How to Become Who You Already Are

I believe the more we understand what God did in the new covenant, the more we understand what God wants from us as believers. 

We see that Moses was given the law on Mount Sinai in Exodus 19. When the law came into existence, it was God saying to man; this is how we are in covenant.  There has to be two people to keep a covenant but God knew that there was no way we could have kept our side of the covenant. The law could not produce the righteousness it commanded but God wanted to show us how much we needed a redeemer, a mediator. Man, in his sinful nature, believed that he could behave his way to God, or keep his side of the deal but God was a covenant keeping God, and we were just a covenant breaking people. So God, in his infinite wisdom, breaks in and tells us that he is going to fulfill our side of the covenant with a new heart and a new spirit. Ezekiel 36: 24-27 says:

I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness’s, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

For me, I see that the heart of stone represents the law. We are no longer called to God through the law, but we are called to him through a new, supernatural heart; a heart that can receive God’s perfect law on our soul, that is, the Holy Spirit. God is promising us that we no longer have to try and behave our way to him, He is making His way to us which comes from the completed work of the crucified Christ, and resurrected through the power of the Holy Spirit. In addition, we see in Jeremiah 31: 31-34 that God is making a new covenant.

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

We see that two of the main aspects of the new covenant are the forgiveness of sin, and that God will write His law on our hearts. So, what does it mean when God writes His law on our hearts? How does He write the law on our hearts? It is obviously through the Holy Spirit. You may ask why this is important to understand as a believer. It is precisely where our transformation comes from, and if you’re going to lead someone to transformation, I believe you need to understand how you have been transformed. God says it is going to be through the forgiveness of sin, and that He writes His law on our hearts. Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians 3: 1-6

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? 2 You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. 3 And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

In addition, Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 3 that not only was the old covenant a temporary ministry and the new ministry was eternal; that the old ministry brought death and the new ministry brought life, and that life comes through the Holy Spirit. Paul also states that when you try to read Moses, or the law, a veil remains over your heart, meaning when you try to obey the law, when you try to do better, you fail because only when you turn towards the Lord is the veil removed. When the veil is removed, Paul says we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another. That is transformation. The transformation only comes from God through the power of the Holy Spirit. In addition, when the veil is removed, sin is also removed, because that is part of the new covenant; the forgiveness of sin. You have to understand that the removal of sin is an experience given to us by God through the power of the Holy Spirit. Most people even have an experience of feeling lighter because you helped them see God’s promise of the removal of sin, and now they experience a right relationship with God, by God, through the power of the Holy Spirit.  By God’s help, we are keeping our end of the covenant, by being forgiven and having the law of God written on our heart.

So in the new covenant, I don’t think God wants us to do more; I believe God wants us to become more.  And the only way we can become more is through the transformational love of the Triune God, which came through the new covenant.

So what does God want from us as believers?  Become who you already are. Its the work God accomplished.