The common question that Christian believers often ponder is, “What is the Lord’s will for my life?” Paul here below tells us, if we know how our Christian life began… whereby we then we will know how it is intended to operate.

“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: ⁷Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.” (Colossians 2:6-7)

In this verse Paul says our Christian lives received during today’s age of “the dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph. 3:2) operate just as they began… “as ye… received Christ,” means “in like manner as… received Christ,” we are to live daily.

Therefore, both our initial imputed sanctification, which occurred the moment we first believed to receive Christ, which is salvation from the penalty for sins, and… our practical personal sanctification, which is daily salvation from Sin’s power and dominion over our lives, operates on the very same principle.

We might ask; How did we begin this Christians life? The way we were saved was “by faith.”

This answers the answers the common question among the saved; “How we are to be saved from sin having dominion over us on a daily basis, in practical Christian living.” This will need some explanation. Dissecting our text, Col. 2:6-7, into its components, we see how the Christian life operates. “As (in the same way as) Ye Have Therefore Received Christ Jesus The Lord.” Just think about the time when you were first saved, when you first trusted the Lord Jesus as your personal Saviour. At that time, you realized that you did not and could not measure up to God’s righteous standards. Despite the best you could do, you were unable to save yourself.

“Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. ²⁰Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the (powerless) knowledge of sin.” (Rom. 3:19-20)

Of course, we as believers are “Not under the Law but under grace” (Rom. 6:14).

What was the purpose of the Law? “by ‘the law’ is the knowledge [awareness] of sin.” (Rom. 3:20)

The Mosaic Law, like a mirror, only showed we were sinners. The Law has no power to make you into something else. When you realize that you are dead in your “trespasses and sins,” and you could do nothing in your own strength to measure up to God’s standard of righteousness… you should have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork as the all-sufficient payment for all those sins.

You could not pay your own sin-debt in order to get achieve heaven, so God the Son, Jesus Christ, came to pay it for you, shedding His blood and dying on the cross as you. Jesus’ precious blood was shed on Calvary’s cross in order to ‘expiate for or take away your sins.’

“under the Law almost everything is purified by means of blood, and without the shedding of blood there is neither release from sin and its guilt nor the remission of the due and merited punishment for sins.”  Heb. 9:22

Paul plainly wrote: “Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3)

“For God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8)

“For with the heart man believeth [exercises faith in Christ] unto righteousness...” (Rom. 10:10a)

“For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. ⁴Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. ⁵But to him that worketh not [has no religious good works], but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” (Romans 4:3-5)

“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; ²²Even [that is] the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: ²³For ALL have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; ²⁴Being justified (declared righteous] freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: ²⁵Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation [sin-payment] through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; ²⁶To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

²⁷Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. ²⁸Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds [works] of the law.” (Romans 3:21-28)

Where do we get such saving faith?  Paul succinctly answers this question for us. “… faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). Thus we see why God elevates His words for us above His Holy name.

“I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.” (Psalm 138:2 (KJV)

One day we heard words that expressed “the gospel of the grace of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24), that Jesus Christ died for our sins; that He was buried and He was raised again “for our justification.” His resurrection by the Power of God that His one great sacrifice was accepted and effective, confirming that our sin-debt was fully paid, justified. (Rom. 4:24-25; 1 Cor. 15:3-4). Having heard His words…  we placed our faith and trust in Him. The Bible says the very instant we believed God the Father applied or “imputed” Jesus Christ’s righteousness to our sin-debt account.

Our sin-debt account is forever fully ‘paid in full’ for all our sins past, present and future!

Father God cleared our sin-debt (forgiveness) and… He gave us a perfect standing in union with His Son for our justification and righteousness! This we call positional sanctification:

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a NEW creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).

To be “in Christ” is to be in a literal Spirit-union with “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:2a) who now dwells … in our spirit (1Cor. 6:17). Being “in Christ” is our fixed or permanent unalterable ‘position.’ This position can never ever be lost even when we sometimes may fail. This is because we never did anything to be “in Christ” except to “believe” to “receive Him”…  by faith! This is the grace which is the free “gift of God” available to all mankind only because of what Jesus Christ did at the Cross. Thus, we as believers are “in Christ,” in union with Him, whereby Christ “is our Life (Col. 3:4) and His “divine nature” is the believer’s new “nature” (2Peter 1:4).

The old sin-nature still resident in the believer’s “flesh” (Rom. 8:3) spontaneously tries to produce its fruits called “sins,” but the new nature we have “in Christ” naturally and spontaneously begins to produces fruits called “good works,” springing from the believer’s Spirit-union with Christ. The Life and His Nature of Christ in us is the basis and power for living the Christian life. Now we see why Paul wrote this;

“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: ⁷Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.” (Colossians 2:6-7) Paraphrasing the verse above; “So in the same way you received Christ Jesus, so Walk Ye In Him”