NOT Our Behavior

"What has nothing to do with my behavior? When
we know the precious truth of justification by faith,
we still know only half the story. We have only
solved the problem of our standing before God.
How can we live the normal Christian life? How
do we enter into it? We not only need to be right
with God but we also need peace with God. The
Blood can wash away my sins, but it cannot wash
away my 'old man.' The 'old nature' needs
crucifixion. The Blood deals with the sins but the
cross must deal with the sinner. Paul lays it out in
Romans five: 'A sinner is said to be a sinner
because he is born a sinner; not because he com-
mits sins.' Why am I a born a sinner? Because
Adam sinned and we are all descended from
Adam.

'Sin came into the world through one man so
death spread to all men...through one man's 
trespass, death reigned through that one man.'
(Romans 5)

If your great grandfather had died at the age of
three, where would you be today? Well, you
would not be here because you would have died
in him. In the same way we are bound to Adam.
We are all involved in Adam's sin, because we
are all from him. When Adam sinned we received
from him all that he became as a result of his sin--
that is to say, the Adam-nature, the nature of a
sinner. Our trouble is in what we have inherited,
not our behavior. Unless we change our heritage
there is no room for deliverance for us."
Watchman Nee paraphrase

Reader, I am going to leave you half baked, so to
speak. I am on the edge of a wonderful break-
through but it is so much to grasp all at once,
especially if it is new to you.  Know that you have
been reconciled with God through the Blood of
Jesus, but that there is so much more to salvation--
there is also deliverance!