Neil T. Anderson - Who I Am In Christ: A Devotional

Neil T. Anderson

Published by Regal

From Gospel Light

Ventura, California, U.S.A.

www.regalbooks.com

Printed in the U.S.A.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Other versions used are:
NASBScripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
NKJVScripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

2001, 1993 Neil T. Anderson
All rights reserved.

Originally published in 1993 by Regal Books as Living Free in Christ.

All letters, testimonies and phone conversations in this book are used by permission. Any omission of credit or attribution for the use of source material is unintentional and is the responsibility of the author. The publisher requests documentation for future printings.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Anderson, Neil T., 1942
Who I Am in Christ / Neil T. Anderson.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-8307-2890-2 (trade paper)
1. Assurance (Theology) 2. Freedom (Theology) 3. Justification. 4. Identification (Religion) 5. Spiritual lifeChristianity. I. Title.
BT785.A53 1993
234dc20
93-7358

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 / 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08

Rights for publishing this book outside the U.S.A. or in non-English languages are administered by Gospel Light Worldwide, an international not-for-profit ministry. For additional information, please visit , or write to Gospel Light Worldwide, 1957 Eastman Avenue, Ventura, CA 93003, U.S.A.

In Christ...

In Christ...

In Christ...

Im indebted to Ron and Carole Wormser, my tireless partners in ministry. They did the serious editing and offered valuable feedback. I deeply appreciate Dr. Robert Saucy for reading the manuscript and caring enough to ask the tough theological questions.

Roger McNichols, our manager at Freedom in Christ Ministries, coordinated the project. His mother, Laura McNichols, typed much of the manuscript from audiotapes I recorded as I traveled to and from conferences.

I cant thank Bill Greig Jr. and his staff enough for supporting my ministry. He and the entire family at Gospel Light have been an inspiration to me. Youre all great and easy to work with.

My dear wife, Joanne, endured yet another one of my projects. She is my companion for life and makes my ministry possible, real and relevant. She is always there to verify, validate and vindicate what this book has to say.

To my daughter, Heidi, and son-in-law, Keith Anderson, I dedicate this book. You are starting a new journey in life together with the joyful blessing of both sets of your parents. May the message of this book be what keeps you together in Christ.

I am thankful for my heritage. I was born and raised on a farm in Minnesota, where I walked a mile to a country school for my first 6 years of education. My social life revolved totally around my family, school, and church. Church was a regular experience for me, but somehow during those formative years of my life, I was never confronted with the need to make a decision about my relationship to Christ. I never really understood what the gospel was all about. I was 25 years old before I finally realized who God is and why Jesus came. It would be another 15 years before I finally realized who I am as a child of God.

Tragically, most Christians never come to appreciate who they are in Christ. From the time of birth we are programmed by our environment and the people in our lives. We interpret the meaning of lifes experiences through the grid of our personal orientation and react accordingly. For the many who have experienced rejection, abandonment or abuse from earliest childhood, entrenched in their belief systems is an attitude that says, I am of no value, I dont measure up, I am unlovable. Even those of us whose childhood seemed wholesome have been victimized in some way by the enemys subtle deceptions.

Without exception, all the people I have counseled have had some unscriptural belief the enemy has used to keep them in bondage. It is important to recognize faulty beliefs from the past, to renounce them as lies, and to reprogram and renew our minds with truth.

Genesis 2:7 says, The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Adam was alive in two ways: First, he was alive physicallyhis soul, or soul-spirit, was in union with his physical body. Second, he was alive spirituallyhis soul, or soul-spirit, was in union with God.

In Genesis 2:16,17 we read, The Lord God commanded the man, You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die. Well, Adam disobeyed God, and he ate of that tree. Did he die physically? Not initially, although the physical process of dying did begin, but he died spiritually, and it was dramatically realized by his separation from God.

From that time on, everyone born into this world is physically alive but spiritually dead, separated from God. Before coming to Christ, we had neither the presence of God in our lives nor the knowledge of His ways, so we learned to live independent of Him. Ephesians 2:1 says, As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. What does it mean that we were dead? Were we dead physically? Of course not, but we were dead spiritually; we were separated from God.

Jesus came to remove that separation. He said in John 10:10, I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full. In the early years of my Christian experience, I thought eternal life was something I got when I died, but 1 John 5:11,12 says, And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. Every Christian is alive in Christ right now. To be alive means that your soul is in union with God. Throughout the New Testament you will repeatedly see the truth that you are in Christ or that Christ is in you. It is this life that gives us our essential identity.

Colossians 3:10,11 says we have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

In other words, how we formerly identified ourselves no longer applies. When asked to describe themselves, people usually mention race, religion, cultural background or social distinctions. But Paul said none of those apply anymore, because our identity is no longer determined by our physical heritage, social standing or racial distinctions. Our identity lies in the fact that we are all children of God and we are in Christ.

Although I am thankful for my physical heritage, I am far more grateful for my spiritual heritage. The practical significance of this essential truth cannot be overstated. A Christian gains forgiveness, receives the Holy Spirit, puts on a new nature and gets to go to heaven. A Christian, in terms of his or her deepest identity, is also a saint, a child born of God, a divine masterpiece, a child of light, a citizen of heaven.