Renewing the Mind, Part 7
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We Are Complete In Christ
By Tammy Lacock
“For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.” (Colossians 2:9-10 KJV)
In part seven of “Renewing the Mind,” Warren Litzman emphasizes that, as believers, it’s important to understand what it means to be complete in Christ if we are to ever fully live who God created us to be.
By God’s grace, when we believed in Christ as our Savior, a radical change took place within us. Literally, the old sin nature, passed down to us by the curse of Satan, was uprooted and the Seed of Christ was planted in its place. God made us in His image and likeness so there was nothing wrong with us at our creation. Because of our own free will and the deception of Satan, his nature became our operator, unbeknownst to us. With Satan as our operator, we are inclined to do his will. Over time, we begin to know this doesn’t fit our creation, realizing we can’t live this false life on our own anymore, trying to be someone we’re not created to be. Our need for a Savior becomes a real choice. By Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, God’s amazing grace was poured out onto us, and we now have the opportunity for a brand-new life, free from the bondage of Satan. By Christ’s death, we died as well to our sin natures, our old lives, and our old identities. We are no longer identified by anything in this world. By His resurrection, we arose with Christ into a new life in Him. He is our new life.
The Apostle Paul tells us our minds must be renewed to this knowledge of Christ living in us as our new life. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, he says we are brand-new creatures in Christ, living a brand-new life. We must understand that our old lives are no longer who we are. Our new identity is Christ, who is our new operator. There is no separation. We are now complete in Him.
In Ephesians 1:4, Paul tells us we were “chosen in Him before the foundation of the world.” We were chosen to be completed by Christ before God created the world. We are not complete until we make the choice to believe and accept Christ as the one who redeemed us, and now He lives in us.
Warren explains, through Paul’s epistles, that we must have a constant mind-renewal now that we are living a brand-new life. Our minds must have a radical mind-change in order to catch up to the radical change that took place within our spirits. Christ is now joined to us making us one Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17).
As our minds begin to renew and understand our new life, our new identity in Christ, our completion in Him, and our non-separation from Him, and thus our Father in heaven, we also begin to develop and nurture our unique, personal relationship with Him. Complete in Christ, we progress into the person who God created us to be. Only then can we truly live out His purpose for us.
“I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” (John 17:23 KJV)
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