Become All that You Are

I was challenged recently to spend a couple hours alone listening to God and hearing what He has to say to me. One thing that has stuck with me from my listening time is this:

To become all that you are in Him. 

I will explain more about that in a moment. 

I spent the first bit of the quiet time examining my heart and confessing sin.  These were some things I confessed:

-Low grade irritations about situations or people

-Fear (of failure, loneliness, unknown)

-A complaining heart towards busyness

-Striving in work and robbing myself of needed rest

-Not taking time to have fun or enjoy the company of others

-Praying sporadically but neglecting extended focused prayer

-Lacking integrity by not paying that parking ticket

-Eating more than is necessary

-Letting circumstances rob my joy

You may be thinking, “Those aren’t really all that bad, if that is all you struggle with then you’re doing alright.” Sure those may seem insignificant but in the end they all produce death and pain to some degree. Someone pointed out how Psalm 139:23 essentially says, “Search me, O God... see if there are any ways that bring pain in me.” Sin, no matter how insignificant, always brings pain into our lives or the lives of others. Take low grade irritations for example, these do not produce life or joy in me.  Fear cripples and destroys. Complaints, striving, being too busy, all these rob me of joy. 

The point of the gospel, of Christ saving us, is to bring us life and joy and to destroy all sin, even the seemingly insignificant ones forever. The goal is to be like Christ, to have not even a hint of sin. Do you imagine Jesus as irritated, complaining, afraid, striving, lacking integrity, only praying here and there when it struck His fancy, or evading paying parking tickets? Yes, you may say, but that’s Jesus, there’s no way that we can ever get to that point. I have found the more frequently I examine my heart for even the tiniest hints of sins, I am more aware of how even the hints bring death. The more I am aware of them, the more willing I am to use all diligence to eliminate them from my life. I don’t know about you but I want to experience Christ’s life here on earth. I want to live without irritations, without fear, without negative complaining, enjoying ALL of life, praying faithfully and deeply, living above reproach, working hard AND resting well. These are the reasons why I confess the small things. I believe the more I confess, the less I struggle with these sins. I want to stop them because I want the joy rather than the death.

I’ve been reading in Romans for a while and am currently staying in chapters 5 and 6. In the second half of chapter 5, it feels like Paul keeps repeating the same thing, namely:

Sin & death came into our world through Adam and now we all sin and die. Jesus offers us the grace of His own righteousness accomplishing not only our justification but also both life presently and eternally.

While reading through this, my head spins. I think, “Paul, why all the repetition? I got it the first time! Adam brought sin and death to all people, Jesus gives us all righteousness and life.” As I have continued to study, I have learned that Paul says this in a variety of ways to show that we are united with Adam in his sin and death. We know this is true because we all sin and we will all die. It is important to see that we are united in Adam because it serves to show our parallel union with Christ. Humans were universally made sinful because of Adam. None of us can escape it. Adam’s sin has somehow been transferred to all of humanity. The flip side is that for those who have faith in Christ, His righteousness is then transferred universally through a union with Him. We inherit Adam’s sin and likewise we are able to inherit Christ’s righteousness.

Moving on to chapter 6, this pattern continues. Paul exhorted the Roman church to put sin to death rather than sinning so that grace would increase. He continues using the union theme. We simply cannot continue to sin because we have died to it. If a person dies in this life we understand that they are no longer alive. A person can’t both die and live at the same time. Similarly, in Christ, we are united in His death. A person can’t be both dead to sin and living in sin. At the point of our justification, we were crucified with Christ and died once and for all to sin. The idea of our death was also the idea that sin’s power over us would forever be abolished. We are also united in His resurrection. Because He was raised, we have also been raised to a new life and will be raised to an eternal one. 

What is my point in all of this? Because of our union with Adam, we sin. Because we are united with Christ, His death means we are no longer slaves to sin. Because Jesus rose, we are united in His life. We have new life, a life that can live victorious over sin. Because of all of this, you and I are able to become all that we are in Christ. That life of no irritation, no fear, no complaining, no lust, no rage, no selfishness, no death is now available to us. I long for that kind of joy-filled, death-free life. May we do all we can to eliminate all sin in our lives, even the tiniest hints so we can truly live.