If any man be in Christ, He is a new creature, old things are passed away and all becomes new.
(2 Cor. 5:17)

It is found only in Christ and what He did for us. Nothing is available outside of Him. 

• In Him we have wisdom, righteousness, redemption, and sanctification. 1 Cor. 1:30
• In Him we are the righteousness of God. 2 Cor. 5:21
• In Him we are redeemed from the curse. Gal. 3:13
• In Him we have life and that more abundantly. John 10:10
• In Him we have forgiveness and reconciliation. Rom. 3:21-25
• In Him we can forget the past and move into the good plan He has for us. Phil. 3:13, 14
• In Him we have the shalom peace of nothing missing and nothing broken. Rom. 5:1, Col. 1:20
• In Him we have comfort and joy unspeakable and full of Glory. 1 Peter 1:8, Phil. 2:1-5
• In Him we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus. Rom. 8:17
• In Him we are more than conquerors. Rom. 8:37
• In Him we are loved and have access to the Father. Eph. 2:18, 3:12, John 16:27, 1John 3:1
• In Him we have mercy and mercy overcomes all judgment. Eph. 2:4, James 2:13
• In Him we can love. His love has been shed abroad in our hearts by His spirit. Rom.5:5
• In Him we have faith and victory, and we can walk in power and authority over all the works of darkness. 1 John 5:4, Rom. 12:3, Luke 10:17, Col. 1:13, Heb. 2:14, 15, Eph. 1:19-23
• In Him we have it all! Rom. 8:32, 1Cor. 3:21, 22
• In Him we are seated together with Him in Heavenly places. Eph 2:6
• Without Him, outside of Him, we have nothing and are nothing according to the words of Jesus out of His own mouth! John 15:5-8

This is what makes all the difference in the world. It matters if you see yourself in your sin, unforgiven, lifeless, sick, faithless, and hopeless, or if you begin to see yourself in His righteousness, blessed, forgiven, healed and in victory.

Instead of seeing ourselves in our failures, we must begin to see ourselves in Him and in His provision in all realms of our lives.

Instead of seeing ourselves in darkness and confusion, we must see ourselves in His light and according to His power.

Instead of seeing ourselves according to the hatred and bitterness of an empty life without God, we must see ourselves as partakers of His Divine nature. I am talking to Christians now. If you are a believer you must begin to see yourself as He sees you. His Divine nature is His great love and His never-ending mercy, His power and His anointing.  Instead of seeing ourselves with the limited natural supply we may be seeing at the moment in the natural, we must begin to see ourselves in His unlimited supply according to His unending and vast resources (riches) in glory in Christ Jesus.

Whatever way you see yourself on the inside is the way it is projected towards the outside. This has many applications, even in cases of people that grew up in abusive homes that are now attracting abusive people into their own lives after they are grown up, but I will leave that for some counselor to address. Here’s another application. Some people mistreat others because they have a poor self-image in them. I know that some mistreat people just because they don’t walk in love or because they are bon-a-fide jerks. We all have probably met some real jerks.

Jesus said that we are to love people (our neighbor) as ourselves. There you have a major reason why many seem like they can’t love or have difficulty loving others. They don’t love themselves. If you dislike or loathe yourself, generally speaking, that is the way you will treat others. The same applies to marriage and the home.  How you treat your wife or husband says a whole lot about how you love yourself. I think I will leave that alone for now. It is true anyway!

The renewing of the mind is the putting on of the Christ-life we received on the inside by putting it on the outside. It is projecting outwardly what He put in us inwardly. 

Dan A. Rodriguez
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