spiritually; we are made alive and new spiritually. In other words, our spiritual condition was not mended, healed, etc. No, we have been made completely new creations in Christ Jesus. So, healing would not be an appropriate term to describe what God did for our spiritual lives. No, this means exactly what it says—by Jesus’ stripes, we are healed (physically)!
 
Now Isaiah, in prophesying of what the Christ would do for us on the Cross, said here that we are healed because of what Jesus would do by bearing our sicknesses and carrying our pains, but we do well to see how the apostle Peter describes this in his first epistle …
 
In First Peter 2:24, Peter the rock says, “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.” Let’s look at this verse and learn what Jesus did for us and our new spiritual identity …
 
Notice how Peter first said, “who Himself.” That indicates that we had nothing to do with it! He did it Himself, Hallelujah! And that is an important point for us to understand—for none of us can do anything to add to the finished work of the Cross. Jesus Himself paid the full price for our salvation to where there is nothing left to pay. Glory!
 
And what He Himself did for us was He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. So, just like we just saw Him bearing our sicknesses in His own body, we see that our sins were placed upon His body as well. And when did Peter say that this occurred? “On the tree.”
 
To some, that might be a little confusing because the Cross that Jesus hung on wasn’t a tree as we know it. However, in the mind of God, the Cross that He hung on was made out the materials of a tree. Therefore, it could correctly be said that Jesus hung “on the tree.”
 
This portion of First Peter 2:24 reminds me of the words of the apostle Paul in Galatians 3:13 when he said, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’)”
 
So, again, who is the Redeemer? Now I know that if you asked this question to a thousand Christians, you would likely get a 100% of them responding with the obvious answer—Jesus Christ. However, if you listen to them over an extended period of time and ask them pointed questions like how do we walk in our forgiveness, righteousness, healing, deliverance, & prosperity, you will get the vast majority of them telling you all the things we must do to receive these blessings. But the truth is—The Lord Jesus Christ is our Redeemer, not me and not you. Therefore, we ought to put the full weight of our faith, hope and trust in the faithful work of our King on the Cross, not in our own works and even not in our own faith. Again, Christ “Himself” bore our sins and sicknesses.
 
And notice again that Paul said here that Jesus Christ has “redeemed” us—not is in the process of redeeming us or will someday redeem us. No, this is something that has already been done! Christ already has redeemed us from the curse of the law! Therefore, it’s a done deal!
 
But notice why Paul says that Jesus’ redemptive work is a done deal: He goes on to say that it is because Christ, “having become a curse for us…” This is how Jesus Christ redeemed us—by becoming the curse in our place. In other words, He bore the penalty and punishment of the law that we deserved, so that we could get the blessing that He deserved. Now that was a good deal, my friends!
 
But the apostle Paul teaches us how Jesus technically became a curse for us by saying, “for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’)” … Now this is a quote from the law found in Deuteronomy 21:22-23 stating that the man who had committed a sin deserving of death was to be hung on a tree. This does not mean that the Jews necessarily put to death malefactors by “hanging,” but after having put them to death some other way, in order to brand them with the particular sin they committed, they hung their body on a tree—which showed that such malefactors were “accursed by God.”
 
But in hindsight, we can see that, in the wisdom of God, He foresaw what would transpire with His Only Begotten (i.e. being crucified) and, therefore, had this written in the law in order to provide the redemption from the curse that He did for us. Oh, the depth of the riches of both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out (Romans 11:33)! He alone is wise!
 
You see, the Bible teaches us that if the rulers of this age would have known this, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (see First Corinthians 2:8). So, the Lord—in His infinite wisdom—made the greatest chess move the world has ever seen! This is why I believe God is able to work all things together for our good (see Romans 8:28). It is because He is just so smart and always stays miles ahead of the devil. He can take something that the devil meant to destroy us with and not only deliver us out of it but also work it together for our good in the process. Therefore, I say that God is the greatest chess player that ever lived! And what makes a good chess player? A good chess player can take the move of their opponent and beat them with their own move! And that is what God has been doing to the devil for 6000+ years! Amen!
 
But notice specifically what Christ has redeemed us from? Paul says that He has redeemed us from “the curse of the law.” So, if this “curse of the law” is something Christ has redeemed us from, don’t you think we need to find out what it is? Well, this “curse of the law” is thoroughly described in Deuteronomy 28:15-68, and I can assure you that it is not a pretty thing. It basically describes the worst possible things that can happen to someone. It summarized everything from poverty, physical sickness, oppression, mental illness, all the way to physical death of themselves and the affliction of their children. The curse of the law was horrible! So, I encourage you to read through these verses on your own time, but what must we remember when reading it? Jesus Christ has redeemed us from all of these things! In other words, if we find it in these verses, we know we have been redeemed from it and, therefore, the price has already been paid for us not to experience any of these curses in our lives. Amen!
 
So, I say all of this to say that this is why the apostle Peter added the words “on the tree.” It was the Holy Spirit reiterating to us that Jesus had to hang on a tree to legally be made the curse for us. And the curse is more than just negative spiritual things; it included every sickness and disease that was not even written in the Book of the law (Deuteronomy 28:61). Praise the Lord!
 
Now in First Peter 2:24, he goes on to say that the entire purpose was so “that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness…” In other words, Jesus identified with our sin & death, so that we might identify with His righteousness & life! Glory! And then Peter adds this one important thing— “by whose stripes you were healed.”
 
Notice that Peter doesn’t quote Isaiah exactly. Isaiah said, “by His stripes we are healed.” But Peter says, “by whose stripes you were healed.” So, Isaiah prophesying ahead of what the Christ would do for us, could say, “you are healed.” But Peter describing what Christ had already done for us could say, “you were healed.” 
 
So, just as I believe that I already have been made righteous, holy, blessed, anointed, etc. because of what Christ did for me, we also believe that we already have been made healed, well and whole by the same redemptive work Christ did for us!
 
So, yes, the Cross was the moment Isaiah was referring to here and it was the point where all of our transgressions and iniquities as well as all of our sicknesses and pains were laid upon Him so that we can walk in our eternal redemption. Therefore, by His stripes we were, are, and evermore shall be healed (First Peter 2:24). Amen! 
 
So, praise God, not only are we holy, righteous, chosen, loved, etc.; we are also healed, blessed, etc. Yes, our spiritual identity has changed, which also changes much of the way our physical life looks! Therefore, we can look in the mirror and truthfully say, “I Am Healed.” It doesn’t matter if we feel sick, if we look weak, or if we seem to be infirmed. If this Mirror says we were healed, then we are healed!

REVIEW
 
So today, we are continuing our look “in the Mirror” where we are beholding, not our identity after the flesh, but our true spiritual identity. That’s right: we are looking in the mirror of God’s Word and seeing what we look like in Christ.  
 
We have seen in this series where Paul said as we behold the truths of this New and Better Covenant, that we are changed into the same image from glory to glory (Second Corinthians 3:18). That means that just as Moses was physically affected when He beheld God on Mount Sinai when He gave the law to Him, we too will be affected by the glory of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. But it’s going to take us climbing this mount and spending time in the presence of God like Moses did, letting Him speak these truths to our hearts and revealing to us who this mirror says that we are! Glory!
 
So, let’s quickly recap what we’ve seen in the mirror thus far. You have learned that:
 
1.I Am Loved – This is the filter everything is to be viewed through – the filter of God’s love for us. I also made the point that since we are referred to as the Lord’s “Beloved” many times throughout the New Testament, then that means that not only are we loved by Him, but we “Be-Loved” by Him.
2.I Am His New Creation – Not only can we see that we are loved by God when we look in this mirror, but we can see that we are God’s own work of art, His masterpiece, and His new creation! This means that we are absolutely special, having His treasure placed in these earthen vessels!
3.I Am Chosen – This led us to another part of our spiritual identity—that we are chosen. We learned that in Christ Jesus we have actually been chosen, selected, and predestined. And one of our biggest takeaways is what we were chosen & predestined unto—and Paul says that is to be adopted.  
4.I Am Holy – A couple of weeks ago, we delved into the truth that we are also “holy.” And we learned that being holy does not just describe some state of perfection; it can actually mean that we are special, precious and different to God. We saw one of the predominant ways that God sees us by looking at how He refers to us—and we saw that over 50 times in the Epistles of the New Testament, we are called “saints.” Now we learned that “saints” describes “holy ones,” and is the same word used to describe things like the “Holy” Scriptures, the “Holy” Spirit, and the “Holy One,” Jesus Christ Himself. We also made the point that there is a difference between our “who” and our “do.” Yes, we need to be holy in all our conduct! Yes, we ought to live holy lifestyles! But what we need to avoid is basing our holiness on our actions. We are not holy because of what we do; we are holy because of what Christ has done.
5.I Am Righteous – Then last week, we discovered that in Christ not only are we holy; we are also righteous. We looked at several verses in the New Testament and saw that while righteousness is certainly not anything that we can acquire on our own—for there is none righteous, no not one, and all of our righteousness is as filthy rags—there is a righteousness that we can be made strictly by the grace of God. So, we looked over at Romans chapter 3 and saw how the apostle Paul beautifully explained this, and we also saw from Second Corinthians 5:21 how God accomplished this in our lives.
 
But one of our biggest takeaways from last week’s message is that in order for us to walk in this new spiritual identity of, for example, true righteousness and holiness, we must strip ourselves of that old identity associated with the old man, be renewed in our attitude and mentality, and put on the identity of our new man. Amen!
 
We looked at Ephesians chapter 4 to explain this, and we learned first that we must be taught these things by Christ Himself (see Verses 20-21). That means that we must learn these things from the Holy Spirit Himself and not just from another man or woman. Sure, God gives us good, anointed teaching, but that is not how we receive revelation. These things are revealed to us by our Father in heaven, as Jesus said to Peter. So, what this means is that we are going to go before the Lord and have Him show us these truths so that when you and I look in the mirror, we are able to say, “You are in Christ, and are a Son of the Living God!” Church, flesh and blood cannot reveal these truths to us; only the Holy Spirit can!   
 
And we specifically saw that what Christ is teaching us is “the truth (that) is in Jesus.” Not the truth that is in us; the truth that is in Jesus. And guess who is “in Jesus”? We are! Everyone of us who is born again is in Christ Jesus! Therefore, everything we are “in Him” is the truth, not who we are “in ourselves.” Saints, the truth is not what you see today; the truth is what God sees today! Glory!
 
So, as we learned, after we first strip ourselves of our old identity by removing ourselves from it as far as we can, and after we have the spirit of our minds renewed (i.e. change the way we think and our attitude), then we can put on the new man.
 
And, glory to God, we learned what this brand “new man” looks like: First of all, he is “created according to God.” We saw that this phrase “according to God” literally denotes “according to what God is in Himself.” The NIV translates this phrase, “created to be like God.” The TEV translates it, “created in God’s likeness.” Which echoes what God said in Genesis 1:26 when He created Adam in His image and according to His likeness. So, we learned that this means that God’s image and likeness, which we lost in the first Adam, has been restored by the last Adam, Jesus! Glory!
 
And the wonderful news about this new man we have on the inside of these bodies is that the image and likeness it is created in is “true righteousness and holiness.” Therefore, we can look into this spiritual mirror and truthfully say, “I am holy, and I am righteous!” 
 
WHAT CHRIST JESUS BECAME FOR US
 
So, this week, I want us to move into something else that we see when we look into this mirror: I want us to see today that we are redeemed, delivered, and free in Christ Jesus! 
 
Let’s begin in First Corinthians 1:30: After the apostle Paul explains that not many wise, mighty, and noble (according to the flesh) are called—because God has chosen the weak things of this world to show His glory—after this, he makes this statement, describing what God did for those He’s called. He says, “But of Him (God) you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”
 
This verse contains a lot of things that Christ already became for us, amen? He became for us (When? Through His crucifixion and resurrection) wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Jesus already, through His resurrection, became wisdom for us! I believe that means that Jesus was the manifest wisdom of God in how He made the provision for our sin, but I also believe this means we already have wisdom put to our account! But notice that God, in His wisdom, has done the following things for us in Christ Jesus …
 
You see, Jesus “became” these things for us, not “will become” them for us. So, regarding the final term Paul used, “redemption,” He has redeemed us—not is in the process of redeeming us or will someday redeem us. No, this is something that has already been done! Christ already has redeemed us.
 
You know, there are some things that we are praying for God to do that He has already done. So many Christians are pleading with God to please do this or please do that- saying things like, “God, would you heal them?” Well, what do the Scriptures say?
 
Well, the Scriptures say explicitly, “He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” (Matthew 8:17) and “by His stripes you were healed.” (1 Peter 2:24) So what these Scriptures (amongst others) show us is that Jesus already paid the price for all of our weaknesses and sicknesses just over 2,000 years ago.
 
When did He do this? When did He take our infirmities and bare our sicknesses? Well, the Scriptures teach us that it was at the same time that He Himself took our sins. So, this implies that it was on the Cross! Amen!
 
So why do we ask the Lord to heal us today? This is implying that we don’t already believe what He said He has already done. Amen? 
 
You see, we need to adopt this mentality in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ that if God’s Word says it, it is so. We don’t care what we see, what we hear, what we feel or what we’ve experienced! No, if God’s Word says He has already done something for us, then I don’t care what you have or currently are experiencing! That’s when we should choose to believe that He has already taken care of it and then begin to act like it’s already so.
 
Saints, this is how we receive from God… In many Old Testament examples, God would tell the children of Israel that He had already given them the Promised Land, He had already given them the City of Jericho, He had already made Abraham the father of many nations, and the list goes on and on. Well, in the natural, it didn’t look like it, did it? No, in the natural, the giants were still in the land, the walls were still there, and Sarah was still barren! But faith is not moved by what it sees; faith is only moved by what it believes! And faith believes what God says is so! Amen! Therefore, as it is in this case of Galatians 3:13, it would be a good idea for us to, when we are reading our Bible, pay particular attention to the tenses being used.
 
Well, here the Apostle Paul says that Christ has already become wisdom from God, and righteousness, sanctification, and redemption! Amen!
 
Now before we look at these terms, let me quickly say that there are a lot of words we hear in church like these, that while we might be able to quote them, I fear that we do not truly understand what they all mean. Yes, we use these biblical words like “salvation, sanctification, forgiveness, justification etc.” but most believers do not see their true meaning. We need to know what these terms mean. Amen? So, let’s quickly look at these three …
 
First of all, the Holy Spirit through Paul said, Jesus became for us “righteousness!” That means we already have total right standing with God and complete justification with God! Of course, we covered this last week. Then Paul said that He became for us “sanctification!” That means that we already have been set apart and made holy through Christ! That’s, of course, what we looked at two weeks ago.
 
But notice this last term he used: Lastly, we see that Jesus became for us “redemption!” So, this week, let’s go into some detail about this word “redemption” …
 
WHAT IS REDEMPTION?
 
What does the Bible mean when it says that we are “redeemed?” Well, there are a couple of words that are used to define “redeem or redemption”—both of which are used to describe the payment of a price to purchase someone from slavery or the ransom paid to set free a slave who is in bondage. Other words that are used to describe “redemption” are “to buy back, to purchase, and to release.” In one of the words used for “redemption” we see the word “marketplace” contained in it, which is important. 
 
So, when we combine together the various little & subtle words for “redemption,” the word-picture we get is of a slave—a slave in satan’s marketplace to where they are in his possession and under his dominion.
 
Now if that seems foreign to you, you need to understand what our plight is before we received Jesus. The Scriptures teach us that we were “sold under sin” (Romans 7:14)—not because of our own individual sins that we committed, but because of the sin of the First Adam. Romans 5:12 teaches us that through one man (Adam) sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.
 
Now certainly if we were to live our whole life with not one sin committed, there might be hope for us. But this is impossible—for we are all conceived in sin and guilty of sin from birth (Psalm 51:5).
 
Now many people are deceived into thinking that they will go to heaven one day because they have been a good person, haven’t done too many bad things, etc. Those people are way off base—for God does not grade on a curve and compare us to other people. Our standard is the perfect holiness and righteousness of God Himself, and this is what we will be judged by. Amen!
 
Therefore, every person hearing this was or is currently a slave to satan: You see, people need to understand that, unless they receive Christ—His sacrifice and His Lordship—they are serving satan. There is no, “Well, I haven’t decided yet about whether I’ll give my life to Christ or not.” There is no middle of the fence! You either receive and submit to Christ or you have, by default, submitted to sin. So, there is no indecision. Until you have decided to give your life over to the Lord, you have given your life over to sin. It’s that simple.    
 
And any of you young people need to realize that God does not have any grandchildren. You are not automatically a Christian just because of the decision your parents have made; no, you become a Christian by your own personal decision to be born again and become a child of God yourself. Saints, there is only one mediator between God and man—the man, Jesus Christ! It’s not your parents!
 
So, everyone who is born in the flesh was sold under sin by Adam to satan and are a part of his slave market. And the only way to become free from that bondage is to be born again and become a child of God.  
 
THE PRICE FOR OUR REDEMPTION
 
So, as we consider again the word “redemption,” we see that a price or a ransom was required to obtain our freedom. So, what was that price?
 
First Peter 1:18-19 says, “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver and gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
 
So here we see that the price paid for our redemption was not the traditional form of currency, silver or gold. In other words, there is nothing of this corruptible world of enough value to pay the price to secure our redemption.
 
And this is worth noting here: There is nothing you can do to buy your freedom, deliverance, salvation and healing. I know there have been many traditions handed down in the church that we have to do this to be free, that we have to do that to be delivered, or that we have to do these seven things to walk in our redemption. But no, this Scripture says that corruptible things—that is, things of the flesh—cannot purchase our redemption. Only the “precious” blood of Christ (there’s that reference to the “King” again) can redeem us! The word “precious” describes something that is extremely “costly” and “valuable.” This is the price that was necessary to purchase our freedom! Amen!
 
Now is there anything more “costly” or “valuable” than the blood of the Lamb? Is there anything more expensive than the blood of the Son of God Himself? Absolutely not! Well, this is the price Yahweh paid to redeem you! So, what does that say about us?
 
You see, we’ve made this point already but it bears repeating here—if God paid the maximum price that could be paid to redeem you and I, then how valuable does that make us? That’s something to think about, isn’t it?
 
You see, God is the original Jew, is He not? And we know that as a general rule, Jewish people are pretty smart investors. So, do you think that God, who alone is wise, would pay a price that high for something that has significantly less value? I think not! No, if God were to pay so great a price for something or someone that has significantly less value, then that would be considered poor judgment. No, the poor judgment is not with God; the poor judgment is with us! What do I mean by that? I mean that we are the ones who do not see ourselves in the proper light and with the proper value. Saints, we must conclude that we must have at least equal value to God as His Only Begotten Son if that is the price He paid to redeem us. Amen!
 
Someone will say, “Well, I don’t think there is anything or anyone as precious and valuable as Jesus!” But didn’t Jesus pray in John 17:23 that the world would come to know that God loves us even as much as He loves Jesus. Amen! So, we are evidently extremely valuable to God!
 
Therefore, our only hope to be set free from this predicament was for the price or ransom to be paid on our behalf. Why? Because we didn’t have enough to pay it on our own! There was no amount of good works, good deeds or works of righteousness that we could do to be set free from the slave-market of satan and sin. No, the only price that could be paid to purchase our freedom was the blood of the perfect and just Son of God Himself—the precious blood of the Lamb! Amen!
 
Now First Corinthians 6:19 also elaborates on the end result of our redemption: It says, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?”
 
So, if you have been redeemed by Christ—purchased and paid for by your King—then you are not your own anymore, right? In other words, your life is not your own anymore—you don’t determine what you do and when you do it, you don’t choose where you go and how you go there. And why? Verse 20 goes on to tell us— “For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
 
So not only was my spirit bought, my body was bought. Now obviously this means that we are not going out and doing all kinds of immoral things spiritually and physically because we are God’s possession now. But it also can mean that, since our spirit and body are now God’s, does the devil have any right or power to afflict our spirits with sin or our body’s with sickness? Heaven, no!
 
OUR REDEMPTIVE STORY
 
So, these are things that have already happened: Christ has redeemed us! In Him we have redemption! These are not things that will happen for the born-again Christian one day; these are things that have already happened! Praise the Lord!
 
So, let’s now go over to Colossians 1:12-14 and see the full picture of our redemptive story:      
 
So, after the apostle Paul prays one of His God-inspired prayers for the Colossian church, he seemingly begins to transition into some of the things that God has done for us in Christ Jesus. And in verse 12, he begins by saying, “giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.”
 
Now before we get into the verses that specifically pertain to our redemption, notice here that the apostle Paul says that in Christ we have been “qualified” to be partakers of an inheritance! I could preach on this for weeks, but let me just say that Christ is the redeemer, not us. He is the One who qualified us, not we ourselves. So, all of these awesome promises that revolve around our redemption are based on the fact that Christ is the redeemer and His blood is the price that was paid to redeem us. Therefore, we are now qualified!
 
In verse 13, the Apostle Paul said, “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.”
 
Notice how the past tense is used again. It is not that God is in the process of delivering us or God will deliver us someday off in the future; No, God has already delivered us! Therefore, when it comes to any area of our life where the kingdom of darkness is trying to maintain dominion over us, we do not need to ask God to deliver us. We need to exercise our faith in this Scripture and declare in the face of these negative situations— “I have been delivered!”
 
Now the word “delivered” literally means to be “rescued.” Second Peter 2:7 gives us a good example of what it means to be delivered when Peter speaks of righteous Lot being delivered from the oppressive conduct of the wicked in Sodom & Gomorrah. Now we know that this was an actual “rescuing” of Lot and his family from the judgment that was to come and from the temptations that surrounded them on a daily basis. Amen? And let’s recall why he was delivered—because he was righteous and his uncle Abraham interceded on his behalf to rescue the few righteous in that city from the wrath that was to come. Amen!  
 
Notice the phrase that Paul went on to use in Colossians 1:13 describing what we have been delivered from— “from the power of darkness.”
 
The word “from” comes from the Greek word ek which literally means “out of.” The word “power” comes from the Greek exousia which would more accurately be translated “authority.” So, what we are talking about being delivered “out of” is the “authority of darkness.” So, what does this mean? This means that anything from the kingdom of darkness has no authority over us any longer. Now it did. Darkness did have authority over us as long as we were lost in the world and unregenerate. But when we were redeemed from that slave-market of darkness, we were also made free from his authority. So, guess what? Sin no longer has dominion over us! Satan no longer has any power or control over us! We have been rescued from his authority! Amen!
 
Oh, but again, we are rescued unto something and not just from something. Colossians 1:13 goes on to say, “and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” The reference to “the Son of His love” could simply be translated— “of His beloved Son.”
 
So, we are talking here about an address change! We no longer live under the authority of the kingdom of darkness! Now we have been “conveyed” into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, Jesus!
 
You see, it would have been mercy enough for us just to simply be rescued, but as First Peter 1:3 says, God showed us “abundant mercy.” How? By not only rescuing us from satan, sin and sickness, but by conveying us into His very own family through the new birth! Hallelujah! And how did all of this happen, according to First Peter 1:3? “Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead!” Amen!
 
Now the word “conveyed” literally describes “a relocation, to change places or to be transferred.” (KJV- “translated”) The Spirit Filled Life Bible says that it “refers to the deportation or transference of captured armies or populations from one country to another.”
 
So, at the moment we received Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior we were transferred into His kingdom. Christ’s kingdom is right now in our midst—albeit in the spiritual realm (Luke 17:21), and positionally we are now in it! Even though we now live on this sin-cursed earth, Philippians 3:20 says that we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven right now as God’s children although we presently remain in this world! That’s good news, saints!
 
Now let’s look at verse 14 where Paul goes on to say, “in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” (Ephesians 1:7 echoes this verse when it says, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”)
 
Now by beginning with the words “in whom” or “in Him,” we understand that Paul is referring to “in God’s beloved Son, Jesus.” So, in the Beloved Son of God “we have redemption”—again, echoing what Paul said in First Corinthians 1:30. 
 
So, again, the word “redemption” literally describes the setting free of a slave by the payment of a ransom. So, when we received Jesus as our Lord and Savior we were set free from the dominion, the penalty, and the power of satan and sin. He has freed us from our slavery to sin and has restored to us the place of perfect liberty from the kingdom of darkness.
 
And Paul goes on to tell us what the ransom price was that was paid to purchase our liberty by saying, “through His blood.”
 
Again, Jesus’ precious blood was the ransom that was paid to purchase our redemption. It was impossible for the blood of bulls and goats nor of anything or anyone else to purchase our redemption (Hebrews 10:4). It had to be the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without spot or blemish (1 Peter 1:19). Nothing else would have sufficed! It had to be perfect righteousness becoming all of our sin in order to pay our enormous sin debt. Glory to Jesus!
 
But now we learn something more about our redemption here: The apostle Paul describes our redemption as— “the forgiveness of sins.” In other words, what does our redemption look like? It looks like “forgiveness.” Amen!
 
 
 
 
 
FREE INDEED!
 
The root word for “forgiveness” literally means “to send away.” It means to dismiss and send away—the complete releasing from bondage to a debt—with the added quality of totally cancelling any obligation and punishment, with no debt left to pay at all (also, “remission”). Amen!
 
That sounds a lot like the Year of Jubilee, doesn’t it! Why? Because to be forgiven—sent away and dismissed—was not something we had to pay for! Our debt was totally cancelled and nothing else is left to be paid! Praise God, Jesus is our Jubilee!
 
You see, for most people this celebration of “Jubilee” occurred only once in their lifetime, and for some not even that, as it only occurred once every 50 years. But, praise God, in Christ our Jubilee is once and for all of our lifetime! Also, on this year of Jubilee, all Israelites who had sold themselves into slavery were set free, and all land that had been sold reverted to its original owners. So, this describes bondage that they had placed themselves under! In other words, they deserved to be captive and under the dominion of another. But it didn’t matter! Even though they deserved their slavery, they got what they did not deserve—complete liberation and restoration! Amen!
 
And, praise be unto God, this is what our Savior provided for us—complete redemption and deliverance, not to be brought under another form of bondage, but to “send us away” into His glorious liberty! Amen!
 
Let me end today by giving you a few Scriptures that teach us this:
 
You guys know I love the Book of Galatians, right? Well, I believe the theme of this awesome epistle that expounds upon the grace of God is found in Galatians 5:1, which says, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”
 
The literal Greek rendering is slightly different in this verse. For example, this phrase was actually at the beginning of the sentence in the original language’s sentence structure. Therefore, some translations that recognize this say, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free … therefore, stand fast.”
 
Now regarding this phrase “for freedom,” the Greeks had a unique way of having a slave secure his freedom in their day. It was an emancipation performed by one of their supposed gods. So, the way this worked is that this slave would somehow save the money that was needed, but because he had no legal standing, he couldn’t pay it himself. So, his master would take the money, pay the appropriate amount to the temple treasury on the slave’s behalf. (Now here is the kicker…) Then there was an official document that was executed, bearing the words “for freedom” on it. Therefore, because the slave was now property of the gods that freed him, nobody had the legal right to enslave him again.
 
This is, in my opinion, what the apostle Paul was communicating to these Gentiles—an example they could certainly relate to. Saints, Christ paid the price on our behalf so that we could now be God’s property, and no one has the right to enslave us again. Glory!
 
But what this verse is teaching us is that while freedom and liberty have been purchased for us by Christ, we are going to have to fight for it! That is why Paul began by saying to “stand fast” in it. Church, we have to fight for our freedom in many cases because we have an enemy who will resiliently try and rob us of our spiritual rights in Christ Jesus. Amen?
 
Another powerful passage of Scriptures that echo this truth about our freedom is John 8:30-36:
 
In John 8:36, Jesus says, “Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” Here is Trey’s translation: “So, if Jesus sets you free, you are really free!”
 
Now the context of this verse is of one being a slave of sin. So, Jesus was teaching this group of Jews who actually believed Him (not the ones who didn’t believe on Him, mind you) that if they abide in His Word, they will really be His disciples. That is when they will come to know the truth, and the truth will make them free.
 
So, the freedom Jesus is speaking of is freedom from the dominion of satan and sin. Therefore, Jesus is really talking about redemption, isn’t He? And what is awesome about this is Jesus didn’t just say we would be free; He said that we would be free indeed—that is, REALLY free!
 
Praise God, that means that we do not have to be in bondage to any of the works of the devil! I am, you are, WE are really set free from sin and its wages, which is death! That means we are set free from the devil’s devices and the penalty of yielding to him. He cannot make me sin! He cannot make me sick! He cannot make me broke! He cannot oppress, depress, or have dominion over me in any way!
 
Now he certainly can if we let Him. He will do everything he can to bring us into bondage by tempting us at every turn. So, if we do not know this—that we have been redeemed and set free—then he will capitalize on our ignorance.
 
This is why Jesus said that the key to walking in this freedom is walking in the Word—that is, abiding and continuing in the truth of His Word. Glory!
 
Church, this is the mirror that reveals to us this freedom we learned about today! It is what shows us what Christ has done for us! And we must continue in it—constantly beholding its truths. This is how we will experience true freedom and liberty. Amen and amen! 
 
Glory to God, saints; if the Holy Spirit lives in us, then freedom lives in us—for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (See 2 Corinthians 3:17)!
 
Brothers and sisters, you have heard the Gospel here today! This is the good news of your redemption! And my prayer for everyone here who is born again and who know that you are today a citizen of heaven is that you will have a revelation that you are freed from the dominion of satan, sin, and sickness, that you have been delivered and that you have been set free.

REVIEW
 
So, let’s continue our look “In the Mirror” today and find out what else we look like. And when I say we are looking “in the mirror,” we are not talking about a physical mirror. Of course, the world likes to identify us by how we look on the outside, but the Word is what shows us our true spiritual identity on the inside. So, that is the mirror we are looking in—the mirror of God’s Word.  
 
And I cannot stress enough the importance of us discovering who we are in Christ—for when we do not understand who we really are, we fall prey to that roaring lion who constantly is trying to devour us. However, when we are established in our spiritual identity, he is going to have a much more difficult time stealing, killing, and destroying our lives—because we know who we are and whose we are. Amen!  
 
We have based this series on a passage of Scripture that is used to describe who we are in Christ Jesus--Second Corinthians 3:18–which I believe accurately “reflects” what happens when we look in the mirror of this New and Better Covenant. In it, the apostle Paul says, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
 
So, this verse teaches us that as “we all”—that is, every born-again believer who is now found in Christ—behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord—which we have learned is the mirror of God’s new covenant which exceeds much more in glory than that of the old covenant… When we behold it with this unveiled face, we are being constantly transformed into the same image from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Living God! So, what that means is that when we look into this New Testament and behold it without the veil, it will change us from the inside to the outside. In other words, our outward man will begin to reflect the condition of the inward man. Amen!
 
So, let’s quickly recap what we’ve seen in the mirror already:
 
At the beginning of this series, we talked about how even the Lord Jesus Himself had to grow in His spiritual identity. We verified this by looking in the first couple of chapters of Luke’s Gospel and we learned that Jesus grew up in the wisdom, strength, and favor of His Father. If you missed that one, you need to get ahold of it!
 
Then we moved into the specifics of who this New Covenant teaches us that we are: Several weeks ago, we began looking into this mirror by looking at the filter everything is to be viewed through—love. And I made the point that I believe the first thing you and I need to see when we look into this mirror is that WE ARE LOVED! In fact, I made the point that since we are called the Lord’s Beloved many times through the New Testament’s Holy Spirit inspired pages, then that means that not only are we loved by Him, but we “Be-Loved” by Him.
 
But not only can we see that we are loved by God when we look in this mirror, we can also see that we are His new creation. And this is what we learned next—that we are God’s own work of art, His masterpiece, and His new creation! This means that we are absolutely special, having His treasure placed in these earthen vessels!
 
This led us to another part of our spiritual identity that we would do good to look at in the mirror of God’s Word: Not only are we loved, not only are we His masterpiece, but we are also chosen: We looked at a number of Scriptures a couple of weeks ago, and we learned that in Christ Jesus we have actually been chosen, selected, and predestined. So, we learned that God “chose” all of us. How? In Him! So, you see, God the Father chose His Son Jesus, but by us choosing to be “in Him,” we are chosen as well.
 
So, again, all of us who have received the Lord Jesus Christ are “chosen” by God—not because we in ourselves are holy and without blame before Him, but to become holy and without blame before Him (See Ephesians 1:4). But one of our biggest takeaways from this verse is what we were chosen & predestined unto—and Paul says in Ephesians 1:5 that it was “to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself”! We learned that adoption is actually one of the greatest acts of love that one could perform—because for a couple to adopt a child means that they specifically chose that child—meaning they picked out exactly which child they wanted. Now that, my friends, is love!
 
And we learned that Jesus Himself was that precious, chosen stone from First Peter 2:4-10, but in the same passage of Scriptures, we saw that we also are living stones. Therefore, we are precious, valuable and “chosen” as Jesus was and is. Therefore, looking in this mirror, we see that we are “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” Amen!
 
Then last week, we looked into this mirror and saw that we are also “holy,” which might seem to be a hard “gos-pill” to swallow, but it’s true!
 
We learned that being holiness is in the eye of the beholder. Just like something holds the value of what someone else is willing to pay for it, likewise, we are holy unto the Lord because He esteems us as holy to Himself. So, we saw last week that being holy does not just describe some state of perfection; it can actually mean that we are special, precious and different to God.
 
I used a couple of examples to illustrate this: One was of the “Holy Bible,” and while it’s certainly perfect and infallible, it is also called “holy” because it is special and different from any other book on the planet. So, it is “holy” in that it is a special and precious Book while also being perfect and without error. But we looked at another example in First Thessalonians 5:26 where Paul said to greet all the brethren with a holy kiss. A holy kiss would obviously be both a pure and a different kind of kiss—meaning, it’s not like other kisses out there, while at the same time being void of any impure motives.
 
So, we learned that just like we have a “Holy Bible” and “holy kisses”—which are precious and pure things—God’s church is said to be holy and without blame before Him in love. That means that He views us, spiritually speaking, as “infallible, without error, precious and prized.” Yes, we are different, His own peculiar treasure, that is passionately loved by our Creator!     
 
And again, we saw how verses like Ephesians 1:4 say that we are holy and without blame before Him: You see, we might have a different opinion of ourselves and others might have different opinion of us, but it’s not anyone else’s opinion that is important; it is God’s opinion that truly matters.
 
So, last week, we saw one of the predominant ways that God sees us by looking at how He refers to us. And we saw that over 50 times in the Epistles of the New Testament, we are called “saints.”
 
Now we learned that the way that we generally use the term “saints” today is to either refer to old Christians or dead ones. But the Bible doesn’t share these same sentiments. When you look at these 50-plus verses that use the word “saints” you will see that they all refer to every born-again believer. So, someone might then gravitate towards watering down the meaning of the word “saint” when they see it refers to every Christian, but it does essentially mean what we have believed it to mean. It comes from the Greek word hagios which literally means “holy ones.” And we learned that this word hagios is the very same word used to describe God’s “holy” law (See Romans 7:12), the “holy” apostles and prophets (See Ephesians 3:5), the “Holy” Scriptures (See Romans 1:2), the “Holy” Spirit (Romans 5:5), the “Holy One,” Jesus Christ Himself (See First John 2:20 & Revelation 3:7), and, yes, the Lord God Almighty Himself who has the hosts of heaven constantly declaring that He is “Holy, holy, holy!” So, do you know what that means? It means if we are His holy ones, then we are in the same boat with the rest of these other Most Holy things! So, as Romans 11:16 says, “if the root is holy, then so are the branches.”
 
Now we made the point that there is a difference between our “who” and our “do.” Yes, we need to be holy in all our conduct! Yes, we ought to live holy lifestyles! But what we need to avoid is basing our holiness on our actions. We are not holy because of what we do; we are holy because of what Christ has done. 
 
So, we looked over at Colossians chapter one and learned that not only did Christ make us holy, but He also made us blameless and above reproach in the sight of God! Again, in His sight; not other people’s sight or our own, but God’s. 
 
We also learned that the word “blameless” refers to being “faultless & without blemish”—like the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament were to be without blemish. In fact, we saw how this word “blameless” is the same word used in 1 Peter 1:19 to describe Jesus as the Lamb “without blemish” and without spot. Therefore, we have been presented to the Father like pure and spotless lambs because we are in the Lamb of God who is pure and spotless! That means we have no spots, no wrinkles, and are presented that way to our Holy Husband (Compare with Ephesians 5:26-27).
 
Then we saw how the next words— “above reproach”—literally mean “not called in” (i.e. “not called to account”). This phrase describes being totally free from any charge being on our account. You see, not only are we made without blemish, but all the charges that were previously on our account have been washed away in the blood of Christ! Glory!
 
 
And we saw that all of this is contingent upon us continuing in the faith when Paul went on to say in verse 23— “if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard…”
 
We saw that “the faith” being referred to here is the faith of Jesus Christ, our new and better covenant. So, we saw that as James 1:22-25 teaches us, continuing in the Word is how we will begin to see these truths reflected in our lives. Therefore, church, we must set these truths ever before us and proclaim them in the face of all temptations to believe otherwise. So, when our flesh, our own heart, or the devil tries to tell us that we are impure, unclean, or not special, it is then that we need to proclaim that we are “Holy!” When our mind or the enemy tries to tell us that we are to be blamed, it is then that we must proclaim that we are “blameless.” When any of these things try to bring an accusation of something we may have done, it is then that we must proclaim that we are “without reproach.” Yes, it is when we look in the mirror and declare “It is written, It is written, It is written” that we will begin to experience the fruit of who are in the spirit.        
 
Amen. So, we are certainly holy in Christ Jesus, and I want us to now turn in our Bibles over to Ephesians chapter 4 because I believe these verses reflect these truths and lead us into what the Lord has for us today …
 
THE IMAGE OF THE NEW MAN
 
In Ephesians 4:22-24, the apostle Paul says– “that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”
 
Now just before these verses, in verses 20-21, notice how Paul told them, “but you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus…” So, in these verses, Paul is assuming that the Lord has been teaching them through their fellowship with the Holy Spirit. And what was Paul supposing they had been taught by Him? That is what he goes on to say, beginning in verses 22-24. So, what this shows me is that this is one of the main things that Christ is going to teach us—putting off the old man, renewing our minds, and putting on the new man.
 
But notice how the apostle Paul includes in verse 21 the phrase that says, “as the truth is in Jesus.” This is an important part of the context, as we will learn momentarily. But let me add here that the truth is in Jesus; it is not in the flesh or in ourselves. Yes, the truth of who we are is found only in Christ Jesus!
 
You see, because of their carnality, most people only think what we can feel, what we can see, what we hear, etc. is the truth. But that is not what is “true” according to the Holy Spirit. Here, He inspired the apostle to write that the truth is “in Jesus.” In other words, who we are in the spirit is the truth, not who we are in the flesh. In other words, if this mirror tells me that, in Christ, I am righteous, holy, loved, blessed, etc. then, bless God, that is the truth—for the truth is in Christ, not in this physical, natural world. The truth is not what you see today; the truth is what God sees today! And that is exactly what Paul goes on to describe in the following verse …
 
So, let’s move on to Ephesians 4:22-24 and take a look at three short verses that comprise what we are learning from Christ Jesus …
 
In verse 22, the apostle Paul starts off by talking about what we need to “put off.” Now I think it is interesting how Paul consistently started off his teachings on “putting on” and “putting off” with the “putting off” part. For example, in Romans 12:2, before he said for them to be transformed by the renewing of their minds, he exhorted them to not be conformed to the world. And in both these verses in Ephesians chapter four and Colossians chapter three, he exhorts them to “put off” these worldly behaviors before he told them to “put on” the godly virtues. (i.e. Why repentance was first!)
 
Now the words “put off” come from the Greek word apotithemi which means “to put aside” or “to place away” (like clothing). But notice that it is not God who takes these things off of us; we are the ones that take them off. And as we know, clothes just don’t just fall off of us. Therefore, this process is up to us and that means that it will take some effort and determination. 
 
But when it comes to this putting off of the old man, let’s not just look at this putting away of the former conduct of our old man as us simply changing our actions. Let’s look at it from the perspective of putting off our former identity—for the things we do in the flesh first come through the mind (i.e. a mindset, mentality, etc.). 
 
You see, we understand from other New Testament verses that the old man has been crucified and done away with (see Romans 6:6, Colossians 3:9, Galatians 2:20 & 5:24). So, we are not trying to crucify the old man! He was crucified with Christ! When we entered into Christ our old man died! Our job now is to strip ourselves of the old habits and tendencies left in our flesh by the old sin nature. In essence, Paul is saying, “Don’t keep living as if that old man is still alive!”
 
You see, it’s a new mentality Paul is telling us to adopt. We are not that old man anymore! He’s dead, being crucified with Christ! We are a brand-new man! Which leads me to verse 24:
 
After telling us in verse 23 to be renewed in the spirit of our mind—which I believe to be our attitude, Paul tells us to then “…put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”
 
Now by beginning verse 24 by saying, “and that you,” Paul is reiterating that just as it is our responsibility to “put off” the old man, it is our responsibility to “put on” the new man. The words “put on” come from the Greek word enduo which mean to clothe or dress. You see, God gives us the clothing, but it is our job to “put on” what He has put in our possession. And the gospel I wish to share with you today is what Paul says are the garments God has put in our spiritual closet …  
 
Notice that we are exhorted to put on this new man “which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.” Now I want us to take some time this week breaking down this part of verse 24 …
 
First of all, notice how Paul describes this new man as that “which was created according to God…”
 
The phrase “according to God” literally denotes “according to what God is in Himself.” The NIV translates this phrase, “created to be like God.” The TEV translates it, “created in God’s likeness.”
 
So, we can see from this phrase that the new man was created in the image and likeness of God just as Adam was originally created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26). So do you know what this means!?! It means that God’s image and likeness, which we lost in the first Adam, has been restored by the last Adam, Jesus!
 
Let’s look back at these verses in God’s original creation because I believe they reveal to us what has now transpired in our born-again spirit:
 
In Genesis 1:20-25, we are told that God made all of the animal creation “according to their own kind.” In other words, they were created to reproduce after their own kind (i.e. in their own image and likeness), but what He did for us was much better! He did not create us to reproduce after our own kind; He created us to reproduce after His own kind! Let’s now look at verse 26: Genesis 1:26 says, “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
 
You see, with every other living creature that He created, He said that they would reproduce after their own kind. But with us, He said that we were to be made in His own likeness and image! In other words, we were to reproduce after His own kind! Verily, verily I say unto you we have truly been crowned with glory and honor!
 
Notice that God said, “Let Us” … This is the first reference we have to the Trinity in the Word of God, where God counsels among Himself that He would create man in their image and according to their likeness. I believe that this is why we find that we are created as a tri-fold being as well. As we have seen, First Thessalonians 5:23 says that our whole person is comprised of three parts—spirit, soul, and body. So we are, in essence, a “trinity” as well.
 
Let’s look over at Genesis 2:7… In this passage, we are told that God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into His nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. You see, just as God is a Trinity, He created us as three-part beings—spirit, soul, and body—and in Genesis 2:7 we have the description of how this worked…
 
And although God is concerned with all three parts of us and has provided salvation for all three parts (one part takes place immediately when we are born again and others will come when He returns), our spirit—our core and central part of life—is what is the most important… Notice that He breathed into man the breath of life through His nostrils. This is what Jesus did in John 20:22 when He breathed on His disciples. You see, just as the old creation began with the breath of God, so the new creation began with the breath of God as well. And the awesome thing is that God’s Word is God-breathed! And does the Word of God not say that we are born again through the Word of God which lives and abides forever?
 
So, what does it mean that we are created in His “image”? This is a reference to how we look. God, in His infinite love for us, created us to look just like Him. So, when we look around us, we need to understand that we are looking at God! Each one of us, bear the mark of Yahweh. But too often, we look at ourselves and are dissatisfied with how we look saying things like, “I don’t like my hair, I don’t like my hair color, or my ears are too big.” This should not be so. We should value the way that God made us because each of our unique physical characteristics are a reflection of God Almighty Himself and, He made us like He saw fit to make us. We should respect and honor how He made us and not demean the way He created us.
 
So, what does it mean that we are created in His “likeness”? This is a reference to how we are like God or are compared to Him. In other words, Adam and Eve were not just like Him in physical appearance; they were created like Him in His nature, characteristics, and actions. This is why the device that the serpent used to tempt them was so ridiculous. He said that if they ate the forbidden fruit that they would be like God. Well, the truth was: they already were like God! But, you see, my brothers and sisters, Satan still uses this tactic today: He will tempt us to think that we need to be something that we already are: to chase our own tails, if you would. 
 
But as we well know, this temptation worked. Eve ate of the fruit to be like God and the image and likeness that they were created in was partly ruined because of the Fall. Although man maintained His physical appearance to a certain degree (aside from the death that works in each one of us causing things to stop working in our bodies and things to waste away), the death that we experienced was mainly unseen. 
 
This was the result that God forewarned them would happen when He said, “You shall surely die” … In the Hebrew language, the phrase “surely die” literally says, “in dying, you shall die.” In other words, there are two deaths that came as a result of the sin in the Garden: Number one, “in dying” He meant they would die spiritually. They would experience a separation from God in their spirit which caused them to lose many of the elements of His likeness. But then He said, “in dying, you shall die” or in other words, “because of your death spiritually, you shall die naturally.”
 
So this is what happened: When Adam and Eve partook of the fruit, they immediately experienced death by having their spirit die. This was like being killed from the root. So then, the result of having their root system die, was that “in dying spiritually, they shall die physically.” This will come with time but because what is unseen and underground (i.e. the root) is spoiled, it will eventually cause the part of us that is seen to spoil as well.
 
You see, what we lost in the Garden was the image and likeness of God in our spirit. Our root system was killed. So, this obviously affected our outward man as well. This is why we see things like sickness, weakness, infirmities, diseases, and death rampant in the world today. It is because we lost the glory! We no longer can be naked and unashamed because we have become sin-conscious. But the good news is this—what the first Adam lost in the fall, the last Adam has regained through His resurrection!
 
The New Testament teaches us that the fullness of the image and likeness of God that man possessed in the Garden has been regained through Jesus Christ! Not all of the glory has been manifested immediately. Our body, for instance, still has death abiding in it, but the price has already been paid for its resurrection and glorification! That will come when Jesus returns on that great Day! But just as Adam & Eve died spiritually the moment they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we were made alive spiritually the moment we ate from the tree of life! Yes, we gained back the image and likeness of God the moment we ate from the tree of our Lord Jesus Christ (i.e. the cross) just as they lost the image and likeness of God the moment they ate from their tree.
 
Now unfortunately many of us have been taught otherwise. Because of the misunderstandings and misinterpretations of many ministers over the years, we have been taught that we are essentially just as lost as Adam and Eve were when they were banished from the Garden. We have been taught that we are just little worms and lost sinners. And although they do admit that we are saved by grace, that salvation is pushed off in the future after we die. But although this is what many preachers teach today; this is not what the apostles taught!    
 
Let’s turn over to First John 3:9 and look at one of these verses I’m referring to …
 
THE DIVINE NATURE


First John 3:9 says that “Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and He cannot sin because He has been born of God.”
 
Now, of course, this does not mean that someone who has been born again cannot commit a sin and miss it occasionally. This would not be consistent with this First Epistle of John itself because he said in the first chapter that if we say that we have no sin, we are a liar and the truth is not in us. He went on to say that if we do sin that we can confess our sins and be cleansed from all unrighteousness. So, from these Scriptures we can see that John is not saying if we are a Christian, then we will live spotless lives. So, what is he saying?
 
The first thing we need to understand is that when this verse words things like “does not sin” or “cannot sin” it is not to be read like we talk today. If I were to say, “I do not sin” or “I cannot sin” you would hear that I’m saying that I never commit a sin. But in the Greek language, words have different tenses so when the Bible uses a phrase like “does not sin” you have to look at the tense that is used in the verb because that will indicate whether the writer was talking about “having done, doing, or continue to do the sin. And in this particular situation, the tense is indicating that we will not continue to do (or, practice) sin. Therefore, we can see that John is not referring to a Christian avoiding every specific act of sin; he is referring to how a believer does not continue a lifestyle of sin after he or she has come to know the Lord. 
And what is the reason that the Apostle John gives that whoever has been born of God does not continue in sin? He says that whoever has been born of God does not sin because God’s seed remains in him! You see, this is why Jesus said to Nicodemus that you must be born again. It is because a new nature has to be placed in you to, number one, take out of your spirit the sin nature and its penalty, and then, number two, to put in you a new nature that will lead you out from under the dominion of sin. And the new birth is the only way that all of this could have been accomplished!
 
But what does John mean when he said that God’s seed remains in us? Well, the word “seed’ comes from the Greek word sperma which is obviously where we get the word “sperm” from. So, what we can begin to see now is that when the Bible speaks of being born again, it is not some symbolic term of having a new beginning or something else like that (although the new birth does provide a new beginning). No, when we are “born again” we literally are reborn in our spirits. How? Because God’s very own “seed” is placed in us and remains!
 
Now let’s look at this from a natural and physical perspective: What is inherent in the seed of a man? A man’s sperm carries in it the DNA of the father! So, when we are physically born, we are born with the DNA of our earthly father. This means that we have his nature and will grow up to look and act like him in certain ways.
 
So, now apply this to being born again: When God’s seed is placed in us and we are born again spiritually, the same thing occurs: We essentially receive the spiritual DNA of Almighty of God! In other words, we receive His nature! God is love, so love becomes our nature. This is why John went on to say that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. This is also why peace and joy are immediately experienced. It is because He is the God of peace and He is joyful God, so joy and peace are products of His nature. And, yes, all of the rest of the fruit of the Spirit- patience, kindness, goodness, self-control, etc. are all resident in that new nature that is within us!
 
Let’s look at the Amplified Bible’s translation of this verse because I believe it perfectly illustrates what this verse is saying: It says, “No one born (begotten) of God [deliberately, knowingly, and habitually] practices sin, for God’s nature abides within Him [His principle of life, the divine sperm, remains permanently within Him]; and he cannot practice sinning because he is born (begotten) of God.”
 
Let’s look over at a passage of Scripture in Second Peter chapter one that goes along these same lines:
 
Second Peter 1:3-4 says that “as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
 
You see, church, this is who we are! Our God has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. We don’t give ourselves these things; we were begotten again to life and godliness! Yes, this is how you and I were made partakers of God’s divine nature—through His exceedingly great and precious promises! 
 
Notice that the apostle Peter said in verse 4 that through these great promises of the gospel, we have been made partakers of God’s divine nature! This literally means that we have become sharers of His godly characteristics! And “sharing” is when someone gives of their own to someone else, letting them partake of it as well. That’s what God did: He shared with us His godly nature, His divine characteristics. And, no, this does not make us “God,” but it does show that He made us to share in His nature by the new-birth. Hallelujah!
 
TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS
 
Now let’s go back over to Ephesians chapter 4 and look at a couple of the specific “divine characteristics”—the image and likeness of God Himself—that the apostle Paul said we have been given …
 
He said that this “new man which was created according to God” was created “in true righteousness and holiness.” Wow! Did you know that this was in your Bible!?! What Paul is describing this image and likeness of God that we’ve been created in as is “true righteousness and holiness.” Therefore, saints, our new nature that we inherited from Christ through the new birth is created in God’s true image of holiness and according to His true likeness of righteousness. Amen!
 
And notice that He calls this holiness and righteousness--true righteousness and holiness. That is opposite of false righteousness and holiness—because if there is a true kind, there must also be a false one. So, what is the false kind of righteousness and holiness? That would be the man-made kind, and that is what we must strip ourselves of—that self-righteousness and man-made kind of holiness that puts its confidence in the flesh!    
 
Church, this true righteousness and holiness is something that has been given by grace and not something we grow into or something that eventually will be created in us through our own self-effort! This is how we were created at the new birth! We are not trying to become righteous or holy; we already have been created righteous and holy! Our only job now is to start putting on this new nature and spiritual identity and wearing it in our everyday lives!
 
So, this would be Trey’s Translation of Ephesians 4:24: “and dress your outer lives with the new nature you have been clothed with on the inside, which was created in God’s very own image and likeness—absolutely righteous and thoroughly holy!” Amen! 
 
But, in the past, I have made the mistake of stopping in verse 24: Notice what Paul said next in verse 25: “Therefore, putting away lying, ‘Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,’ for we are members of one another.”
 
By beginning this verse with the word “Therefore” we can see that this thought is tied together with what we saw that he just said before. So, Paul says next— “putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor.”
 
You know, one of the reasons that people do not see themselves in “true righteousness and holiness” is because they see it as untrue and believe they would be lying if they said they were truly righteous and holy. But I just love how he tells us to put away lying right after telling us that our new man that was created by God is “truly” righteous and holy. Why? Because the truth is that our born again, new man is righteous and holy. That is the truth—the truth that is found in Jesus! Therefore, we need to be speaking this truth with our neighbor!
 
I AM RIGHTEOUS!
 
But what I want us to camp on this week is that this new man—the new us which is recreated in the image of God’s holiness—is also created in His true righteousness. What that means is that not only are we holy, we are also righteous. I am—you are—righteous in Christ Jesus!  
 
Now, as it is with many terms we see used in the Bible, we do good to look them up and find out exactly what they mean. In this case, what is righteousness? Righteousness literally means “rightness.” Therefore, our righteousness before God describes our state of “being right and in agreement with God’s standards.” So, what this means is that the moment we receive Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior and are born again, we are positionally made “right” in God’s sight. You are probably familiar with the description of righteousness as “right standing with God,” which is, in my opinion, an adequate definition. He indeed makes us “right” in His sight to where we stand before Him positionally holy and blameless!
 
But my favorite definition of “righteousness” was given by the late E.W. Kenyon. He once beautifully defined righteousness as, “It is the ability to stand before the presence of God without a sense of fear, inferiority, or guilt, as if sin never existed.” Glory to God! I love that!
 
I know these are radical statements to some of us, but allow me to go through a couple of Scriptures that verify these true statements:
 
Second Corinthians 5:21, a verse that goes along with verses we have looked at thus far in this series, says, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
 
You could interpret this verse to say that Jesus, who knew no sin, was made to be sin for us even though He did not deserve it, so that we, who knew no righteousness, could be made righteous even though we did not deserve it. Wow! What an awesome truth! The Father placed all of the sin of the world upon Jesus, making Him our sin, even though He never experienced sin, so that we, who all have experienced sin, could be made righteous through Christ! In other words, He identified with our sin so that we could identify with His righteousness! What a glorious act of grace!
 
So, yes, there has only been One who has ever walked this earth that has truly been righteous before God, and that is the Son of God Himself. But that is why He came! Yes, that is why Jesus came to the earth, so that after living a completely righteous life and fulfilling the righteousness of the law, He could then go to the Cross for us so that we who have all lived completely unrighteous lives and have broken God’s righteous requirements could receive all He had! Glory!
 
Many of us are familiar with how we are all born into this world with a sin nature and are, therefore, deemed “sinners.” Well, the reason we are born with this corrupt nature is because of the sin of the first Adam. He, through his one disobedient act in the Garden of Eden, sent a curse upon all those born through his lineage to where every man and woman is born into this world a “sinner”—that is, with a sin nature. We all were just born this way—before we even chose to disobey God ourselves. So, you could say that we were made “sinners” by grace—that is, by a free gift from the first Adam and completely independent of our works, right?
 
Now you know where I am going with this, don’t you? Just as we were made sinners by the grace of the first Adam, likewise we were made righteous by the grace of the last Adam—the Lord Jesus! The apostle Paul used this same example in Romans 5:12-19 of the similarities between the first Adam and the last Adam. In these Scriptures, he compared how what we inherited through Adam in the Garden was a type of what we inherited through Jesus on the Cross. When we were physically born, we inherited a sinful nature; when we were spiritually born-again, we inherited a righteous nature. It is that simple. Thank you, Jesus! 
 
So, this example of Adam should make us think on what we believe about what Jesus truly provided for us. Let me explain this by asking you a question: Do you believe that there was any righteous act or any amount of good works that you could have done to make you in right standing with God before you became a Christian? Of course, you don’t! To believe otherwise would completely violate our core beliefs that we are saved solely by grace and not by any good works we have done. So, let’s turn this question around then: How can we believe that any unrighteous or sinful act we commit can make us a sinner after we have been made the righteousness of God in Christ during our born-again experience?
 
You see, before being born again, there was no amount of good that we could have done to make us righteous in the sight of God. Likewise, after being born again, there is no amount of sin we can commit that could make us unrighteous in His sight. To not believe this nullifies the grace of God that washed away our sinfulness completely independent of our good works.
 
This is why I despise the common Christian statement that says, “I am just an old sinner saved by grace.” This is completely contrary to what we are taught in the New Testament! No, you are either an old sinner who needs to be saved by grace or you are the righteousness of God in Christ that has already been saved by grace. You cannot be both! If you are saved by grace, then you are no longer a sinner. If you are still a sinner—meaning that you make a lifestyle of sinning—then you either need to get truly born again or you need to learn to walk in the Spirit as opposed to walking in the flesh.
 
Now sure, all of us even after we become the Lord’s disciples are going to make mistakes and yield to the flesh from time to time, but that does not make us “sinners.” Being a “sinner” implies that sinning is a profession to a person. In other words, a “sinner” is a person who habitually practices sin as a lifestyle.
 
This should not be the testimony of a follower of Christ. Our profession should be that of practicing righteousness and, as First John 3:7 says, “He who practices righteousness is righteous.” What this means is that if we have been made righteous through Christ, it will result in practicing righteousness in our life. Let me use the example of an apple tree: When an apple tree is alive, it will bear apples in its season. In other words, if it is truly a living apple tree, apples will manifest. For an apple tree to not ever bear any apples would cause someone to question whether it is really an apple tree or whether it is dead. Likewise, just as Jesus taught, our fruit is the indicator of what kind of tree we truly are (see Matthew 7:17-18).
 
But my point is that even when we are made righteous in Christ, we still are likely to fall short of the glory of God in our actions from time to time. Sure, the fruit of the Spirit should be evident in our lives, but because we live in this unredeemed body (which will receive at the Second Coming of Jesus what our spirit received when we were born again. Hallelujah!), we will have times where we yield to the flesh and miss the mark of perfection. These are the times when we must know who we are in Christ positionally—not identifying ourselves by our works, but identifying ourselves by who we are in Christ.
 
So, you and I—everyone who is born-again—has been made “right” with God and free from the sense of inferiority. Yes, we are righteous before Him because of what Christ has done for us. In fact, we ought to say it right now: I Am Righteous!
 
 
FILTHY RAGS OR A RIGHTEOUS ROBE?
 
Now I’m sure many of you balked at saying those three words— “I Am Righteous”—because there are likely some countering thoughts that will come up in people’s minds.
 
Many of us have been trained that there are none righteous, no not one. We know the Scriptures also teach us that all of our righteousness are as filthy rags (See Isaiah 64:6). And guess what? That’s true! The Bible goes to great lengths to show mankind that no one is righteous, but it does this for a specific reason—and that is so that we will not try and establish our own righteousness and place our trust in our own righteousness.
 
Let’s look at one passage of Scripture that teaches us this truth that there is none righteous--Romans 3:10-23: Starting in verse 10 and going through verse 18, the apostle Paul quotes an Old Testament passage of Scripture, which makes the statement that there is none righteous. However, the important thing to note is that this verse in Romans is a quote from the Old Testament. In fact, in verse 19 he says, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law…” Paul said that this is what the law says but since we are not under the law anymore those verses aren’t talking to a New Covenant believer.
 
Then Paul goes on to say in Romans 3:21-22, “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference.” When Paul says, “But now…” he means, “as opposed to the dispensation of law (i.e. Old Testament).” Then he says, “…the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed.” This means that “But now, as opposed to the old covenant when there was none righteous in God’s sight, true righteousness has now been uncovered and now covers all who believe!” And it’s been revealed “independent from the law” too! In other words, the law has nothing to do with our righteousness. Righteousness has been given by grace and not earned by works. Then when he said, “being witnessed by the law and the prophets” he meant the new covenant of righteousness was foreshadowed in the law and foretold by the prophets. Our dispensation was prophesied about! So, this is our way of knowing that this doctrine of righteousness was not conjured up, but it was previously planned and witnessed by the Old Testament. And the way it is given is “through faith in Jesus Christ.” This righteousness is indeed apart from the law, but it is obtained through another law—the law of faith, which is believing in the works of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said it’s “to all” which means “it is offered to all” and then he says it is “on all who believe.” The word “on” literally means “upon.” So, this righteousness is placed “upon” those who have faith in Jesus Christ—hence, the description of righteousness as a “robe” (Isaiah 61:10) and as a “breastplate” (Ephesians 6:14).  
 
Then Paul says in verse 23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” This is relating back to verse 10 where he makes the statement that there is none righteous. You see, no one can be good enough to meet God’s standards of righteousness by their works. So, God had to make a way for us to receive it freely by grace and that’s what He did through Jesus. Praise God!
 
So, glory to God, every one of us who have called on the name of the Lord and have received Him as Savior and Lord of our life have been made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. It was not the law or our own works that accomplished this; it was the grace of God that made it happen. So now, we have His divine nature, having been born of God, and His nature is one of holiness and righteousness in truth. Glory to Jesus!
 
So, let’s forsake the lies that judge us according to the flesh, and start believing the truth of who God says we are. This is ultimate expression of humility—when we believe what God says about us above anything else. Let’s be a people of humility, church, and look in the mirror and say we are who the I Am says we am! Amen!

REVIEW
 
Today, we are continuing our series of teachings entitled “In the Mirror” where we are beholding in the mirror of this new and better covenant who we are in Christ Jesus.  Again, the purpose of these messages is for us to learn what our true spiritual identity is so that we are protected from the identity theft that the enemy of our soul is constantly trying to accomplish.
 
You see, the prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6), and what this means is that even His creation, who are loved and chosen (as we’ve been learning) can still have their lives destroyed if they simply do not have correct knowledge. It doesn’t matter how loved we are and how much God wants them to experience a better life, if we persist in ignorance, then the enemy can rob us of what is rightfully ours.  
 
The ultimate example of this is how the Lord God provided the Messiah and Savior of the world, Jesus, for us. He died for the sins of the world! He provided all of mankind with the opportunity for complete redemption, total salvation, and all of its many benefits. But do all receive this so great of a salvation? Of course not! And why not? Because the majority are simply ignorant of it. Sure, they might have heard the gospel before, but their spiritual lightbulb was never “enlightened.” Therefore, they persist in walking in darkness and, if they never receive the light, will be destroyed as a result of their lack of knowledge.
 
But it doesn’t just work this way with unbelievers: How many of you know that there are a lot of born-again Christians, who while they know about Jesus dying for their sins and will go to heaven one day, are ignorant of some of the other things that Jesus died to provide for us in this life? And guess what the result is—they will likely have the enemy rob them of the quality of life God had for them to live.    
 
So, my point is that grace can be provided for us, but if we don’t know that it is available and stay ignorant of His provision, we can have the enemy steal it from us and even kill us as a result. Church, we need to know who we are and what we have in Christ Jesus so that we can walk in the life God has for us! And this is going to occur as we behold in this mirror of the new and better covenant all that we are and have in Jesus and then walk in these truths. Amen?
 
So, we have been looking at a passage of Scripture that is used to describe who we are in Christ Jesus--Second Corinthians 3:18–which I believe accurately “reflects” these truths. In it, the apostle Paul says, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
 
As we have seen, the “we all” being referred to here is the Body of Christ, the Church of the living God. Therefore, every born again, baptized in the Holy Spirit, believer is with “unveiled face”—meaning, we are not reading the truth of the glories of this new & better covenant with a veil over our face like those under the Old Covenant. And that is why Paul goes on to say, “beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord…” What glory are we beholding? Those truths of this new and better covenant of what Christ has done for us and who we are in Him! This is what we are to be beholding—the mystery of this New Covenant which is Christ in us, the hope of glory! Therefore, beholding the mirror of truths contained in the New Testament is us looking at who we are in Christ and who He is in us.
 
But, again, notice that he says that we are beholding “as in a mirror” these truths. So, the specific mirror that you and I need to be looking into in order to see who we now are is the far more exceedingly glorious New Testament where our new spiritual identity is on full display. Glory!
 
So, let’s quickly recap what we’ve seen in this mirror thus far:
 
A few weeks ago, we began looking into this mirror by looking at the filter everything is to be viewed through—love. And I made the point that I believe the first thing you and I need to see when we look into this mirror is that WE ARE LOVED! The first and foundational thing our hearts need to be established in, is in the fact that we are greatly loved by our Creator.
 
I made the point that since we are called the Lord’s Beloved many times through the New Testament’s Holy Spirit inspired pages, then that means that we “Be-Loved” by Him. So, the next time you look in the mirror, point at yourself and boldly say, “You be loved by God!”
 
But not only can we see that we are loved by God when we look in the mirror, we can also see that we are His new creation. This is what we saw next—that we are God’s own work of art, His masterpiece in Christ Jesus!
 
So, because of His great love, God began something special in each one of us when we made Jesus the Lord and Savior of our life. We saw from Second Corinthians 5:16-18 that we are a new creation in Christ Jesus where old things have passed away and all things have become new. And we learned that what God creates, He does perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Amen?
 
So next time you and I look in the mirror, we ought to say, “I am God’s New Creation! He is the Potter and I am the clay! And He has placed His treasure in this earthen vessel! Therefore, I am God’s Masterpiece, His poem!” Amen!
 
This led us to another part of our spiritual identity that we would do good to look at in the mirror of God’s Word: Not only are we loved, not only are we His masterpiece, but we are also chosen.
 
We looked at a number of Scriptures last week, and we learned that in Christ Jesus we have actually been chosen, selected, and predestined. Ephesians chapter 1 teaches us this: We saw that the apostle Paul said in verse 4, “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”
 
So, we saw that God “chose” all of us. How? In Him! So, you see, God the Father chose His Son Jesus, but by us choosing to be “in Him,” we are chosen as well. Glory! And notice when it was that God chose both us and Christ: It was not after we did everything right or grew up spiritually into a certain level of holiness and righteousness. No, He chose us in Him “before the foundation of the world.” That means before ever the foundation of the earth was laid, God chose us in Him. Yes, before we ever did anything wrong or right, we were selected by God. Amen!  
 
So, again, all of us who have received the Lord Jesus Christ are “chosen” by God—not because we are holy and without blame before Him, but to become holy and without blame before Him. Which led us to an important point, if we were chosen before we made any of our choices—good or bad—then does that mean we do not have a choice? Absolutely not, because there are many Scriptures that teach us that one must choose salvation to be the chosen for salvation.
 
We learned this from Ephesians 1:5 when Paul mentions that dreaded word “predestined.” In this verse, he went on to say, “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” But what we learned is that God’s predestination is based on His foreknowledge according to Romans 8:29 & First Peter 1:2. Therefore, love does not choose what others do; love gives a choice! And that is why God has always given mankind a free will.
 
We also looked at the Scripture where Jesus made the following statement— “For many are called, but few are chosen.” (See Matthew 22:14). And we learned that the word “chosen” here is the same word commonly defined as “elect.” But the word “called” is important here—for it means to be “invited” (to something like a banquet). You see, this shows us that just because one is “called” doesn’t mean that they have accepted the invitation.
 
But the main point I wanted to get across from this verse is not how we become the “predestined,” it is to show you what we were predestined to—and Paul says here that it was “to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself”!
 
I made the point that I believe adoption is actually one of the greatest acts of love that one could perform. Why? It is because when a child is begotten, although their parents might have been planning on having that child, the specifics regarding that child were not chosen. In other words, the parents receive what is handed to them by the grace of God, and of course, they love that child. But for a couple to adopt a child means that they specifically chose that child—meaning they picked out exactly which child they wanted. Not only that, but they jumped through many hoops to be able to adopt a child. It wasn’t like they decided they were going to adopt one day and they said, “Let me make a call.” No, it took a lot of time, effort, and resources to be able to have custody of a child. Now that, my friends, is love!
 
But my point was that so many children who are adopted seem to struggle with the idea that their biological parents gave them up for adoption. But as difficult as that is (and I certainly do not make light of the struggle involved in one’s soul if this was what life handed them), what that person needs to magnify is not what their biological parents did to them, but what their adopted parents did for them. You see, the fact that there was a couple out there who specifically chose a child to be a part of their family even though they originated from another man and woman shows the unconditional love and grace of God. How do I know this? It is because this is exactly what Father God did for each of us:
 
So, the Lord chose, predestined, and adopted us into His family, etc. because He wanted to; not because He had to! Always remember that: It is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the abundance of grace that He already has given! Amen!
 
Now we concluded last week by looking at a section of verses that beautifully summarizes and further describes what we learned– First Peter 2:4-10: We learned that Jesus was the original Living Stone that God chose and held great value to God. But we also saw how Peter went on to say that “we also, as living stones…” meaning that we too are elect by God and precious! 
 
Church, this illustrates to me something awesome: I made the point already that the value of something is based on what people are willing to pay for it. Well, if God the Father was willing to pay the price of that living stone—Jesus—to redeem us, then that means that you must be at least equally as valuable to the Father as the price He paid. Let me say it this way: Since God paid the astronomical price of the blood of His Son for your salvation, then that automatically means that you are extremely precious and valuable—even to the point of being worth as much to Him as Jesus is. Now that is a hard “gos-pill” to swallow right there!
 
But we looked at verses 9&10 because I believe these verses “mirror” who we are as God’s living stones:  We are “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
 
You see, we are God’s chosen people today. Now some believe that Peter was talking to Jewish believers here, but verse 10 teaches us otherwise—for Peter said that these believers were not a people of God, but are now the people of God. So, I believe we who had not obtained mercy have now obtained mercy in Christ Jesus!
 
So, just as Israel was called holy unto the Lord God and His own precious treasure unto Himself, now all who call on the Lord Jesus Christ and are born again are His holy nation—for all who are in Christ are citizens in the kingdom of God. Glory be to God!
 
Now this week, I want us to camp on this point we briefly touched on about God’s people being considered holy to Him because when we look in the mirror of the New Testament, we see this same truth reflected time and time again. 
 
TWO KINDS OF HOLINESS
 
Now we saw last week that being holy does not just describe some state of perfection. We saw that it can actually mean that we are special, precious and different to Him. So, holiness is not necessarily some state one attains to. It also describes the way another views something or, in this case, someone.
 
I used the example of the “Holy Bible” and how while it’s certainly perfect and infallible, it is also called “holy” because it is special and different from any other book on the planet. So, it is “holy” in that it is a special and precious Book while also being perfect and without error.
 
But here is another good example of how “holy” can also mean to be different and special: First Thessalonians 5:26 says to greet all the brethren with a holy kiss. Now how many of you know that you are not go around kissing other Christians like you would kiss your wife!?! You better not come to this church kissing on people like you kiss your spouse. No, a holy kiss would obviously be both a pure and a different kind of kiss—meaning, it’s not like other kisses out there while at the same time being void of any impure motives.
 
Well, just like we have a “Holy Bible” and “holy kisses”—which are precious and pure things—God’s church is said to be holy and without blame before Him in love. That means that He views us, spiritually speaking, as “infallible, without error, precious and prized.” Yes, we are different, His own peculiar treasure, that is passionately loved by our Creator!     
 
Church, I believe this is the way the apostle Paul used this term “holy” in Ephesians 1:4 when he said that God chose us in Him “that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”
 
Now when we look at the terminology here, we can read it as saying that Jesus chose us in Christ so that someday we should become holy and without blame before God. But that is not what Paul was saying here. He was saying that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world so that we should, at the moment we receive Him, be holy and without blame before God. In other words, in Christ Jesus, we are holy and without blame at the moment we are born again and remain that way as we remain in Him. Amen!  
 
And notice how this verse says that we are holy and without blame before Him: You see, we might have a different opinion of ourselves, and others might have different opinions of us, but it’s not anyone else’s opinion that is important; it is God’s opinion that truly matters. And if He views us as “holy” (i.e. special, precious, different, and prized) and “blameless” (We will look at this in a moment) then that’s the way we are. Period. Amen?
 
SAINTS!
 
Now one of the ways that you know how someone views you is by how they refer to you. And when we look in the mirror of this new covenant that you and I are in with God, we see a term that is commonly used to refer to us—the word “saints.”
 
Of course, this term is used when someone like the apostle Paul was referring to one of his churches, but again, we need to take these references like “beloved, saints, etc.” like God is talking to us, as all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and these men were moved by the Holy Spirit to write the things they did. Therefore, when we see that we, as a body of believers, are referred to as “saints,” then I take that as how my Heavenly Father sees me.   
 
In fact, I have found that we as the body of Christ are referred to as “saints” over 50 times in the New Testament! (See Romans 1:7, 8:27, 12:13, 15:25-26,31, 16:2,15; First Corinthians 1:2, 6:1,2, 14:33, 16:1,15; Second Corinthians 1:1, 8:4, 9:1,12, 13:13; Ephesians 1:1, 1:15,18, 2:19, 3:8, 3:18, 4:12, 5:3, 6:18; Philippians 1:1, 4:21-22; Colossians 1:2,4,12,26; First Thessalonians 5:27; Second Thessalonians 1:10; First Timothy 5:10; Philemon 5,7; Hebrews 6:10, 13:24; Jude 3,14; Revelation 5:8, 8:3-4, 13:7,10, 14:12, 15:3, 16:6, 17:6, 18:24, 19:8, 20:9). That’s a lot! In fact, it is used many more times than the term “Christians, believers, etc.”—any of these other titles that we give ourselves today as followers of Christ. So, apparently, this is one of the predominant ways God sees us. Glory!
 
You know, the way that we generally use the term “saints” today is to either refer to old Christians or dead ones. That’s right—we like to call the elderly Christians who have lived somewhat “holy” lives this, and some also like to refer to the renowned Christians who did great things many generations ago this way too. But again, the Bible doesn’t share these same sentiments. Like we said, it refers to every born-again believer this way time and time again in the New Testament.
 
Now someone might then gravitate towards watering down the meaning of the word “saint” when they see it refers to every Christian, but it does essentially mean what we have believed it to mean. It comes from the Greek word hagios which literally means “holy ones.”
 
In fact, this word hagios is the very same word used to describe God’s “holy” law (See Romans 7:12), the “holy” apostles and prophets (See Ephesians 3:5), the “Holy” Scriptures (See Romans 1:2), the “Holy” Spirit (Romans 5:5), the “Holy One,” Jesus Christ Himself (See First John 2:20 & Revelation 3:7), and, yes, the Lord God Almighty Himself who has the hosts of heaven constantly declaring that He is “Holy, holy, holy!” So, do you know what that means? It means if we are His holy ones, then we are in the same boat with the rest of these other Most Holy things! 
 
Romans 11:16 gives us this same principle: “if the root is holy, then so are the branches.” We might say according to Jesus’ word in John chapter 15, if the Vine is holy, then the branches are truly holy as well!
 
Now I understand that there are those out there who might say, “Well, don’t the Scriptures say that we are to be holy even as He is holy? (See First Peter 1:16) Yes, but the context here specifically refers to being holy in all our conduct, and we need to understand that there is a big difference between our “who” and our “do.” No, I am not talking about your hairdo, but about your actions, conduct, etc. So, yes, there is a difference between who you are and what you do.
 
Speaking of hairdos, this is one of the very things some church people think makes someone holy—how they wear their hair. They take Scriptures like First Peter 3:1-6 and say, “See there, if you are going to be holy, then you can’t be fixin’ your hair, wearing jewelry or nice clothes.” No, no, no. That’s not Peter’s point here. He was not saying that a Christian should not wear nice clothes, put on jewelry, or wear makeup. Listen, if an old barn needs painting, paint it, bless God! Just don’t make your outward man your priority. So, what Peter was teaching them was that we shouldn’t “merely” be concerned with adorning our outward man—for its beauty is fleeting—but we should give our attention to what we are wearing on the inside for that is what is very precious in the sight of God. And I’ll tell you, the hidden man of our heart is what is important! It is to God and ought to be to us as well!
 
So, should we walk in holiness? Absolutely! We need to live lives that correspond with who we are in the spirit and reflect our holiness for all the world to see. What we should avoid, however, is basing our holiness on our actions. We are not holy because of what we do; we are holy because of what Christ has done. 
 
Let’s look at another verse in this Mirror that reflects the same truth, just in a different way:
 
WITHOUT SPOT OR WRINKLE
 
In the Book of Colossians, which is a mirror book to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, Paul says, “And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight- if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I Paul, became a minister.” (Colossians 1:21-23). What a powerful passage of Scriptures!
 
Now when Paul begins with the words “And you,” what he is doing is continuing along the lines of what he said in the prior verse about Jesus making peace through His blood and reconciling the world unto Himself. So, a good paraphrase of these truths might be: “Not only has God reconciled all things back unto Himself through Jesus Christ, He also has reconciled all of mankind to Himself that receive His Son Jesus Christ.” Glory to Jesus! This will become important when it comes to what he said next …
 
Paul goes on to say, “And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works.” Notice that this says we “who once were.” That’s a far cry from “who now are.” But it sure doesn’t feel this way sometimes, does it? Sometimes those “wicked works” can leave us feeling in our minds like we are alienated from and enemies of God, can’t they? Yes, when we miss it and fall short of God’s glory, we are left feeling “alienated,” which literally means “to be excluded, separated, or foreign to.” This means that His life can feel “foreign” to us. Not only that, but we can even feel like God is hostile towards us.   
 
But I want you to notice where the core-root of this alienation from and hostility towards God was located— “in your mind.” In other words, what we experienced was a result of the way we were thinking and what we believed in our heart. So, what this means is that if it was our “stinking thinking” that led us away from God in the first place, then the renewing of our minds must be part of the process of restoring us back to God. In other words, if this alienation began in our minds, it is possible that we can continue to experience alienation in our flesh & soul until our thinking changes.
 
And I am telling you the truth, the majority of Christians who have been fully reconciled to God do not sense or experience that reconciliation and live their entire lives feeling like God is way up there somewhere and they are stuck way down here all alone. This ought not to be so, church! This verse goes on to say, “yet now He has reconciled.” Not, “yet in the future He will reconcile,” but “now He has reconciled.” Therefore, all who have put their faith in Christ have been and currently are reconciled unto God! Glory!
 
Once you renew your mind to that truth—when you own it as yours—then say goodbye to feeling like you are alienated from God and His enemy! Praise God! You will experience that peace that comes through His reconciliation!
 
Then notice the glorious truths of verse 22— “in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, blameless, and above reproach in His sight…” So, Jesus offered up His life as a sacrifice for our sins in order to present us to God like an offering that is holy, blameless, and above reproach in the sight of God!
 
Now we’ve already touched on this word “holy,” but let’s look at the other terms used to describe our reconciled condition in Christ …
 
The word “blameless” refers to being “faultless & without blemish”—like the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament were to be without blemish. In fact, this word “blameless” is the same word used in 1 Peter 1:19 to describe Jesus as the Lamb “without blemish” and without spot. Therefore, we have been presented to the Father like pure and spotless lambs because we are in the Lamb of God who is pure and spotless! That means we have no spots, no wrinkles, and are presented that way to our Holy Husband (Compare with Ephesians 5:26-27).
 
Notice the next words— “above reproach.” This literally means “not called in” (i.e. “not called to account”). This phrase describes being totally free from any charge being on our account. You see, not only are we made without blemish, but all the charges that we previously had on our account have been washed away in the blood of Christ! Glory! But wait, it gets even better …
 
Paul goes to say that we are holy, blameless, and above reproach “in His sight.” This is the same “sight” that all things are naked and open to the eyes of (See Hebrews 4:13). The Greek word for “sight” literally means “to look down it,” denoting a deep inspection and a penetrating gaze. You see, God has so thoroughly cleansed us, made us blameless, and erased the charges we once had, that not even God’s most thorough and penetrating inspection can detect a flaw in our newly recreated spirit! Glory!
 
Again, the picture that Paul is painting here in verse 22 is of God’s most desirable offering under the Old Testament. He began by showing how Jesus—who truly was the perfect sacrifice—died for us so that He could present us—who were imperfect in ourselves—as “holy, blameless, and above reproach in the sight of God.” Yes, Jesus Christ—the Lamb of God who is without blemish and without spot—suffered in our place—so that we could become His perfect and holy people, that even under the most complete and thorough inspection of God Himself would be found to be perfect and complete before Him! Glory to God!
 
And guess what qualifies us for this amazing grace? Just a continuing faith as verse 23 goes on to say— “if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard…”
 
Now “the faith” being referred to here is the faith of Jesus Christ, our new and better covenant. So, with that in mind, let me remind you of one of the verses that we are basing this series on--James 1:22-25. In these verses, Pastor James was teaching his congregation how God’s Word is like a mirror, and the way to be a doer of the Word is to continue looking in the mirror as opposed to hearing the Word and then going away from the truths you’ve heard.
 
Well, I see the same principle here in Colossians 1:23—that we must continue in this mirror of the New and Better Covenant, grounded and steadfast in it, in order to experience this “holy, blameless, and above reproach” state. And I would say that this is exactly how you and I live in the awareness of who we are in Christ and how our Father views us—by continuing to look in the mirror of the faith and constantly beholding these truths! Amen!
 
Church, we must set these truths ever before us and proclaim them in the face of all temptations to believe otherwise. Yes, when our flesh, our own heart, or the devil tries to tell us that we are impure, unclean, or not special, it is then that we need to proclaim that we are “Holy!” When our mind or the enemy tries to tell us that we are to be blamed, it is then that we must proclaim that we are “blameless.” When any of these things try to bring an accusation of something we may have done, it is then that we must proclaim that we are “without reproach.” Yes, it is when we look in the mirror and declare “It is written, It is written, It is written” that we will begin to experience the fruit of who are in the spirit. Amen! 

REVIEW
 
So, last week, we continued our series of teachings entitled “In the Mirror.” And again, the purpose of these teachings is to behold who we are in Christ and learn our true spiritual identity so that the enemy is not able to steal what is rightfully ours.
 
We have learned that just as identity theft is arguably one of the most harmful and inconvenient ways that someone can steal from us, spiritual identity theft is one of the ways that the enemy robs us of everything that God has for us. So, it is imperative that you and I look into the mirror of God’s Word and behold who we are in Christ in order to establish our hearts in these truths so that the thief cannot come steal, kill and destroy God’s life from us.  
 
Now I have entitled this series “In the Mirror” because the Word of God describes itself as a mirror that reflects to us both who we are and what God wills for us to be. And we have been looking at a passage of Scripture that is used to describe who we are in Christ Jesus--Second Corinthians 3:18–which I believe accurately “reflects” the truths the Lord wants us to see in this series.
 
But of course, that is not how people use the law of the Old Covenant—back then and even still today, people try to use God’s law as a mirror. What I mean is they are looking into it to try and find their identity (i.e. as a means to attain salvation, saying things like— “If you just keep God’s law, He will accept you.”) But that’s not true! The truth is that through the New Covenant, Jesus has already made us acceptable, qualified and justified in the sight of God—us all.
 
That is why the apostle Paul said in this verse, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
 
As we have seen, the “we all” being referred to here is the Body of Christ, the Church of the living God. Therefore, every born-again, baptized in the Holy Spirit, believer is with “unveiled face”—meaning, we are not reading the truth of the glories of this new & better covenant with a veil over our face like those under the Old Covenant. And that is why Paul goes on to say, “beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord…” What glory are we beholding? Those truths of this new and better covenant of what Christ has done for us and who we are in Him! This is what we are to be beholding—the mystery of this New Covenant which is Christ in us, the hope of glory! Therefore, beholding the mirror of truths contained in the New Testament is us looking at who we are in Christ and who He is in us.
 
But, again, notice that he says that we are beholding “as in a mirror” these truths. So, the specific mirror that you and I need to be looking into in order to see who we now are is the far more exceedingly glorious New Testament where our new spiritual identity in on full display.
 
So, a couple of weeks ago, we began looking into this mirror by looking at the filter everything is to be viewed through—love. Yes, I made the point that I believe the first thing you and I need to see when we look into this mirror is that WE ARE LOVED! It is the first and foundational thing our hearts need to be established in is in the fact that we are greatly loved by our Creator. This is who we are, and this is what propels us into the other truths that we will look at in the coming weeks.
 
This is why I call this “Mirror,” that we call the Holy Bible, our love letter from God—for all of it speaks of the great love that God has for His creation and the great lengths that He has gone to in order to express that love towards us. So, when you and I read these Scriptures, we ought to see time and time again on these pages that we have a Heavenly Father who so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son so that He could have a spiritual family to both love and be loved by.
 
I also said that this one truth is what I believe to be the single greatest revelation that we could ever receive. And why? Because knowing in our hearts God’s great love for us will produce in us several other virtues—and perhaps the most important is the ability to fulfill the Great Commandment to love God and to love one another.
 
Church, we are the Lord’s Beloved! That means that when we look in the mirror of God’s Word, we can clearly see that we “Be-Loved” by Him. So, the next time you look in the mirror, point at yourself and boldly say, “You be loved by God!” Your flesh might cringe when you do it, but just know that because you see it in the mirror of God’s Word, you can declare it in the mirror of this world. You be loved and there is nothing you can do about it—save receive it in your heart and confess it with your mouth. Amen!
 
But what we learned last week is that, because of this great love that God has for us, He began something special in each one of us when we made Jesus the Lord and Savior of our life. Now, to the naked eye, we might not see it, but it’s true nonetheless. And it is for this reason that many parts of the New Testament are foreign to us and the Bible seems hard to understand.
 
So, we went over to Second Corinthians 5:16-18 and saw that from now on, we do not know Jesus according to the flesh anymore since His death, burial and resurrection. Now we know Him based on the Gospel that says He was raised from the dead and lifted up to sit at the right hand of God—completely glorified and highly exalted. This is how we regard no one according to the flesh—by believing the Gospel when we cannot see it. And we saw that this is an important point to understand under our new covenant—that because we all died with Christ and have been raised to a new life in Him, we are not to judge anyone according to the flesh anymore.
 
Then in verses 17-18a it says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God…”
 
Church, it is sad, but most Christians live and die, never understanding what took place in them on the day they were born again and found in Christ. They receive Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and they see themselves no different than the way they were before they were saved. But, saints, being “in Christ” holds many tremendous promises that we would do well to both see and embrace.
 
As we learned, when we were born again, something glorious took place in the spirit realm: Second Corinthians 5:17 goes on to say that at the moment we were placed in Christ, we became a new creation in Christ Jesus, where old things passed away and all things became new. So, contrary to popular opinion, we are not just sinners saved by grace; we are now saints because we have been given an abundance of grace.
 
Last week, we also saw that we are not just this physical body that we look at in the mirror. Nor are we just the soul—the life we have on the inside of our physical body. First Thessalonians 5:23 teaches us that our “whole” person is “completely” spirit, soul, and body. So, we learned from Second Corinthians that it was our spirit, not our soul or our body, that became this new creation. Yes, saints, our spirit is the part of us that was completely transformed when we received our Lord and Savior and, therefore, we might not sense any of these changes physically or emotionally. It is the part of us where old things passed away, it is the part of us where all things became new, and it is the part of us that became “in Christ.”
 
Now, as we learned, we were not created out of nothing. We had “old things” that “passed away”— namely, an old man that was crucified with Christ. We had an old sin nature that needed to be crucified on the cross of Christ. This was that old man that had death abiding in it. It was the part of us that could not love and serve God. It was the part of us that was incapable of living in obedience to Him. And, finally, it was the part of us that could not experience the life of God and experience salvation. This old man had to “pass away” and die. And this is what happens in that moment that we make Jesus the Lord and Savior of our life. The old man dies and, behold, all things become new! Glory to God! In other words, all things in our life begin afresh and anew! There is a new beginning in our life! Everything wrong and sinful that we had said or done before we came to know Jesus Christ was washed away in His blood! It doesn’t matter how big our sins were. It doesn’t matter how many sins we committed. They are all washed away in the blood of Christ and even the old sin nature that we had that inspired us to commit those sins was crucified.
 
So, in essence, it is as if we were created out of nothing. Not that there was never a life we lived before we were born again, but the slate has been washed so clean by the blood of Christ that it is as if our world never existed before salvation. So, let me encourage you that it doesn’t matter what you did and it doesn’t matter how gross the sin. If you have been born again—all the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new in you!
 
So, in Christ, we are not just renovated, renewed, or upgraded; no, our spirit is completely recreated with the life, nature, and characteristics of Christ Himself! Yes, friends, when you made Jesus the Lord and Savior of your life, your spirit was not just improved upon, renovated, or healed. No, when you became a Christian, your spirit was recreated!
 
But the main point we made last week is that if we are a new creation, being recreated in Christ Jesus, then we are God’s masterpiece! 
 
We looked at Ephesians 2:1-10 and learned more about this: We saw in verses 1-3, the apostle Paul shows us what our situation was before coming to the knowledge of the Lord, and in verses 4-9, he shows us all that God did for us by His amazing grace. But we camped on how the apostle Paul concludes this great doctrinal lesson by saying in verse 10— “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
 
Now like we saw in Second Corinthians 5:17, when the Bible says that we are His workmanship and created in Christ Jesus, it is referring not to our outward man, but to the inward man—that is, our spirit.
 
Now as beautiful and wonderful as God’s original creation was and is, and as amazing as His grace over His creation was and is, the part of us that became a new creation and a product of His workmanship was the spiritual part of us. Yes, it was our spirit that was recreated in Christ at the moment we were born again and is a product of God’s workmanship.
 
So, we learned what it is to be His “workmanship”. This word comes from the Greek word poiema which is where we get our words “poem” and “poetry” from. As a matter of fact, this word poiema came to describe something that was a product of an artist’s handiwork or artwork—like a sculpture or a painting. Therefore, this word describes something that is a product of one’s creativity and artistic abilities. So, when the apostle Paul said that we are God’s “workmanship” here in Ephesians 2:10, you could translate this that we are God’s own work of art! Better yet, since God—who has to be considered the most creative and wonderful artist ever to exist—is the one who designed and sculptured our spirit, then you could say that we are His masterpiece! Hallelujah! Did you get that? You are God’s own handiwork, His work of art, and His masterpiece! You have been created in Christ—beautifully and ornately fashioned by the Creator, who is the epitome of creativity and artistry! And as I said last week, let me assure you in the worst English that I can: God don’t make no junk! 😉 If you are His workmanship, then you are perfect, complete, and beautiful! There are no flaws in your spirit man!
 
We looked at the way the apostle Paul words it in Second Corinthians 4:7 when he says that we have this treasure in earthen vessels. Now the emphasis I usually hear placed on this passage of Scripture is on the earthen vessels themselves. People will say, “Yeah, we are just cracked and flawed jars of clay.” But what about the treasure that in these vessels? You know, I guarantee you that if you were to buy a piece of land, and started excavating it and came upon an earthen vessel that was buried out in it that was filled with precious treasures, you wouldn’t spend your time calling people, telling them about your dirty old cracked earthen vessel, would you? No! You probably wouldn’t even mention the thing that the buried treasure was hidden in! You would be rejoicing in the treasure that was in it! (That sounds like that would have been a good parable for Jesus to use, doesn’t it? 😉)
 
So, let’s use the analogy of a painting or a sculpture to describe what happened in your spirit when you were born again: When God took your dead spirit, where no good thing dwelt and painted/sculpted you into a new creation in Christ, what He did was He painted on the canvas of your heart the likeness of Jesus Christ! What He did was He sculpted, as the potter sculpts the clay, a full image of Jesus Christ Himself in your inner man! So, He made you all that He is because you are in Him and He is in you! Praise be unto God!
 
Understanding this is what will make truths in the Word of God such as we are the righteousness of God, we are saints, and we are beloved, easier to accept! It is because it is not our righteousness! It is not our holiness! It is not a matter of how lovely we are! You are accepted, forgiven, redeemed, saved, righteous, holy, and loved because of who He is in you! So, when the Father looks into a born again, child of God, He is not looking at our faults and shortcomings; He is looking at the beautiful image of Jesus Christ! Hallelujah! Jesus is what makes us God’s masterpiece!    
 
So next time you look in the mirror, say, “You are God’s New Creation! He is the Potter and you are the clay! He made you just the way you are supposed to be! You are molded, shaped, and fashioned by the Master Craftsman, His own handiwork! And you are not a Van Goh, Picasso, or Da-Vinci either; you are God’s Masterpiece! You are His poem!” Amen!
 
Just like in God’s original creation when He made the sun, the moon, the stars, this earth and all that is within it, He rested on the seventh day and saying at the end of the sixth day, “It is very good” (See Genesis 1:31) Now He didn’t rest because it wore Him out and He needed a breather from all that “creating.” No, He rested in the sense that an artist will cease from his work, knowing that it is finished, and will sit on his or her stool with the brush in their mouth, admiring their work.
 
I’m telling you saints, when Jesus hung on that Cross and said, “It is finished!” it really was. Sure, we are a work in progress when it comes to our physical self, but when it comes to our spirit, we are finished, and we are very good! Amen!
 
So, that leads us to another part of our spiritual identity that we would do good to look at in the mirror of God’s Word: Not only are we loved, not only are we recreated, but we are also CHOSEN.
 
A HOLY PEOPLE
 
Before we get into the New Testament, let’s begin in the Book of Deuteronomy--Deuteronomy 7:6-8. I want us to look first in this passage of Scripture because I believe God’s heart in choosing the people of Israel to be His own, chosen people “mirrors” what God did for us in Christ Jesus.  
 
In these verses, God began to say to the children of Israel— “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth…”
 
Now, first of all, when He began by describing them as a “holy” people to Himself, we need to understand that He was not using this term “holy” like we do today. No, He was not saying that they were perfect, blameless or flawless; he was saying that they were different “to the Lord your God”—meaning, they were not like the other nations, but were special, different, and precious to Him.
 
For example, this Book is called “The Holy Bible,” right? What that means is that it is a special Book, and not to be considered like just like any other book out there. It’s different in that it is inspired by God and ought to be precious to us. Likewise, Israel is called God’s own special people and precious to Him. We see this in the rest of verse 6 when He said, “…the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.”
 
Now can you imagine how this must have made Israel feel? “We are special to God! We are His favorites among all the peoples on the face of the earth!” But this was obviously not because they deserved it either. God set them apart for Himself before all of their mistakes and flaws, and why? This verse says it was because He “chose” to choose them.
 
Notice what the Lord went on to say in verses 7-8— “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”
 
You see, there are two very important things to understand in these two verses about God choosing Israel:
 
1.He said that He did not set His love on them or choose them because of how mighty and strong they were in terms of numbers. What this is saying is that the Lord does not choose people because they are strong, smart, talented, or worthy of being chosen in any way. No, He actually delights in choosing the weak, the poor, the dishonored, etc. In other words, one is not chosen because they are sufficient in themselves or because of their own abilities and work. It is all by His grace, and as He goes on to say, because of His love.
2.But He also said that He chose them because He was keeping His promise which He made to their fathers. In other words, the Lord is a covenant keeping God. If He swore an oath to someone, He will keep it no matter what. And the great news for us is that Father God’s covenant is now with His Son! So, now God will keep the covenant that He swore to His Son! Glory and hallelujah!
 
THE CHOSEN ONES
 
Now I understand people read verses like this one in Deuteronomy and say, “Sure, this is true for Israel, but I am not Jewish”—and so, they will doubt that this applies to them. I am going to prove to you today that this exact thing is true for everyone who receives the Messiah as their Lord and Savior. Amen!    
 
So, let’s begin looking in the mirror of the New Covenant by going over to Ephesians 1:3-14:  This will be a section of verses that we will likely revisit in the coming weeks, but I want you to see today how this principle of being “chosen” is one of the big “In Christ” truths we see in the apostle Paul’s letters.
 
Notice in Ephesians 1:4 that the Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul says, “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”
 
Now the “us” referred to here is Gentiles and Jews alike because the apostle Paul, obviously Jewish was writing to the Church of Ephesus, obviously consisting mainly of Gentiles. So, God “chose” all of us. How? In Him! So, you see, God the Father chose His Son Jesus, but by us choosing to be “in Him,” we are chosen as well. Glory!
 
And notice when it was that God chose both us and Christ: It was not after we did everything right or grew up spiritually into a certain level of holiness and righteousness. No, He chose us in Him “before the foundation of the world.” That means before ever the foundation of the earth was laid, God chose us in Him.
 
You see, Jesus is called in Revelation 13:8 the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. That means that God’s provision for the salvation of the whole world was “chosen” before the initial foundation of this world was ever created. Glory! What this means is that the provision for sin was made before the sin was ever committed. God alone is wise!   
 
But let’s consider this for a moment: Like the Passover Lamb was “chosen” on the tenth day of the first month, but was held until the fourteenth day of the same month (See Exodus 12:3&6), Jesus, who is our Passover Lamb, was chosen well before He was crucified. Well, did you know God essentially did the same with you and I? He chose us before we did any good or evil (Compare Romans 9:11)!
 
We looked at the following verses before, but they bear repeating here: 
 
Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”
 
So, the first thing we have recorded that God told Jeremiah was this one truth—that before he was even formed in his mother’s womb, God already knew him! And before he was physically born, the Lord had even “set him apart” (i.e. sanctified) and ordained him to be prophet to the nations. Mind you, this was before Jeremiah had ever done anything to deserve this awesome calling and it was before he ever made the mistakes that we all know he must have made in his life. God chose Him by grace! Amen!
 
We see this as well in the life of the apostle Paul, when in his testimony, he said, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace.” (Galatians 1:15).  
 
So, like Jeremiah, we see Saul of Tarsus being set apart and chosen from his mother’s womb, being called through the grace of God. And, boy, don’t we know that God choosing the apostle Paul before he was born was certainly an act of God’s grace—because this guy was the ringleader of the persecution of the church in Jerusalem!
 
But you and I have to know that if God chose men like Jeremiah and Paul before they were formed in their mother’s wombs, and if He chose Jesus to be the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, then wouldn’t He do this with everyone else? Amen! That means that before you were ever formed in your mother’s womb, He knew you. And before you were born, He had already chosen you, calling you through His grace. Glory to God!
 
So, again, like we see in Ephesians 1:4—all of us who have received the Lord Jesus Christ are “chosen” by God—not because we are holy and without blame before Him, but to become holy and without blame before Him. There is a big difference in one versus the other!
 
PREDESTINATION & ELECTION
 
Now let’s move on to verse 5, because when we talk about God choosing people, there is a doctrinal issue that comes up that is misunderstood by many: Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 1:5— “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.”
 
You see, when many Christians see this word “predestined,” they cringe. Of course, there have even been denominations built on this particular doctrine. And although I do not claim to have a complete understanding of this subject, I believe it is not as complicated as many have made it.
 
If you look at verses such as Romans 8:29 & First Peter 1:2 where this word “predestined” is used (or alluded to), you will see a common thread with this subject of predestination:  In both of these passages of Scripture, you will find that our election and predestination is based upon God’s “foreknowledge.” This is important to understand because many incorrectly believe that God is just picking and predestining our paths simply because He wills and purposes it for us. But no, God is not some great puppeteer up in the sky picking and choosing who will choose Him and who will reject Him. How do I know this, you ask? It is because this would be inconsistent with God’s nature, which we know to be love.
 
No, love does not choose what others do; love gives a choice! And that is why God has always given mankind a free will. It is the reason He put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden and it is the reason why there is a hell reserved for all who reject Him. He does not give us these alternate options because He wills that any perish. We are told explicitly in the Bible that He does not desire for any of His creation to perish (see Second Peter 3:9). But God, in His great love for the human race, has given us a choice! He has given us a free will! He has said, “Behold, I set before you life and death, blessing and cursing.” He sets before us two paths: a. Doing it His way and, subsequently, choosing life or b. Doing it our way, and subsequently, choosing death. Therefore, people chose the path they go on, and when we choose the Way, the Truth, and the Life, we become the “chosen” ones.
 
But the fact remains that the Bible does indeed say that we are “predestined.” So, what does this mean? Well, the answer is found in that word “foreknowledge”: The word “foreknowledge” comes from the Greek word proginosko which is where we get our English word “prognosis” from. So, what is a prognosis? A prognosis is a predetermination of the outcome of current symptoms based on their usual course. In other words, a prognosis is a foreknowledge of what a current symptom will result in if left untreated.
 
You see, God knew our hearts before we were even created. So, He was able to predetermine what we would do with the truth presented to us. In other words, He had complete foreknowledge of the choices we would make before the world was ever formed. So, since God knows what decisions we will make before we make them and because He knows the end from the beginning, He was able to “predestinate” or “choose” us to be His own based on this proginosko (i.e. foreknowledge).
 
Friends, God is a good and just God who loves us so much that He sent His Son to die for all, that all will have the opportunity to receive His free gift. He would be violating His nature of love to not extend this free gift to everyone. Aren’t you glad you are one of those “chosen” ones that “chose” Jesus? I sure am! 
 
But here is another good way to explain this controversial subject:  More than once, Jesus made the following statement— “For many are called, but few are chosen.” (See Matthew 22:14).
 
The word “chosen” here is the same word commonly defined as “elect.” We see this word translated this way in Colossians 3:12 & First Peter 1:2. But the word “called” is important here—for it means to be “invited” (to something like a banquet). You see, this shows us that just because one is “called” doesn’t mean that they have accepted the invitation.
 
For example, we see this in Jesus’ parable of the Great Supper found in Luke 14:15-24: Jesus begins by saying, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many…” So, we see that this man (an obvious type of God the Father) gave a “great” supper. That indicates this was a big deal! He did a lot to prepare all of this food and drink! Likewise, the Lord did a lot to prepare so great a salvation for us. Sure, He killed the fatted calf which provided the meat of our salvation (a type of Jesus’s death, burial and resurrection which assured our salvation), but He also provided many delectable sides and desserts that come with this so great of a salvation. Amen.
 
Then we see that He “invited many.” That indicates that He did not just invite a “select elect;” no, he invited a bunch of people—for again, many are called, but few are chosen. Now there are varying beliefs of who these chosen were, but I personally believe the few that are “chosen” are the few that decided to come when the invitation was sent out to the “many.”      
 
Now in verse 17, Jesus went on to say, “and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’” So, we can clearly see that since the “certain man” was Father God that “his servant” is His Son, Jesus Christ. Therefore, Jesus was sent to the earth at “supper time” in the kingdom of God. Why? “To say to those who were invited…” Notice that they were invited before He was sent. This again describes to us the true doctrine of predestination & election.
 
You see, it is not that God predestines one to life and another to destruction. No, He simply made preparations for the Great Supper and sent out the invitations beforehand. Then He sent out His Holy Servant, Jesus, to say to those who were invited, “Come, for all things are now ready.” This was essentially the Gospel that Jesus came to preach during His 33 years on the earth. But did they “Come” in response to His invitation? Nope! All of these that Jesus was sent to did not accept the invitation to the Master’s Great Supper, but began to make excuses as to why they couldn’t come. And (sadly) still today, out of the many who are invited (i.e. called), few become “chosen”—meaning few accept the invitation.
 
But as we saw earlier, this word “chosen” is also defined as “elect”—which literally describes “the act of picking out or choosing.” So, you could say that “election” is “selection.” Which leads me to my next point …
 
ADOPTED AS SONS
 
The main point I want to get across from this verse is not how we become the “predestined,” it is to show you what we were predestined to—and Paul says here that it was “to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself”! Now this, my friends, is something to shout about!
 
You see, I believe adoption is actually one of the greatest acts of love that one could perform. Why? It is because when a child is begotten, although their parents might have been planning on having that child, the specifics regarding that child were not chosen. In other words, the parents receive what is handed to them by the grace of God, and of course, they love that child. But for a couple to adopt a child means that they specifically chose that child—meaning they picked out exactly which child they wanted. Not only that, but they jumped through many hoops to be able to adopt a child. It wasn’t like they decided they were going to adopt one day and they said, “Let me make a call.” No, it took a lot of time, effort, and resources to be able to have custody of a child. Now that, my friends, is love!
 
Now of course, Shannon and I do not have any experience in adopting another human being but we do have experience in the adoption our baby blue girl, Bluesy. I will not bore you with the story, but I will say that Bluesy was not as easy on the eyes as the other puppies that were up for adoption. She was not as fluffy and cute as some of the others. But the father / the husband saw potential in that runt of the litter and made his case to adopt her above the others. And, praise God, we did!
 
But my point is that so many children who are adopted seem to struggle with the idea that their biological parents gave them up for adoption. But as difficult as that is (and I certainly do not make light of the struggle involved in one’s soul if this was what life handed them), what that person needs to magnify is not what their biological parents did to them, but what their adopted parents did for them. You see, the fact that there was a couple out there who specifically chose a child to be a part of their family even though they originated from another man and woman shows the unconditional love and grace of God. How do I know this? It is because this is exactly what Father God did for each of us:
 
He predestined us to come into His family—making all the necessary preparations and provisions to apprehend us as His own. He did this by setting aside His Lamb, slain before the foundation of the world, and sending Him to this earth in the fullness of time to die our death that we might live His life. He then chose us out of this world’s orphanage—specifically hand-picking us to become His own. And in the process of predestinating and choosing us, He changed us from being one of those dirty little orphans into holy and blameless children, washed in the blood of the Lamb. And with this spiritual adoption into His family came all the blessings that come as being a child of God. Amen! We are made rich! We are made whole! We are made clean! And we have a name now in that our Elder Brother and our Heavenly Father have brought us into their family. Praise be unto the Father of lights!  
 
And as we are told in the end of verse 5, He did this “according to the good pleasure of His will.” That is just an old English way of saying, “He did all of this because He desired to and because it made Him happy.”
 
Yes, friends, the Lord chose, predestined, and adopted us into His family, etc. because He wanted to; not because He had to! Always remember that: It is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the abundance of grace that He already has given! Amen!
 
            THE CHOSEN GENERATION
 
Now, in conclusion, I want us to look at a section of verses that beautifully summarizes and further describes what we have been learning today: 
 
In First Peter 2:4-9 the apostle Peter says, “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, ‘Behold, I lay in Zion A chief cornerstone, elect, precious, And he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.’ Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,’ and ‘A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.’ They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.”
 
First of all, I want you to notice in verse 4 how Jesus is described as a living stone who was rejected by men, but chosen by God and precious. It would be like us seeing a “Rock” on the ground that looked just like a regular old rock. But what we fail to realize is that this Rock is actually the rarest of stones and worth more than all of the world’s diamonds combined. What this illustrates to us is that even though Jesus was rejected by people because they never saw the value that was in Him, God had “chosen” Him, knowing how priceless He truly was, is and evermore shall be.
 
You see, usually what determines the value of something is what people are willing to pay for it. In other words, when people begin paying large sums of money for an item, then the value begins to increase of that item. However, in the case of Jesus, men rejected Him—not seeing His true value. You could say that they took that valuable stone and cast it aside as common and worthless. But how many of you know that
no human being truly has the right to determine what is valuable—only God because His is the only opinion that matters!?!
 
But, you see, many Christians accept this truth about that Living Stone named Jesus. However, notice what the apostle Peter went on to say in verse 5— “you also, as living stones…” Now wait a minute: I thought Peter said that Jesus was this living stone. He did, but he also says that “you also, as living stones.” Again, as He is, so are we in this world! Just as He is the light of the world and told us that we also are the light of the world, He is a living stone, and we also are living stones. Glory!
 
This illustrates to me something awesome: I made the point already that the value of something is based on what people are willing to pay for it. Well, if God the Father was willing to pay the price of that living stone—Jesus—to redeem us, then that means that you must be at least equally as valuable to the Father as the price He paid. Let me say it this way: Since God paid the astronomical price of the blood of His Son for your salvation, then that automatically means that you are extremely precious and valuable—even to the point of being worth as much to Him as Jesus is. Now that is a hard “gos-pill” to swallow right there!
 
Now let’s skip down to verses 9-10 because these verses teach us some awesome truths:  Verse 9 begins by saying, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
 
The first two words “But you” now turns the attention to us—all those who have obeyed the truth and believed on that Chief Cornerstone. So, what this means is that everything contained in verses 9-10 is a solid look into our spiritual mirror!
 
And the first thing Peter says is that we are a “chosen generation.” Now some translations define this phrase as “elect race.” And this is not talking just to Jews here. The true “chosen generation” and sons of Abraham are those who walk in the faith of Abraham. Didn’t John the Full Gospel, Pentecostal, Charismatic (He wasn’t Baptist) say that God could raise up these stones to be sons of Abraham? (Matthew 3:9) Interesting analogy, huh—because that is exactly what happened! He took these Gentile stones that were rejected and made them alive, sons and daughters of Abraham! Glory!
 
Then Peter goes on to call us—all followers of Jesus Christ—a “royal priesthood”:  Notice that in this phrase, there is a reference to both royalty and the priesthood. Doesn’t Revelation 1:6 say that He has made us all kings & priests unto our God? I see that as saying we as born-again believers who are in Christ are both sons and servants of God. We are born (again) as God’s sons and are therefore the kings that the King is King of (i.e. King of kings). But we are also made His priests—that is, those who serve at the altar of God and minister to others. Both of these are who we are!
 
Then Peter describes us as a “holy nation”:  We are obviously not talking physically here. No, we are now fellow citizens in the kingdom of God, and therefore, are a part of the holy nationality. Amen!
 
Then He describes us as “His own special people”:  Now the King James Version translations says, “peculiar” and sometimes I think that would have been a more accurate translation😉. But no, this phrase literally describes those who are “God’s own possession”—which “mirrors” what the Lord repeatedly told Israel as we saw before. We are His treasure!
 
And the purpose of us being a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and His own priceless possession is so that we “may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” Church, this is one of our primary callings—to proclaim His praises to those who are lost and without God in the world. Just as Israel was called to be God’s light to the Gentiles, now all who are in Christ are also called to be a light to the world and proclaim His praises.
 
You see, the church today is God’s chosen people. Some think that Peter was talking to Jewish believers here, but verse 10 teaches us otherwise. For Peter said that these believers were not a people of God, but are now the people of God. So, either A. Peter was talking to Jews of natural descent here and saying that they are not God’s chosen people until they accept their Messiah or B. he was talking about all Gentiles who were not God’s people now becoming God’s people. I believe the latter is the truth. I believe we who had not obtained mercy have now obtained mercy in Christ Jesus!
 
So, in conclusion, we all—all who are in Christ—are the chosen ones of God! This means that before the first foundation of the earth was ever laid, we were selected and hand-picked by Almighty God to be His own priceless treasure! We were adopted by our Heavenly Father, elected by Him to be holy and without blame before Him and for Him!  
 
What an awesome truth to know that we are the chosen ones of God. This should fill our hearts with joy and peace knowing that God thought enough of us and loved us enough to personally select us to be His elect! Glory to God! This is who the mirror says that we are! Amen.

​INTRODUCTION
 
There are certain Biblical topics that I personally believe we should include as a regular part of our diet. For example, we need to regularly hear about the love of God—both His love for us and us walking in love towards others. I also believe we need to routinely hear about faith, in that without it, it is impossible to please God and because it is the only way to receive from Him. I would also include our personal relationship with God because that it is the primary purpose of our calling in Christ Jesus. But one of those subjects that I believe we need to regularly feed on is our spiritual identity (i.e. who we are in Christ). The reason for this is because understanding what God has done for us in Christ Jesus and who we are in the spirit keeps us from one of the enemy’s number one devices that he uses to both steal from us and to kill & destroy us with—identity theft.
 
You see, I’m sure we all have had someone steal from us before—maybe our home or vehicle was broken into and something was taken that was ours. Perhaps our wallet or purse was snatched by a thief. There are a lot of ways that we have experienced someone robbing us, but arguably the most harmful and inconvenient way someone can steal from us is by stealing our identity.
 
Some of us have experience with this, don’t we? There are those here today who have suffered from debit or credit card fraud, medical fraud, or other kinds of financial fraud. Others have had things like their driver’s license, social security, name, address, or birthdate stolen from them and have had a lot of issues to deal with as a result. And the fact is, all of these forms of identity theft create a tremendous amount of problems in one’s life—it can affect us not only financially, but emotionally, socially, and even physically.
 
But there are other ways that one can have their identity stolen apart from these physical situations: There are many who have had their true identity stripped from them by bad parenting, hurtful peers, and other outside influences who maybe spoke horrible things over them. And even though other people cannot steal our identity without our consent (for we must agree with and believe what they are saying in order for it to affect us), the fact is, most do let the opinion of others form who they are, particularly when it happens at a young age. Therefore, these bad things that happened to us early in life can have damaging effects on our identity.      
 
However, I have found that there is something much more damaging than suffering from these various forms of identity theft that can happen to us in life and that is similar to how people have had their identity stripped by the words and actions of those around them; this is having our spiritual identity stolen from us. You see, like it is with the harmful words of other people, the enemy of our soul cannot do what some of these thieves are successful in doing to us. He cannot steal our identity without our consent. Yes, in order for him to take our goods, we have to let him by believing his lies and succumbing to his temptations.  
 
This is why it is so imperative that you and I discover who we are in Christ and no longer allow him to steal our true identity from us—for if he can deceive us into seeing ourselves different than the way God sees us, we are going to constantly be fighting an uphill battle.
 
So, what I want us to begin doing this week is to look in the mirror and see who we are in Christ so that the thief’s attempts to steal from us and destroy our lives are no longer successful. Amen?
 
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?
 
Now I have entitled this series “In the Mirror” because in order for us to learn who we truly are, we are going to have to look in the mirror and find out. No, I am not talking about that “vanity mirror” in your home that is essentially your everyday, personal grooming mirror used to check your appearance, do your hair, apply makeup and basically assist you to look your best. That kind of mirror is just that—vanity.
 
But that’s how the majority of the world identifies themselves—it’s by the vanity of things like how we look, what we wear, what kind of car we drive, how big our home is, etc. This is vanity, church, and not where a Christian should find their identity. Our identity is found in Christ, not in our age, our weight, our financial status, etc., etc., etc. Yes, we are blessed, anointed, and highly favored, not because of how things look in our physical lives, but because of how things truly are in our spiritual lives. Amen!   
 
So, someone might ask--How can we see who we truly are in our spiritual lives? Is there a spiritual mirror? Let me answer those questions by saying this—These vanity mirrors (as they are called) are also called “makeup mirrors.” So, if you want to see your “spiritual makeup,” then you are going to have to look into a spiritual makeup mirror.
 
You see, these makeup mirrors are used for women to apply their makeup. Well, I am here to tell you that if you don’t like your physical, financial, or spiritual makeup, then the process of changing it begins with washing your face! How do we do that? By the washing of water by the Word (see Ephesians 5:26)! Church, this is the mirror that you and I are to look into to discover our true spiritual identity. Yes, we have to look into the mirror of God’s Word and let Him show us our “spiritual makeup.” In doing so, we will wash ourselves of that old identity and see ourselves in our new spiritual identity. Amen!  
 
Church, we live in a society that more now than ever shows forth this mistaken identity. Yes, we are engrossed with various forms of social media today such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. and in all of them, we see people proudly displaying their picture, their status on what they are doing, etc. and a lot of it wreaks of insecurity. People want acceptance. They seek approval and compliments.
 
Now I’m not trying to be critical, but am simply pointing out the epidemic in our world of people’s insecurity.  So, I’m here to tell you—if you want to find out who you truly are, then you are going to have to put your “face” in the “Book” and let that determine your true “profile.” Amen?
 
So, yes, we have all of these ways in which our identity can be stolen—whether it is the identity theft that hurts us financially or the physical, mental or emotional abuse that steals our confidence or molds our personality in a negative way. Therefore, it is imperative that we protect our spiritual identity at all costs because there is a thief out there, an enemy of our soul, and he is seeking to steal our identity so that he can rob us of our inheritance in Christ Jesus.  
 
OUR SPIRITUAL MIRROR
 
So, where do I get this analogy of the Word of God being like a mirror. Well, I get this from a couple of passages of Scripture:
 
One is found in the first chapter of James where Pastor James is exhorting this body of believers to not just be hearers of the Word, but to be doers of the Word they are hearing (see James 1:22-26). But he uses an interesting analogy in describing those who hear the Word. He says that when one is “a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror…” But do not be mistaken here; James is not using this analogy to just describe the hearers only, for he goes on to describe the doers of the Word to be those “looking into the perfect law of liberty” and continuing in it. In other words, those hearers who do what they hear are also those who are observing their face in the mirror of God’s Word.
 
Either way, James is saying that when one hears the Word, it is like they are looking into a mirror, and when they do, they are seeing what they look like. His point was that the ones who wind up doing the Word are the ones who “continue” looking into the mirror of His Word—meaning, they keep their eyes and ears constantly beholding what He said so that they are living in those truths with the intention of applying them to their lives. That is the difference between the one who simply “audits” the Word and those who have it reflecting in their lives. Amen.
 
However, while I certainly believe that God’s Word being like a mirror has different applications to our lives, how many of you know that in order to see what we now look like, we don’t necessarily need to be looking in Numbers, Ecclesiastes, etc.? No, if I am teaching Levi to behold who he is in Christ, I am not going to tell him to look at Leviticus.
 
Which leads me to the other passage of Scripture that is used to describe beholding the truth in a mirror--Second Corinthians 3:1-18. In fact, this is the particular passage of Scripture that I want us to camp on throughout this teaching because I believe it accurately “reflects” the truths the Lord wants us to see in this series.
 
You see, when you consider the context of this chapter, the apostle Paul shares with the Corinthian church how he and his team didn’t need letters of approval for their ministry because the fruit in this church was the only stamp of approval he needed (verses 1-4). Then he goes on to say in verses 5-6 that it was certainly not his own ability and qualifications that was producing this fruit in his churches; God was the One who was empowering and enabling them to be effective. However, he went on in verse 6 to state specifically what the Lord had enabled them to do—to be “ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
 
You see, Paul brought a new and better message of a New and Better Covenant, a message that was unlike the Old Covenant of the law which could only “work death” (i.e. kill). This gospel of grace was written by the Holy Spirit and gives life to its hearers. Amen! 
 
Now in verses 7-11, Paul goes on to say regarding this law, that there is a new message that exceeds much more in glory. He uses an example from the Old Testament to illustrate his point of how this New Covenant of grace is more glorious than the Old Testament of the law—and what better example to use than of the glory of God itself?
 
But before we get into that, notice how Paul calls the law that was written and engraved on stones, the “ministry of death” and the “ministry of condemnation.” That is strong language to use to describe the very Ten Commandments that God gave Moses on Mount Sinai, isn’t it? But that is what the law truly did—it could not give life; it only produces death in those who adhere to it. Why? Because it couldn’t change the sin nature that is in every person who is born in the flesh; it only condemned those who were under it. In other places, Paul teaches us that the law is simply given to show us what sin is and, hopefully, cause one to look to the Savior for their salvation. But of course, that is not how people use the law—back then and even still today, people try to use God’s law as a mirror. What I mean is they are looking into it to try and find their identity (i.e. as a means to attain salvation, saying things like— “If you just keep God’s law, He will accept you.”) But that’s not true! The truth is that it is impossible for man to keep the law—and to break just one of the commandments makes us guilty of the whole thing.
 
But Paul’s point here is that this doesn’t mean that there was no glory in the law. In fact, he states that it was glorious, using the example of how Moses’ face shone as a result of God giving him the law. However, Paul makes the point that it was a glory that was “passing away.” In fact, when Paul compared the glory of the “ministry of righteousness” to the “ministry of condemnation” he said there was no comparison—for the new and better covenant given by the Spirit “exceeds much more in glory.”      
 
You know, most Christians don’t think this way. They see the Old Testament as holding just as much weight as the New Testament, but Paul thought otherwise. He stated that the New Covenant is here to stay (i.e. remains) and is far more glorious than the Old Covenant God gave through Moses.
 
But Paul then goes back to his analogy of the glory on Moses’ face representing the glory of the law and
explains that Moses put a veil over his face for the purpose of hiding the glory that was passing away. Now I had always been under the assumption that he put the veil over his face because the glory that radiated from his countenance freaked them out! But here Paul was saying that he did it to hide how the glory was going away. Nonetheless, all of this illustrates how folks still listen to the Old Testament—with a veil over their minds. Meaning, they miss what God is saying because of a veil that lies over their hearts which keeps them from seeing the truth.
 
Which leads us to verse 17 & 18—the verses I want us to camp on in the weeks ahead. Paul says, “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
 
Now there are some misconceptions about verse 17 as so many “charismaniacs” out there use this verse to substantiate them doing whatever they want to do. For instance, we had someone visit our church one time who was ministering to others in an inappropriate way, and I went to them and told them they weren’t to do that. And they responded with this verse to me. How many of you know that this verse is not saying that when the Holy Spirit is involved there are no rules, protocol, etc.? No, this is freedom from sin and from being an idiot—all of which, the Holy Spirit will make us free from. Amen?  
 
Then Paul is sure to say in verse 18, “But we all.” The “we all” being referred to here is the Body of Christ, the Church of the living God. Therefore, every born again, baptized in the Holy Spirit, believer is with “unveiled face”—meaning, we are not reading the truth of the glories of this new & better covenant with a veil over our face like those under the Old Covenant. In Christ, the veil has been rent! Now we are able to see into the holy of Holies, peering over into the ark of the covenant with the cherubim and seeing who we are. Glory to God!    
 
That is why Paul goes on to say, “beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord…” What glory are we beholding? Those truths of this new and better covenant of what Christ has done for us and who we are in Him! This is what we are to be beholding—the mystery of this New Covenant which is Christ in us, the hope of glory! Therefore, beholding the mirror of truths contained in the New Testament is us looking at who we are in Christ and who He is in us.
 
And notice that he says that we are beholding “as in a mirror” these truths. So, the specific mirror that you and I need to be looking into in order to see who we now are is the far more exceedingly glorious New Testament where our new spiritual identity in on full display.    
 
IDENTIFYING WITH JESUS
 
So, I want us to begin this series of teachings by looking at the example of Jesus Christ and how He too had to learn to look into the mirror of God’s Word and discover who He was, is, and evermore shall be.
 
Now some do not believe this about Jesus, thinking that since He was the Son of God, that He automatically knew everything and operated in the omniscience of God. But that cannot be true—for even though He certainly was 100% God when He came to earth and inhabited a physical body, He was 100% man too. And his humanity was what He operated in.
 
For example, Hebrews 4:15 teaches us that He “was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” How could He truly have been tempted in all the points that we are if He had an unfair advantage of being omniscient, omnipotent, etc.? No, the truth is, Jesus lived the way that He did as an example to us of how the Christian life is to be lived.
 
But the fact is, Jesus had to grow, He had to learn, and He had to look into the mirror Himself to discover who He was while in the flesh. So, let’s spend the remainder of our time this week learning how He did this.
 
Now the first thing we need to realize is that Jesus was not born in as ideal conditions as one might think. Sure, His was the immaculate conception and He was born the Son of God. However, even though He was God’s Son, He was also called the Son of David—meaning, even though He was born from above, “according to the flesh” He came through Mary, who was betrothed to Joseph. 
 
Yes, if you ever consider the lineage of Jesus (see Matthew 1:1-16), you will find that his heritage is not one of purity. David himself was an adulterer and a murderer. Do you know who else was in the genealogy of Jesus? Bathsheba, the woman who committed adultery with David (Matthew 1:6)! Also, Tamar & Judah (Matthew 1:3)! Now, you know what Judah and Tamar did, don’t you? They are known in the Bible for committing incest with each other (Judah, of course, not being privy to it, but that would make him at least a fornicator, right?) Rahab, a gentile harlot, is also in there (Matthew 1:5)! So in the genealogy of the Son of God, we have several adulterers, fornicators, murderers, and even a prostitute—God knows what else.
 
But do you know what this should tell us? It should tell us that even if we have any of these things in our lineage or even our own personal history, we can still carry the Christ like Mary did! No, I am not referring to another immaculate conception; I am talking about how Christ can dwell within us spiritually. My point is that Jesus came through many imperfections—and I believe this illustrates to you and I how even though we can have a lot of problems in our past, if we are born from God, we can still identify with Jesus. Amen! 
 
So, Jesus was born through some stuff, and then we can see in Luke chapter 2 that He even had to grow up into some things:
 
In Luke 2:40, we see how He grew as He “became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.” The fact that He became strong in spirit indicates that he was not born strong in spirit. This was something He had to become. Also, He was filled with wisdom. What does that indicate? That He wasn’t already full of wisdom. Finally, we are told the grace of God was upon Him. Now that could mean that the grace was always upon Him, but by virtue of the fact that the other two statements describe things that happened as He grew, would indicate that this grace came upon Him as He grew in these other things.
 
If you look ahead to verse 52 of the same chapter, Luke tells us how “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” Again, we see the increase in wisdom just as He grew in physical stature. Not to mention, He also increased in favor with God and men.
 
So, my point is that Jesus had to grow up in the things of God just like we have to increase in them. And do you know how He increased in these virtues? I believe we see the answer to this in Luke 2:46-49 when He hung out in the temple when He and His parents visited Jerusalem.
 
These verses say, “Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers. So when they saw Him, they were amazed; and His mother said to Him, ‘Son, why have You done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought You anxiously.’ And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”
 
Now if you asked most Christians what Jesus did when He stayed behind in the temple, they would say He was there teaching them. But that is not what these verses say. They teach us that He was listening to them and asking them questions! Now He certainly was impressing them by how He understood what they were teaching Him and His answers were insightful, but the fact He was there learning paints a different picture of young Jesus, doesn’t it? No, the facts are that Jesus had to learn and certainly was teachable. This is a necessary step in changing the way we see things, including our own selves.  
 
So, we can clearly see that after Jesus’ birth, even He had to grow and increase. Likewise, just because we are born again, we still have to grow into who we've been born again as. And the way we do this is by learning, listening, and asking questions. Yes, of those around us who have wisdom and are mighty in the Scriptures, but also from God Himself.
 
Which leads me to the next thing we see in Jesus’ growth process: Then we see that when Jesus’ time had come to fulfill all righteousness, that He was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when Jesus came out of that water, Luke 3:22 says that “the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, ‘You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.’”
 
Now, again, if you were to ask most Christians what God the Father said in that audible voice when Jesus was both baptized in water and baptized in the Holy Spirit, they would say, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And they would not be entirely incorrect—for one Gospel writer (Matthew) records this event as God saying that. However, both Luke & Mark record it differently—they say that the Father said to Jesus, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”
 
Now if I were to say about one of you today, “So and so is my beloved church member, in whom I am well pleased,” who am I talking to? I am talking to “all y’all.” But if I were to say to one of you today, “You are my beloved church member, and in you I am well pleased,” who am I talking to then? I am saying this to them, and therefore, for their benefit.
 
You see, I believe this what God was doing here with His Son: He was letting Jesus know that He was His beloved Son and He was well pleased with Him. Which, interestingly enough was before Jesus ever began His ministry—showing us that our identity is not to be found in what we do for God, but in who we are in Him. Amen!  
 
And as I believe it was to Jesus at this point in His life, I believe we must hear directly from our Heavenly Father who He says we are. Yes, just as many of us developed our identity by what our earthly father prophesied over us, we can redevelop our identity by what our Heavenly Father prophesies over us. Amen. 
 
This is critical. And do you know why? It is because that identity thief is sure going to try and tempt us to doubt who God says that we are. We see this in the very next event in Jesus’ life & ministry.
 
In Luke 4:1-13, we have the instance where immediately after Jesus’ baptism in both water and the Holy Spirit, that He went into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And essentially what Jesus had to do through the course of these three temptations was resist the tempter to doubt His identity. Why do I say this? It is because in two out of the three temptations, the devil prefaced the temptation with “If you are the Son of God…” And most do not realize this, but this was the root of these temptations. The devil was not just trying to get Jesus to turn rocks into bread or throw Himself off of the pinnacle of the temple. His temptations were rooted in trying to get Him to do it to prove He was who His Father said He was. In other words, two out of the three temptations that Satan gave Jesus were based on identity. Likewise, I believe we could make a case that 2/3rds of the temptations you and I will have by Satan are directly rooted in our identity. In other words, most of the temptations we will face will be overcome or will overcome us based on whether we will subject ourselves to who God says we are and what He says we have. Amen!
 
Finally, we see that not too long after Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit, that He came back to His hometown of Nazareth (see Luke 4:16-22). And as His custom was (that’s important), He went to the Synagogue to stand up and read. And He was handed the Book of Isaiah and He found the place in it where it was written concerning Himself. Did you know that this is what you and I must do too? We need to make it our custom to get this mirror out on a daily basis and find in it, the places where it says concerning us. Glory!
 
And, glory to God, Jesus didn’t just find it in the Mirror, but we see that He stood up and boldly declared it before the rest of the assembly in the Synagogue. Likewise, a key to me renewing my mind to my true spiritual identity is my boldly declaring who the I Am says that I am. No, not necessarily before an audience, but before an audience of one. In other words, looking into the mirror and boldly declaring who the Lord says you are until you begin to believe it about yourself. Amen.
 
Then I love what Jesus did after declaring what He did. We are told that He closed the Book, gave it back to the attendant, and then sat down. And this is what we need to do as well: We must see it as a done deal, “sit down,” and rest in who and what God’s mirror shows us that we are. Amen!  
 
All of this is to say that there is hope for you. There is hope for me. We can change the way we view ourselves and begin today to embrace our new identity in Christ. And it all begins as we look into the mirror of God’s Word and have the Father speak to our hearts of who we are. Glory and amen!