Living Life From A Heavenly Edge Series

Dear Visionary Leader:
Many people today do not understand what genuine, biblical humility is. They think that biblical humility is going around slumped over having an inferiority complex and saying, “Well, I am just no good.” Yet, you are a somebody and you need to develop true humility and to have a true understanding of who you are. We need to have an understanding of what God says about us.
As we begin this series, “Living Life From A Heavenly Edge,” I want you to learn these lessons as they come to us from the book of Ephesians. In Ephesians 1:1-4, we read:
“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”

The key to living a victorious Christian life is to discover who you are in Christ. Many Christians have never really discovered that. I want you to find out who you are in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you ever noticed that in the average Bible, if you’ll look at the margin where it’s thumbed the most, you’ll find the Bible has been used the most in what we call the behavior passages? If you take somebody’s Bible and look through it, the verses that deal with behavior will be the ones that will be marked up the most, underlined the most.
I’m talking about passages like Ephesians chapter 6 that tells us how to put on the whole armor of God and how to fight the warfare. In Romans 12, we are told things to do and not to do. In the Beatitudes we are told how to live and how to act. These verses are behavior passages. We study these kinds of passages over and over. Yet, we need to learn that Christianity is not behavior modification.
Yet, most people have the idea that it is. God does not work from the outside in; God does not modify our behavior in order to change us. God changes us in order to modify our behavior.
Somebody has said that, “You’ll never purify the water by painting the pump, and you’re not going to purify your life by outward modification. If you try to, what you’re going to end up with is legalism, and it is deadly.
The overarching outline of the book of Ephesians:
  • In chapter 1, Paul tells us who we are.
  • In chapters 2 and 3 Paul explains how we got to be who we are in Christ.
  • In chapters 4 through 6, he tells us how to live like what we are in Christ.
If you simply start in the practical, you’re going to get into legalism. You’re going to be frustrated and you’re going to try to live in a way that’s not going to work out. It is frustrating to live contrary to an identity that you do not have in your heart and in your mind.
Now, Jesus said for example, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) Now, it is truth that frees us. And, by the way, what is truth? Truth is what God says, that’s what truth is. Truth is what God says. Whatever God says, that’s truth. That truth is embodied in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, the Bible says, “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” But you see, the truth does not free you until you know it. You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.
Now, it doesn’t matter how true the truth is and it doesn’t matter how many wonderful truths there are in this Bible, they will not give you liberation, they will not set you free until you know those truths. You must know the doctrinal before it can translate into a practical.
Now, many Christians do not understand the truth. They do not know who they are in Christ. They’ve never really understood their self-image. They do not know what they have in Christ, therefore, they are never really liberated. They have a lid on their minds spiritually. They say, “I cannot do this. I cannot be free. I cannot succeed. I am chained by this habit. I am chained by this failure. I am chained by my limited knowledge.” And so forth. And, it is not true. But if we believe it to be true, it may as well be true.
Now, many Christians need to understand that they sometimes have a perception of themselves that it is not true. They believe it to be true and therefore they’re never set free. Remember the truth is what God says, not what you think about it. What God says is true, no matter how you feel about it. It is truth if God says it. But it will never set you free until you know the truth.

I believe there are several spiritual facts to learn that will liberate us. These spiritual facts will give us a proper self-image to understand what God says about us. Then we are going to see that this truth is going to set us free, and it’s going to give us a self-image that is going to be healthy, with true humility. In our next weekly ezine, we will learn the powerful spiritual facts of faith for victory.

Until The Last Person Has Heard,

Dr. James. O. Davis
Founder/President
Global Church Network
Cochair / Global Networking