Living life as a Christian might seem boring for those who don't understand it, but for those who do, there's nothing like it. Here are three things that you should know about yourself as a Christian.
1) You don't have to prove your worth anymore
This is a truly liberating truth. We all know that God sees us whether we are in the open or in hiding. Yet despite that, He has loved us with "an everlasting love," "that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (see Jeremiah 31:3; Romans 5:8) What does this mean?
This simply means that we have no reason to struggle and prove our worth before God anymore. Most of us try to win our way into God's love and acceptance, but the truth really is that He has already loved us even before we could hear the name "Jesus." In God, we can simply come with all our scars and wounds, as well as our trophies and medals. We don't have to work our way to salvation (see Ephesians 2:8-9).
He knows us more than we know ourselves, including our inability to atone for our sin. That's why He sent His one and only begotten Son to save all of us – simply because we can't save ourselves no matter what we do (see John 3:16; Romans 7:24). And because He saved us, we can now focus on doing what is right.
2) In Christ, you are not your own
The Bible tells us that Christ ransomed, bought us with His own blood (see 1 Corinthians 6:19). This means that He actually owns us! What does this mean?
This may come as a shock, but it simply means that we don't own ourselves any longer. While God has indeed given us freedom of choice, the Bible reminds us that we died together with Christ in His death (see Colossians 3:2-3). Before surrendering to Him, we wasted our lives doing worldly things, but now that we have given our lives to Him (if indeed we did), we should not do what we used to (see Col. 3:1-11). He owns us.
3) You aren't born (or born again) for yourself
It feels so good to be forgiven, right? But we weren't' forgiven by God so that we could just be free from the overwhelmingly heavy feelings of guilt and condemnation. We were forgiven and given a new start so that we could live our lives for Christ and His glory (see Romans 6)!
This simply means that in being born again, we are given a new reason to live. We used to live in our worldly, selfish ways. Now that we are born again, we live for Him who gave us a new life.
