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Our Spiritual “Workout,” Part 2
Philippians 2:14-18
If you would, please take out your Bibles right now, and turn in them to Philippians, chapter 2 in the New Testament…Philippians, chapter 2. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there should be one under a chair in front of you. You could grab that Bible, and in the back portion of it, turn to page 155, and you would find yourself at Philippians, chapter 2.
So let me ask you this morning…how’s your workout working out? Last week we began a message called Our Spiritual “Workout,” with quotes around the word workout. We dove headlong into a passage in the New Testament that causes a lot of confusion and consternation. That’s verses 12 and 13 where Paul says, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling for God is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Just like the warmer weather inspires us to do a get-ready-for-summer workout, so the Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Paul, is saying that we should aspire to a spiritual workout.
You remember the backdrop of all of this is that we are to be like Jesus. So, he says we are to work out our salvation. The New Living Translation says, “Put into action God’s saving work.” We saw last week that we are to take our salvation and to put it into action. We’re not to be passive. We are to realize the spiritual capacity that God gave to us when we came to know Him. We are to develop our spiritual wattage. We are to be lights in the world. He says we’re to do that with fear and trembling. It’s a serious thing because it is important. It is a priority. Then he says, basically, “Live your life in diligent dependence on Him.” It’s a joint venture this Christian life. I have to live the life. I have to make certain choices, but He energizes all of that. That’s what verse 13 is all about.
So last week we said verses 12 and 13 give us the operational principle of how we are to have our spiritual workout. Verses 14-18 give us the practical outworking…examples of what our workout should look like. So, I want to read verses 14 to 18 and invite you to follow along in your Bible as I read through these verses. This is the practical outworking of our spiritual workout.
“Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the Word of Life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain. But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.”
So we’re going to look at the practical outworking of our spiritual workout. I believe, in these verses, we’re going to see three things he has to say to us. The first one is…don’t be a grumbler. We see that in verse 14. The second thing is…shine consistently. We see that in verse 15. Then the third thing we’re going to see as we do this practical outworking of our spiritual workout is…we should invest our life. “Invest your life,” he says in verses 16 to 18. So, we’re getting very practical now. We’ve talked about the operational principle, now we want to see what this looks like in our life…my life and your life.
So the first thing he’s going to say to us is…
1. Don’t be a grumbler. Check your attitude. Look at verse 14 again. “Do all things without grumbling or disputing.” In the original, the words all things are very emphatic, very strongly emphasized. So, we would really read the verse this way, “All things do without grumbling or disputing.” Grumbling means to complain. It means to mutter. It means to gripe. It means to whine about things. He says, “All things we are to do without complaining, muttering, griping and whining, or disputing.”
Disputing refers to criticisms. It refers to conflicts. It refers to causing friction among other people. It refers to being argumentative. All things we are to do without grumbling or disputing. The New Living Translation puts it this way, “In everything you do, stay away from complaining and arguing. That’s the way we are to be living our life. Don’t be a grumbler.
Now the world operates very differently. You know the world operates in this way. The world says you have to fight for your rights. You have to look out for number one. You have to grab yours in life and then you’ll be happy, but you grab yours first, you see. That’s the way the world thinks. But what a huge contrast that is with the example we saw a couple of weeks ago of the Lord Jesus. He is not someone who is fighting for His rights, looking out for number one, trying to grab His. In fact, He let go of His and became a man to die for you and me. Don’t be a grumbler.
Now we have a special day today. We’re going to go off on really an all-church picnic, so I need a little bit of interaction from all of you. I want you to put on your thinking cap [be prepared to think] for a moment, and answer this question…Who in the Bible would be examples of grumblers? Who in the Bible would be examples of grumblers? So who would you say would be examples of grumblers in the Bible? Anybody? What’s that? Jonah, somebody said. Good. Israel. You know a guess really and there are a lot of examples, but Israel certainly would be one of them…the wilderness generation of the people of Israel.
In fact, interestingly enough in the New Testament, in 1 Corinthians 10:10, when it says we are to learn from the example of the people in the Old Testament, and it says there, “We should not be grumblers. We should not grumble as they did,” speaking of that wilderness generation of the people of Israel. You go back and you can read about them in the book of Exodus and the book of Numbers.
We remember the story. The nation of Israel was enslaved in Egypt, and when they were in Egypt and they were slaves, they grumbled. Then when God brought them out of Egypt and into the wilderness, they grumbled. For example, one of the things they grumbled about was how they missed the melons and the cucumbers and the onions and the garlic of Egypt. Onions and garlic…you wonder how bad the breath was, you know. But they said, “We miss that. We want to go back. We’d rather be slaves again and eat some of that stuff. We don’t have food out here. We’re trying to find animals in the wilderness to kill.”
God said, “No problem. I will provide you with manna. There will be this food that appears every night and it will be there for you every morning.” So, God provided them manna and they grumbled. Exactly, they grumbled.
A number of years ago, Keith Green put out a song called So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt. Some good lyrics in that song. I’m just going to read you some of the lyrics of his song. Here’s part of it. I like this, “Eating leeks and onions by the Nile, Ooh what breath but dining out in style.” But they were grumbling about wanting to go back. Then God gives them all this manna; and here are part of the lyrics of the song, “What? Oh no, manna again? Oh, manna waffles…. Manna burgers. Manna bagels. Flaming manna soufflé. Filet of manna. Mannacotti.
BaManna bread!” Everywhere! So they… What? Grumbled.
Then they said, “We want to have meat, God. We want to have meat.” In Numbers 11:20, God said this, “I’m going to give you meat, and I’ll tell you what. You’re going to get so much meat it’s going to come out of your nostrils.” In Numbers 11:31, God sends this huge amount of quail. It’s an amazing story…quail three feet deep, a day’s walk in every direction. And, of course, they grumbled. Then God disciplined them.
Don’t be a grumbler. We have a great illustration of someone who was a grumbler in the wilderness generation in the people of Israel. Another illustration I want you to see, this time from the New Testament… Keep your finger in Philippians 2, turn with me toward the Gospels to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15. So, you have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John at the beginning of the New Testament. Go to Luke 15, verses 1 and 2, and another group that was known for their grumbling was the Pharisees. They did a lot of this.
You’ll notice in verse 1 of Luke 15, it says, “Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Him [Jesus] to listen to Him. Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to…” What? “…grumble, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.'” Here’s what their idea was. Hey, if you’re holy and you’re spiritual, what you do is you avoid lost people. Lost people make bad moral choices. They have some negative behavior. They are really inferior, so what you do in the Pharisee’s mind, is you avoid them. But Jesus doesn’t do that.
Now Jesus wasn’t living like the sinners and the tax gatherers, making the same moral choices they were, but He was seeking to interrelate with them. He was seeking to bring God’s mercy and God’s grace to them. But the Pharisees grumbled. He hangs out with people who don’t know God. Don’t be a grumbler, it says, in Philippians 2.
Now if we were going to do some word association with the idea of being a grumbler, here are a couple of words that would come to my mind. The first one might surprise you. It’s the word expectations…expectations because I think it is expectations that lead to a lot of grumbling. See what happens is I feel like I am entitled, and you can just fill in the blank. I am entitled to whatever. I deserve whatever it may be. I deserve to have my life be smooth and easy and uncomplicated. See I feel like I am entitled. I deserve that. When I have that sense of that kind of expectation, it leads to grumbling. That was the nation of Israel. Expectations that I ought to be first. I am the most important one. That’s really the Pharisee’s basis of things. I’m concerned about me, not about other people. That expectation leads to grumbling.
We were just on a pastoral staff retreat this past week in the latter part of the week, and so I asked the guys, “What do you grumble about and gripe about? Not only you, but what do you think the people at Wildwood tend to grumble and gripe about?” I wrote down some of what they said. We tend to grumble about what we’re eating. We tend to grumble and complain about other people. We tend to grumble and complain about our clothes and our shoes and our car. We grumble and complain about our jobs and our bosses. We grumble and complain about being so busy. We grumble and complain about the political situation. We grumble and complain about the economy. We grumble and complain about things that we perceive to be unfair. Of course, they are unfair to me, not necessarily unfair to other people.
You know so much of life is a matter of perspective, men and women. It really is. Think about grumbling about what we’re eating and yet we have something to eat, don’t we? There are a lot of people in this world who don’t. We grumble and complain about our clothes and our shoes and our car and we lack perspective because there are people who would trade places in the flash of an instant with us who really have very little clothing.
I remember my friend who works and lives in India, and how he told me one day that many of the men that he works with do not even own one shirt. It’s a matter of perspective. You go to Mexico; you’ll run into a bunch of kids who really don’t have shoes, certainly none of them even dreams of getting a car. It’s a matter of perspective.
We grumble and complain about our jobs, and again, we have people who would trade with us who don’t have a job. We grumble and complain about the economy, and yet we live so much in an economy, even as it is, that people would envy. It’s a matter of perspective, yet we grumble and complain about these things. I mean, is God in control? Yes. Has God blessed you and me? Yes. Is our future secure because of the person of Christ? Yes. Does He know your needs before you even ask about them? Yes. Why are we grumblers then? So expectations are a big part of it.
A second word, and this one may surprise you too that I would associate with grumbling is the word contagious. The reason why I say that is grumbling is very, very contagious. Grumbling spreads easily. There is a relational undertow that happens with grumbling. See as I’m grumbling, it tends to pull others around me down. Where there is complaining and where there is griping and where there is whining there will soon be criticisms and conflict and arguments.
You remember we talked a few weeks ago about that church in Dallas. Remember when they had this incredible church split and they really went to court over which half of the church was going to get the church property and it all went back to the size of the piece of ham one of the leaders got at a dinner that was smaller than the child next to him. That led to a church split. See when you have complaining and griping and whining, pretty soon you’re going to have criticisms and conflicts and arguments. It just works that way.
I remember a number of years ago hearing about a deacon meeting that went on in a church in Moore that ended up in a fistfight…church leaders duking it out [in a fist fight] at the church meeting. When you have complaining and griping and whining, soon there will be criticisms and conflict and arguments. It’s just going to happen.
So here’s the question that I need to ask, and I’ve been wrestling with and you need to wrestle with it, too. Here it is…Am I a grumbler? Paul says, as we look at the practical outworking of our spiritual workout, don’t be a grumbler. Check your attitude.
The second thing that he says to you and to me is this…
2. Shine consistently. Live with integrity. Shine consistently. Live with integrity. Look at verse 15 in Philippians 2. It says, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.” I want to take apart parts of that verse, but we’re not going to do it necessarily in order.
The first thing I want you to notice it talks about in verse 15 is that we live in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation…very colorful words. The word that is translated crooked in the original is the word skolios. We get the word scoliosis, you know, the curvature of the spine, from this word. It means something that’s curved out of whack, something that is crooked. The word perverse can also be translated twisted and warped.
The first thing he says is we live in that kind of a world. We live in a world that is crooked. It is twisted. It’s warped. In this world in which we live, the truth of God is twisted and warped around. The truth about the person of Christ, who He is and why He came here and where He resides at the right hand of the Father is twisted and warped. It’s just a crooked perspective that goes on in our generation today. God’s righteousness is twisted and warped around. We live in that kind of a world and we need to be alert to that.
Well, here’s what’s exciting. Even though we live in a crooked, twisted generation, we have a high calling by God. That comes from the phrase there in verse 15 when he says, “…among whom you appear as lights in the world.” I like the NIV translation here. It says, “You shine like stars in the universe.” We live in the midst of a crooked, twisted generation, but we shine like stars in the universe.
Keep your finger here in Philippians 2. I want to venture into the Old Testament, so go back with me in the Old Testament. It will be in the right, middle part of your Bible to the book of Daniel, chapter 12. You have Ezekiel then you have Daniel, then you have Hosea, so if you can find Ezekiel, you can find Daniel, chapter 12. I want you to notice verse 3 of Daniel 12. He says, “Those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, will shine like the stars forever and ever.” What an incredible picture we have! We live in the midst of a crooked, twisted generation, but we are there as lights in the world. We’re like stars shining.
You know the difference between a dark, dark night, maybe a cloudy night without any moon and then a night when the expanse is open and you see all those stars shining forth. That’s you and me. Now, how are we supposed to shine? Well back to Philippians 2:15. He says, “Prove yourselves to be blameless.” Now right away we might go, “Oh man, that’s a high standard. We’re supposed to be perfect.” No, he’s not talking about perfection here. He is talking about integrity. We’re to shine with integrity. The word blameless means that accusations don’t stick to us. They just don’t stick. It doesn’t mean we don’t occasionally make mistakes, but that our accusations that come our way don’t stick to us.
We’re to be blameless. We’re to have integrity. We are to be, as he says, innocent. The NIV translates it pure. This term was used of describing pure metal that was just 100 percent metal. We are to be innocent and pure. You might just jot down the reference Romans 16:19, another place this word appears. It says that we are to be wise in what is good and innocent, that’s our word, pure in what is evil. That’s an amazing verse!
I’ve had to quote that verse to myself a number of times because I know how my mind works, and I know how your mind works. That is, we will often rationalize about evil. Oh, I don’t want to do evil, but I want to understand evil. I want to check it out. I need to be aware of what’s going on in the evil world. That’s why there are certain places on the internet I have to go, not because I’m planning to stay there, but I need to know what’s out there. Yet, Paul instructs us to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil.
Then again, he goes on to say in verse 15, we are to be…notice it very carefully there…blameless. We’re to have integrity. We’re to be innocent and pure, children of God above reproach. The New Living Translation says this, “We are to live clean and innocent lives as the children of God.” Many of you know that at Wildwood one of the verses we constantly refer back to is Matthew 5:16, where it says, “Let your light shine in such a way that the world may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
Now I want your eyes to drop back down to verse 15 and remember this is a verse that is directed to you and to me. Just look at the words again, “Prove yourselves to be blameless, to have integrity, to be innocent, pure, children of God above reproach.” Now just think about how we’re living our life. You know…what kind of gap exists there? Maybe even this morning God is tapping you on the shoulder and saying, “There are some things that you need to confess to Me. There are some things that you need to repent from.”
You remember the basic meaning of repent means that you change your mind in such a way that it leads to a change of action in your life. So, is God just tapping you on the shoulder today as we see our spiritual workout and the practical outworking and what it ought to be? Have you been seeing some things that you shouldn’t be seeing? Have you been doing some things that are inconsistent with being a child of God? Have you been saying some things that are really compromises of your integrity? Those are the kinds of questions I had to wrestle with.
If God is tapping you on the shoulder, today would be a good day to confess those things and to repent from those things, to make a change of mind that leads to a change of action. When we’re looking at this practical outworking of our spiritual workout, the first thing he says, “Don’t be a grumbler. Check your attitude.” Second thing he says is, “Shine consistently. Live with integrity.”
Then the third thing he says to those of us who name the name of Christ is this…
3. Invest your life. Touch lives. Notice what it says in verses 16 to 18. He says, “Holding fast the Word of Life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain. But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.” Verse 16 says, “Holding fast…” Many of the translations say, “Holding forth…” In fact, if you look in the margin of a New American Standard, if you have marginal notes, it will give that as another rendering, “Holding forth the Word of Life.” That’s what we’re to be doing.
You know, I think a great analogy of that in our country is the Statue of Liberty. I don’t know if you’ve looked, but notice the Statue of Liberty is holding forth that light. The statue has, by the way, a crown that has seven points on it. They symbolize the seven continents of the world. If you go there, you’ll notice at the feet of the Statue of Liberty is a broken chain. Then there is a little plaque there, and part of the saying on that plaque of the Statue of Liberty is this, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” It goes on to say, “I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
Men and women, that’s a part of what our life is to be. We’re to be like that Statue of Liberty, holding forth the Word of Life because you see we live in the midst of people who are tired and poor spiritually, people who are really yearning to be free. You work with some of them. You live nearby some of them. Some of you go to school with some of them. They’re yearning to be free to be who God created them to be, and they’re yearning to be free from sin and judgment even if they don’t fully understand all that’s involved. They really are yearning to be free from the flesh and all that it brings into life. They’re yearning to be free to know the God who created them. Part of the outworking of our life is that we are to hold forth the Word of Life.
Interesting phrase that phrase…hold forth. One of the ways it was used was of holding out a drink that would refresh a guest. See that’s part of our calling to hold forth the drink, the spiritual drink that would bring refreshment to their souls. Invest your life. Touch lives. Notice part of his concern in these verses is he says, “I don’t want to run the race in vain. I don’t want to toil in vain.” Basically, what he’s saying is, “I don’t want my life to count for nothing. I don’t want my life to be wasted, nor do I want yours to be wasted.”
He said, “I want my life to count for eternity.” That’s really what Paul is saying. I want my life to count eternally. I don’t know who first said it. I heard it a number of years ago, but it goes like this, “A life that’s wrapped up in itself, makes for a very small package.” Sometimes we can get to be just like that…where our life is wrapped up in ourselves. When it’s wrapped up in ourselves it’s a very small package.
Interesting imagery he uses, Paul does here in verse 17. He talks about being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith. Now that’s Old Testament stuff. It’s pretty foreign to most of us, but one of the things they would do in the Old Testament, you could do is that you could offer a drink offering. It might be a cup of valuable wine. What you would do is you could maybe pour that wine out on the ground in the worship and honor of God. This is something valuable and I’m pouring it out to show how much I care about Him.
Or another way maybe that you would pour out a drink offering that they would sometimes do is when they were actually doing a sacrifice, and they would have to have that sacrifice on a fire and that sacrifice was burning on the fire, another thing they might do with a drink offering is to pour it right onto that burning sacrifice. When it went on the burning sacrifice, that liquid, there would be steam that would come up from that. There would be this wisp of steam that would come out that would be then quickly dissipated. That’s part of the imagery he’s using here. It reminds me of what it says in James 4:14. It says that your life, my life is sort of just like a little vapor that goes out, little puff of smoke, and then it’s gone.
Paul is saying, “I don’t want my life not to count. I want my life to count for eternity.” Here’s really what he was saying to them. He said, “I’m willing to have my life steam away to bring spiritual blessing to people. That’s what I’m willing to do.”
I still remember when I came here in 1979, and I didn’t make this announcement to anybody, but this was my heart. I knew I wanted to come to Norman for a long-term commitment. I even agreed with the elders it would be a long-term commitment, we just never talked about how long long was. But I remember coming here saying this to myself and to God, “I am open to pouring out my life on the red clay of Oklahoma in order to bring spiritual blessing to the people of Oklahoma.”
Now that I’ve been here coming very close this summer it will be 30 years, I’ve been thinking, You know what? That’s likely just exactly what will happen. The life that I had to offer is going to be poured out on the red clay of Oklahoma. But I’m not going to be sad about that, I’m going to be glad about that. It’s going to bring joy because God has allowed me to bring some spiritual blessing to you and to others.
So, here’s the idea. When you have the viewpoint of eternity in everything, and you’re talking about investing your life and touching other people’s lives, and that means your life goes by. You give up parts of your life. You give up your time. You know for you to interact with people about the person of Christ or to do like Jesus and you get close to them and you begin to build relationships with them, that just takes part of your life, but when you look at it from an eternal standpoint, it leads to joy and rejoicing.
You know when you see lives that are touched and changed, you say, “It’s all worth it! Yeah, I could have had more fun and I could have been doing this and I could have been on the golf course more often, or I could have been doing whatever. I could have been doing all my little hobbies and not really interacting with people who don’t know Jesus Christ.” But when you look at it from the perspective of eternity, it’s all worth it. It’s just joy. It’s rejoicing. Here is what Paul is saying to us today, “God wants to use you to touch lives.” He is saying this as part of our spiritual workout, “Make your life count.” That’s what he’s saying.
So how is our workout to work out? What is it to look like practically? Well…don’t be a grumbler. Check your attitude. Shine consistently. Live with integrity at school, at work, in your family. Invest your life; don’t just spend your life. Invest your life. Touch lives.
Now those of you who know us well, here at Wildwood we know as we get through looking at the Word of God, we want to talk about some life response we can have right now to what we’ve looked at. I’m going to suggest two forms of life response. The first one is…get perspective. The second one is…reach out. Let’s unpack both of those.
The first life response is…
1. Get perspective. I’m going to challenge you with something that I want you to do as part of this getting perspective. That is this, I want you to find three people over the next three days, and I want you to ask them this question…Am I a grumbler? By doing that, you’re going to get some perspective. It should be somebody who knows you, not just someone you just met. Right? Am I a grumbler? Am I a grumbler? We need to get perspective.
If you’re getting some feedback that you are a grumbler, there are just some things you need to ask yourself. Remember so much of it has to do with expectations and a lack of perspective. If you’re grumbling, does God indwell you personally? Yes. Is your future secure because of the person of Christ and the relationship you have with Him? Yes. Does He know your needs, as is says in Matthew 6, before you even bring them up? Yes. Is He adequate for every situation? Yes. What are we grumbling about?
Another way to get perspective is a little handout that was tucked inside your bulletin called…Who Am I Really? Really, about positional truth, about what God has done for us, if you are going to get perspective, this is a great way to do it where we talk about how, because of Christ I am accepted, then we have a whole number of statements relating to that. Because of Christ, I am secure. We have a whole number of statements from Scripture about that. Because of Christ, I am significant, and we have a whole lot of statements from Scripture. This is a great way to get some perspective.
So ask three people, “Am I a grumbler?” Then use that handout to have some perspective. I think when you’re embracing the perspective in that handout that we are very definitely people who are accepted, secure, and significant, it will affect our grumbling.
The second life response is to…
2. Reach out. A life wrapped up in itself is a very small package. Remember the Lord Jesus sought to interrelate with those who do not know Jesus Christ. Are we doing that in our life? I’m just not going to give you too big of an assignment, but there is an assignment for at least one time this summer as we head into the summer. Those of you who have a home and maybe a backyard and a barbeque, I want you to, this summer, at least one time, invite several of your neighbors or they could be friends, people that you’re not sure if they know the Lord, or you know they don’t know the Lord, and just invite them over for a meal. Invite them over for a barbeque. Maybe you’re a student. You say, “I don’t have that kind of a situation.” Well, you can still invite some friends who don’t know the Lord or you’re unsure they know the Lord to a meal. Fix a meal. Fix a meal for several people and just do that as a way to begin to interrelate and reach out to those who may not know Him.
Let’s pray together: Father, we thank You so much for what we’ve been studying today and just how practical this is. Lord, we know we all need this. We need to have some spiritual checkups from time to time. I would pray Father that You would just lift our perspective that we wouldn’t be grumblers. That we would realize that You’ve called us to shine as light in this world and that you want us to invest our life for other people and not just spend it on this planet. We would pray that we would know the joy, oh the incredible joy and rejoicing that comes in living a life that’s pleasing to You, and in seeing You take us and using us to touch the lives of others. Father, we would pray that we would be like Jesus. And we pray in His name, Amen
Who Am I Really?
Live in light of who you already are!
We are who God says we are! What God says about me right now :
Because of Jesus Christ …
I Am Accepted
I have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins. The debt against me has been fully canceled (Colossians 1:14, 2:14)
I have been redeemed through His blood and forgiven according to the riches of His grace (Ephesians 1:7)
I have been justified—declared righteous by God himself and at peace with Him (Romans 5:1)
I am a child of God…a son of God; God is my spiritual Father (John 1:12; Romans 8:14, 15; Galatians 3:26)
I was predestined to be adopted as God’s son through the kind intention of His will (Ephesians 1:5)
I am a fellow citizen of heaven with the rest of God’s family (Ephesians 2:19)
I was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world and am holy and without blame before Him (Ephesians 1:4)
I am one of God’s chosen ones, dearly loved by Him (Colossians 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 1:4)
I have been freed from slavery to sin, fully free not to sin, but to live a new life (Romans 6:1-7, 11)
I have the freedom to come boldly before the throne of God to find mercy and grace in time of need (Hebrews 4:16)
I Am Secure
I died with Christ and have been raised up with Christ. My life is now hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:1-3)
I have been rescued from Satan’s domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of Christ (Colossians 1:13)
I have been delivered from Satan’s power over my life (Colossians 1:13)
I am actually seated with Christ in Heaven (Ephesians 2:6)
I have been placed into Christ by God’s doing (1 Corinthians 1:30).
I have direct access to the Heavenly Father through the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:18)
I may approach God with boldness, freedom and confidence (Ephesians 3:12)
I have been bought with a price; I belong to God (I Corinthians 6:19,20)
I have been sealed for safekeeping by the Holy Spirit who is the down payment guaranteeing my inheritance (Eph 1:13-14)
I am free forever from condemnation (Romans 8:1)
I am a recipient of eternal life….life that never ends (Romans 6:23)
I am assured that all things work together for good (Romans 8:28)
I cannot be separated from the love of God (Romans 8:35f)
I have been made complete in Christ and lack nothing for living a godly life (Colossians 2:10)
I Am Significant
I am the light of the world (Matthew 5:14)
I am a temple—a dwelling place of God. His Spirit and His life dwells in me (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19)
I am reconciled to God and am a minister of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18,19)
Christ Himself is in me (Colossians 1:27)
I am a branch of the true vine, a channel of His life (John 15:1,5)
I am a saint (Ephesians 1:1)
I am a member of a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession (1 Peter 2:9,10)
I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3)
I have been lavished with the grace of God (Ephesians 1:7-8)
I am an integral part of the living temple that God is building (Ephesians 2:21)
I am one of God’s living stones, being built up into His spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5)
I am God’s workmanship—His handiwork—created in Him to do His work (Ephesians 2:10)
I have the privilege through my life of advertising God’s multifaceted wisdom to those in the angelic realm (Ephesians 3:10)
In ages to come God will continue to demonstrate the surpassing riches of His grace toward me (Ephesians 2:7)
His power within me is such that He is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all I can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20)
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13)
I am not the great “I Am” (Exodus 3:14; John 8:58), but by the grace of God, I am what I am! (1 Cor. 15:10) J