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Do you notice in the verse above, the part where it says you were created in Christ Jesus to do good works? That’s right! God put it in your new creation nature to do good works, not bad. Further, God prepared in advance for you to do those good works. Under sin we had no power to do good work because of the sin nature that we inherited through Adam, and because we were under the law which empowers sin(¹). That’s the struggle we read about in Romans 7, where Paul wants to do good, but had no power to do it because he was a man under the law.

The good news: Jesus (the second Adam(²)), took everything that the first Adam lost, back.

The problem: Jesus is the second Adam, but many Christians still insist on relating to and getting their identity from the first Adam. They still claim to be walking around with a sinful nature and a wicked heart, but…

More good news: You’re not related to that Adam anymore!(³)

That’s what it means to be reborn: your first birth in Adam and everything you inherited through that first birth… DOES NOT COUNT ANYMORE! You are no longer the offspring of Adam and an inheritor of his corrupted nature, but rather the offspring of God and the inheritor of His incorruptible nature. Just as Jesus, the first begotten of God, doesn’t have a sinful nature (because God had no sinful nature to pass on to him), you also have no sinful nature because God didn’t have one to pass on to you when you became born of God.

In other words, you are not sons of Adam anymore, but sons of God. You don’t have 2 fathers, you have one. Your genealogy goes back one generation to God. “You are predestined to be conformed to the image of the son, who is the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” He is the blueprint image we are made after so that we can confidently say, “in this world we are like Jesus.”(⁴) Therefore, it is time for you to choose your daddy! But if you confess God the Father you must also stop confessing to a sinful nature, because the implication of those words (though you don’t mean to say it) is that you are not of God, but of the devil, since you share the devil’s nature and inclination towards sin.

No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister. – 1 John 3:9-10

The first step to walking free from sin is to think of yourself dead to it(⁵). If you are professing to be a sinner with a sinful nature you are doing the exact opposite, and it’s why you are having such a hard time walking free and doing the good works that you were created in Christ to do. More on that in the next post!

1. 2 Cor. 15:56

2. Romans 5:14, 1 Cor. 15:45

3. John 1:12-13

⁴ Romans 8:29, 1 John 4:17

5. Romans 6:11

The first step to walking free from sin is to think of yourself dead to it.

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