The Suffering of Not Knowing & Believing the Truth

Our ignorance of these facts of truth is what sets up Christians for receiving the accusations of our enemy, Satan, "the accuser of the brethren," thus being deceived by him. Ignorantly, we may believe the thoughts or inner voice that we may hear within. These may be evil thoughts we may have toward others, jealous, hateful, or self elevating thoughts, and take them as our own thoughts – when all the time these thoughts are not of us, but of the evil one (Rom 7:17, 20). After having such thoughts, we may have chosen to follow those thoughts and do something self-elevating, self-loving, to lie, or do something evil toward another; then the situation may blow up, … so we then blame ourselves, then hearing voices within that condemn us, perhaps saying, “Your no good!”, or “Your no Christian.”

This foregoing scenario is designed by the enemy of our soul to prompt us to consider dropping out of our seeking to walk with the Lord. This paper is meant to help us discern that the voice and impulse that we may have followed was not of us.

You, like most honest people, may be able to relate to the foregoing scenario that I have described here, but then you may say; “Is there hope for me? Is there a Scriptural basis for hope in the light of this scenario of my failing again and again?”

For believers, the answer is yes! We have hope. “Christ in you” in your spirit, is “the hope of glory.” He in us is our hope of expressing the righteous life of Christ’s very own life and nature… from within us. (Col 1:27).

First, let’s understand that our sins and failures, that things we may do after having received Christ and His salvation by His efficacious work of the Cross work on our behalf… has nothing to do with who we really are “in Christ.” We may have chosen to follow that prompting of the Sin nature that indwells our physical flesh (Rom. 8:3b); nevertheless, we were not the originators of those sin-inspiring thoughts or promptings (Rom 7:17).

How we perform in our daily life does not make us who we are. We are Christ’s (1Cor 3:23), we have been bought with a price (1Cor 6:20); and “Christ” is now “our life” (Gal 2:20, Col. 3:4a).

The problem for most Christians is that they just don’t know the truth and therefore do not believe the glorious truth of the complete salvation the Lord has provided for us… truths upon which they may stand “in Christ.” We must come to know that we are eternally saved by grace through the act of faith seen in our receiving Christ, which brings us to union with Christ (1Cor. 6:17), thereby making us “the children of God” the Father. Enjoy the truth of these verses below and let them sink into your soul’s understanding.

Paul wrote these verses to the members of the true Church, which is called “the body of Christ.”

Ephes. 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: ⁹Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Romans 4:5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

Romans 6:14b … we are not under the law, but under grace? …

Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath (already) blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
Ephesians 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you (Ephesian Gentiles) who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
Colossians 2:12 And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.

Ephesians 2:10a For we are God's workmanship…

Some then ask, how can we say we are saved and have received Christ into our being in the light of the evil thoughts and actions that may sometimes flow through us?

First, we must see that our “Standing (in union with Christ)” and our “State of being (how we ae living)” at any given time may differ greatly. Our standing “in Christ” is fixed, sure, and unshakable, because we did nothing except to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” in order to gain our salvation except to freely receive Him and His salvation. Since we did nothing but Trust in Jesus to gain salvation, then there is nothing we can do to lose salvation. Our salvation and sonship are the gift of the pure “grace of God” as available to all during today’s “the dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph 3:5).

The truth is that our human “spirit of man” (Zach. 12:1) was filled with Christ’s “Spirit of life” the very moment of our “regeneration” (1Cor 6:17); we were immediately fully equipped for living righteously (Col 1:9-10, 1Cor 1:30). Yet, we were not yet changed or renewed in our soul-self at salvation; we still possessed the same fallen soul mind with its ideas, beliefs, habits and history, via our past experience in this world.

Upon salvation we still had the “body of Sin” (Rom. 6:6) that we received from our natural mother and father, as passed on originally from fallen Adam, with Sin as a nature indwelling it. Thus, our soul’s mind became the “mind of the flesh” (Rom 8:5-7). Yet, our spirit was all at once regenerated the moment we received Christ; yet Paul tells us we need to become renewed in our soul’s mind (Eph 4:23, 2Cor 4:16, Rom 12:2). Our “body of sin” (Rom 6:6) will one day will be exchanged for a glorious incorruptible body at the Rapture (1Cor 15:53).

The fact is that, even as Christians, these bodies of ours still now contain “Sin” as a nature (Rom 7:23). Sin is the nature of the evil one. He is the one that “sinneth from the beginning.”

1 John 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

The fact is that the nature of our fallen physical bodies is, “of the devil.” Yes, we now have a new desire – to love and serve the Lord according to our new Christ-nature in our spirit (2Pet 1:4), yet, at the very same time, we still have another “nature,” that fallen nature of Sin himself (Eph 2:2-3), in the members of our body (Rom 7:23). That fallen nature inwardly wars against our desire to love and serve God. This is to conundrum or dilemma of living that every Christian must endure.

We can explain this conflict by looking at man as he was originally created, then seeing man as he is as being of the race of fallen Adam… and now seeing the regenerated believer “in Christ,” as he was intended to be as a member of the race of “the last Adam,” Jesus Christ. (1Cor. 15:45)

Our standing before our heavenly Father is sure and secure “in Christ,” for we are “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Eph. 1:13), even while our state of being at any given time may be terrible due to our sometimes failures that would potentially bring self-loathing. The cure for this dilemma is to know and stand upon the truth of our unconditional redemption “in Christ.” We learn all this from Paul who gives us the objective truth regarding our real identity in Christ… by the Cross, where we’ve died with Christ and risen with Him… “in newness of life” within. (Rom. 6:3-4, Gal. 2:20)