Copyright  ©  2014  Wildwood  Calvary  Chapel    Scripture  taken  from  the  New  King  James  Version.    Copyright  ©  1979,  1980,  1982  by  Thomas  Nelson,  Inc.    Used  by  permission.  All  rights  reserved.      

A Honest Look

During the first formidable months of my Christian life, the Lord had me in a ministry whose aim was to bring life and freedom to those caught in the bondage of addiction through Jesus. The road was extremely difficult at times, but I noticed that the closer I got to Jesus, the greater my desire for Him became. I remember some weeks into my first two months in the program I heard a sermon out of Colossians chapter three that made a huge impact on me. The pastor that night exhorted us that as believers in Jesus Christ we need to become the new man as described there in the text. I can still place myself there on my bunk later that night, lights about to go off with the endless barrage of seventy dudes snoring about to commence. I sat there asking God to help me begin to see these characteristics in my own life play out. I begged God to help me become humble, meek, longsuffering, etc. That night, God spoke so clearly to my heart in a way that I had never fully experienced before. As I flipped around in my bible I happened across Colossians chapter three where I began to read the first eleven verses. Now my mind was nowhere near sharp at this juncture in time due to the lifestyle decisions that had transpired, so I was unaware that the text before me preceded the text from our study just hours before. There, in the quietness of my own soul that night, God spoke to me saying that for the new characteristics to come into my life, the old ones had to go! Literally, the old self had to be crucified, done away with, and put to death. In a similar vein of thought, the Apostle Paul, as he exhorts his readers to walk in love in his epistle to the Ephesians, says, “But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints…” (Ephesians 5:3). The point of Paul’s charge here was that fornication, uncleanness, and covetousness are all indicative of the old nature and are not fitting for the sanctified believer in Jesus Christ. Meditating and praying on this simplistic truth brought to mind Galatians 2:20 which says, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” The words penned by the Apostle Paul are telling as they presuppose the reality of dying to one’s self. Scripture boldly asserts that believers in Jesus Christ are saints, those set apart by the blood of Christ shed upon Calvary and the subsequent Resurrection to the right hand of

     Copyright  ©  2014  Wildwood  Calvary  Chapel      Scripture  taken  from  the  New  King  James  Version.    Copyright  ©  1979,  1980,  1982  by  Thomas  Nelson,  Inc.    Used  by  permission.  All  rights  reserved.    

the throne of God. We are His, bought and paid for by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. With this insane reality in mind, I pray that today we take some serious inventory within our own hearts. The inevitable question remains to be asked. Are we as individual believers living a life that matches up to the new nature that is ours in Christ or are we entangled and ensnared in sin and weights caused by a worldly outlook and selfish behavior? May we answer this question within our own soul with honesty and may we run to the foot of cross with tenacity! After all, Jesus is there and He knows how to fix us!

   Zach  Hafner