As true believers, we are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Faith produces an interaction between Christ and me. Believing is a relationship: not like being related to your great-aunt whom you have never met; but alive, vibrant, affecting both Christ and yourself.
We give ourselves to Him; and He gives Himself to us. We become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). The apostle Paul used a marvelous expression:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17) and “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). The simplest faith in Christ has this amazing effect. It is does not need algebra to find the value of X. The simplest person can believe and enjoy the same effect as the wisest.
The list of benefits of being “in Christ” is long! Faith in Christ brings: righteousness, peace, love, obedience, assurance, unity. It makes you a child of God, growing, justified, and alive; it can cause you to take risks, speak before great men, be famous throughout the world, and much more.
"I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection" (Philippians 3:8–9, 10).
Paul determined these benefits were worth everything! Jesus heard all the religious jargon of the scribes, which ordinary people did not appreciate. But the common people heard Jesus gladly. He talked about faith, but put it in other ways:
“Come to me”…“Love me”… “Abide in me”…“Follow me.”
Taken from Daily Fire Devotional: 365 Days in God’s Word by Reinhard Bonnke. Copyright © 2015 by Reinhard Bonnke. Use by permission of Whitaker House. www.whitakerhouse.com
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