Ephesians 1:4 (NKJV) 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.
Very often we will slip into thinking of ourselves, our own effort to come before God, thus causing us to feel unworthy. The Adam thinking in us will cause us to feel condemned but the wonderful truth is we are no longer in Adam! We are in Christ and we identify with His death, burial and resurrection! He has given us tremendous spiritual blessings in Christ!
We need to keep reminding ourselves these truths daily so that we can be strengthened in our inner man daily.
We need to renew our mind or change our way of thinking by choosing not to focus on what we have done to cause God to accept us but to meditate on what we have in Christ. We should have no confidence of self but full confidence and faith in Christ! The more we remind ourselves or as the Holy Spirit remind us, the stronger we get and we will act out in line with what the word of God says that we are. We are one with the Lord in the new covenant, all that He has belongs to us and all that we have belong to Him. These truths strengthen us and cause us to be grounded in love!
This scripture tells us that we are without blame or blameless before God. This is a positional truth in Christ regarding how our God looks at us in Christ! However, we still need to walk out these truths in our daily walk by having our minds renewed! This is a state that we will never be able to attain based on our own strength no matter how hard we try. He has already decided long before we even existed that we will be holy and blameless before Him. God calls those things that are not as though they are in this present moment.
During the time in the Old Testament, the animal to be sacrificed must have been inspected and only the ones without blemish could have been used as a sacrifice to God. It was used literally of the absence of defects in sacrificial animals and figuratively of the Lamb of God as unblemished. Just as Jesus Christ was the spotless Lamb of God, we have become blameless or spotless in Christ. It has nothing to do with us but it has everything to do with Christ’s redemptive work which allows us to be hidden in Him, thus blameless.
There are people who close their prayers with the “unworthy sinners” prayer showing they are still very much dependent on themselves in Adam-like style to come before God. We should be living a victorious Christian life by believing that we have God’s nature in us and we are in Christ, thus making us worthy to approach the throne of grace to find help and mercy.
This truth helps us to fully comprehend the length, depth, breadth and the height of God’s love because this is something that is not attainable based on our own strength! This leads us to the positional truth that we stand righteous before God in Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:21 (NKJV) For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
We become the very righteousness of God when we are in Him. It is being in Him that makes us righteous and not our own good works. Jesus bore our sins to the cross, that we might now receive His righteousness. It was the Great Exchange that took place at the cross. He identified with us that we might identify with Him. He took our sins that we might receive His righteousness!
Sermon series: Inner man
在祂里面成义
以弗所书 1:4 就如上帝从创立世界以前，在基督里拣选了我们，使我们在他面前成为圣洁，无有瑕疵。
很多时候，我们陷入自我中心、想单凭己力来到上帝面前，也因此觉得自已没有价值。我们里面的亚当思维让我们感到被订罪，但奇妙的真理是，我们不再活在亚当里！我们是在基督里，我们已经与祂同死、埋葬、升天！祂已经在基督里赐予我们丰盛的属灵祝福！
我们需要每天常常提醒自已这些真理，那才能使得我们内在的人日益强壮起来。
我们需要更新自已的思维或改变想法，不要专注于我们做了什么事情来让上帝接纳，而是默想我们在基督里所拥有的一切。我们应该对于倚靠自已没有信心，却对神的信实有着完全的信心！我们越提醒自已或越让圣灵提醒我们，就会越强壮，活出合乎按神所说我们是谁的生命。在新约中，我们是与主合为一体的，祂所有的属于我们，而我们所有的也属于祂。这些真理让我们更坚强，也让我们在爱里更坚定！
圣经告诉我们，在上帝面前我们是无可指责也无瑕疵的。这是关于上帝怎么透过耶稣看我们，这是我们在基督里位份的真理！然而，我们还是需要在每日的行动中通过更新我们的思维，活出这些真理！这是不论我们多么努力，凭着我们的力量所无法达到的境界。在我们还未出生以前，神已经决定我们在祂面前将会是圣洁无瑕疵的。上帝把那些此刻仍未成就的事，视为已经成就了。
在旧约的时代，用来献祭的动物必须预先被检视过，只有那些没有残疾的可以当作供物献给上帝。一个没有残疾的祭物预表了上帝的羔羊是毫无瑕疵的。就如耶稣基督是无瑕疵、神的羔羊，我们在基督里也是无可指责、无瑕疵的。这和我们所做的无关，而是因为基督的救赎工作让我们藏在基督里，因此无可指责。
有些人在祷告时会以“不配的罪人“做为结束，这显示他们还是依靠自已、以亚当的方式来到上帝面前。我们应该透过相信我们有上帝的性情、我们在基督里，来活出得胜的基督徒生命，从而使我们配得来到赐恩的宝座寻求帮助和怜悯。
这真理帮助我们充分体会上帝的爱是多么的长、阔、高、深，因为这不是凭我们自已的力量可以达到的！这引领我们进入位份的真理：在基督里的我们，在上帝面前是公义的。
哥林多后书 5:21 神使那无罪的，替我们成为罪。好叫我们在他里面成为神的义。
当我们在祂里面，我们就成为上帝的公义。是因为在祂里面使我们成为公义，而不是因为我们自己所做的善事。耶稣在十字架担当我们的罪，好让我们领受祂的公义。那是在十字架上发生的极大交换。祂成为了我们以便我们能成为祂。祂除去我们的罪，好让我们能领受祂的公义！
讲道系列：内在的人
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