By Beverly Wages
“I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing, for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not” (Rom. 7:18). “For I have sinned and come short of the glory of the Lord” (Rom. 3:23). “For there is none righteous, no not one” (Rom. 3:10). “For all my righteousness is as filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6).
“In times past I walked according to the course of this world” (Eph. 2:2), but “when I was without strength, in due time Christ died for me, the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). “For God so loved me that He gave His only begotten Son that if I would believe in Him, I would not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn me, but that I through Him might be saved” (John 3:16-17).
So “by grace I am saved through faith, and that not of myself, it was a gift of God, not of works lest I should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). “And now I am His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that I should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). “Not by works of righteousness which I have done, but according to His mercy hath he saved me …” (Titus 3:5). Now, “I have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:14). “By one Spirit I have been baptized into one Body …” (1 Cor. 12:13), because “I trusted in Him after that I heard the Word of Truth, the gospel of my salvation; in whom also after that I believed, I was sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of my inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:13-14).
Now I am “complete in Him which is the head of all principality and power” (Col. 2:10), and I am a member of the one “church which is His Body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:22-23). I, “therefore, … should walk worthy of the vocation wherewith I am called” (Eph. 4:1), and do my part to “make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery …” (Eph. 3:9). Now I should “seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God, and set my affections on things above, not on things on this earth” (Col. 3:1-2).
“God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14). “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21).
