All in the appropriation

“When we’re talking about the ‘blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,’ we’re talking about the love, the joy, the peace, the longsuffering,” says Jordan.

“We’re talking about appropriating into your experience the reality of what God has given you in your position in Christ. You have an identity in Christ. God has taken your sin and set you free. He’s taken the guilt and sent it to Calvary.

“He said, ‘I’ll remember it no more. I’ll not connect it back with your identity again. I’ll do it permanently and forever. You never have to come and ask me to accept you. I already have. You never have to ask to please forgive me my sins. I already have. I’ve made you complete. I’ve blessed you with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. Now all I want you to do is take what I’ve already given you and bring it into the experience of your life on a daily basis.’

*****

“Colossians 2:10 says, ‘And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.’  But then look at chapter 4:12: ‘Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.’

“Wait a minute—I thought they were complete?! Why is Epaphras praying and laboring that they would BE complete?

“Paul says in Ephesians 1, ‘You’re accepted in the beloved.’ In II Corinthians 5:9, he says, ‘Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.’

“You say, ‘Wait a minute—I thought I was accepted!’ That’s the difference between your standing and your state; your position in Christ and your practice in time; your identity in Him and then that identity living in your experience now.

*****

“If you’re complete in Him, there’s nothing to make your more complete. All you need to do is appropriate the completeness you already have—bring it in to your experience. Have the practical, experiential possession of what already belongs to you.

“That is to experience the joy of, ‘I am forgiven.’ Whew! That’s a wonderful thing. Let that inform your mind so that your emotions know how to relate to reality.

*****

“Now, there’s two things you have to have to appropriate anything. One, you got to know about it. You got to see what you already have in Christ. The key to the Christian life is knowing your identity, and you can never know your identity if you don’t study the Bible rightly divided. Dispensational Bible study is the most practical thing you’ll ever have in your life because it gives you the ability to know who you really are.

“The other component is you not only have to know it, you have to be aware of your need of it. That’s because you’ll never reach out and appropriate into your experience something unless you know that you really need it. That’s what was happening to Paul in Romans 7.

“He’ll say, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ and you’ll say, ‘What?! How’d he get out of Romans 6 into that so fast?!’

“In Romans 7:14, Paul says, ‘For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.’
You lying rascal! You just told me that you’re complete in Christ, you’re dead with Him, buried with Him, raised with Him! How’d you get out of chapter 6 so fast?!

“Paul, in Romans 7, is not identifying himself as God does. He slipped back into identifying himself as he identified himself. But then he said it in one little phrase in Galatians 20: ‘It’s not I but Christ.’

“You got to have those ‘It’s not I’ moments where you become aware of your bankruptcy so that the riches of Christ become the thing that’s the need of your heart.

*****

“Appropriating into your experience is closed to all but the needy heart. It’s available only to those who’ll say, ‘It’s not I but Christ.’

“When those two things—a conscious awareness of faith-trust in who you are and then a realization of your absolute need in every moment for it (‘It’s not I, it’s Christ’) then you need a lifetime of spiritual growth because, friend, it takes time for the Holy Spirit to work that process into the details of your life.

“That’s why Romans 7 is in Romans 7, not 2 or 5. You’ve experienced it; you get on the mountaintop and you got the ‘joy, joy, joy,’ and a little while later, you’re down here in the doldrums and you say, ‘I don’t think I’ll ever see the mountaintop again for the clouds.’

“And when you’re in those moments of need, rather than being mad at God or someone else, that’s the moment to say, ‘You know, here’s a NOT I experience. I’m down here because I’ve been trusting me,’ and instead of defining your situation by your problems, define them by who you are in Christ and look at the situation you’ve gotten into as an opportunity to grow because that’s exactly what God’s grace is trying to get to.

*****

“I was at a Bible conference in Tennessee where a woman driving to the event was in a bad car wreck. She was injured quite severely and had a limb amputated and people asked, ‘Why?!’ But there was something in this lady’s inner man that gave her joy in spite of it all.

“You see, it’s ‘according to the riches of His grace.’ (Eph. 1:7) You can feel forgiven even when the circumstances don’t make out like you ought to. But you got to remember, no Believer ever fell into maturity overnight. This is a lifelong process of spiritual growth, of learning over and over, ‘It’s not I; it’s Christ.’

“You take little baby steps at first and then you become a person who can walk. But it’s always, ‘Not I but Christ.’ It’s always seeing the riches that are mine in Him and becoming aware of my need of that. Seeing and needing brings us from a child that’s meandering around to a responsible, specific walk of faith. It’s called maturity; it’s called being an adult.

“Paul says, ‘Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.’

“God desires adults for children and He brings us to that maturity day by day as we see, ‘It’s not I; it’s Christ.’ And our redemption and forgiveness is according to the riches of His grace that produces that.”