Life for the Cling-On

(Yes, I’m a Star Trek fan and couldn’t help using Worf, the Klingon crewmember, to make an important point. I even gave him a cameo in yesterday’s video. Things often collide in my imagination, so I hope you enjoy what results.)

Some of us are schizophrenic cling-ons, holding on to our first birth in Adam one day (“I’m a sinner”), and then to our second birth in Christ on the next day (“I’m a saint”). It cannot be both. It is either one or it is the other. Either you are still in Adam (your first birth), you explain your misbehavior accordingly and have a whole lot of changing to do in order to overcome that troublesome birth, or you are in Christ (your second birth) and explain your misbehavior as fleshly and not in keeping with who you actually are by nature, Jesus having made that change for you and to you. Only those who cling on to their second birth have hope that Jesus made the change inside of us through the new birth—we really are new beings at the heart—and move on to new life in Christ.

I encourage you to cling on to your new birth in Christ, no matter what. It worked! It happened! He was successful! Thank you, Jesus! Can I get an “Amen”? Quit clinging on to and wrestling with imaginary Adam as if he defines you. He is gone. He is outta here. Turn your focus to Jesus and to the fact of Him with you and in you for life. He defines you. That’s better, right?

Here’s how your second birth, through faith in Christ, is described:

1 Peter 1:23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

 

Look at those beautiful words, and cling on! “Imperishable.” “Living.” “Enduring.” Doesn’t that seem like God did a perfect work? It does. He did it, and your second birth got rid of your troubled first birth. You will never “fall back” into your first birth because you are forever new in your second birth. Imperishable, indestructible, unchangeable—never will your birth or Spirit-born you decay, no matter how things look, no matter how you behave, no matter how you seem to mess things up. He did it. It worked. You’re in. Forever. You live by faith in Jesus—that He was successful. You live off Him and His triumph.

And that is life for the cling-on.

(This is a transcript of yesterday’s video, “Life for the Cling-On,” and is for those who might rather read than watch. To see the video, click https://youtu.be/4CQDplsFkWo, or scroll down this blog page.)