Page 9 - Personal Spiritual Life Syllabus w videos

All those who receive Jesus as Savior are “declared righteous” by God. What this means is that the
moment you trusted in Christ by faith, God declared you in right standing before the thrown and will
always treat you like a righteous individual, even if you sin in the future. You have been given the
righteousness of Christ in exchange for your unrighteousness. Probably the best verse to help you
understand this great exchange is:

II Corinthians 5:21 Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the
righteousness of God in him.

3. You get a New Heart.

The Bible speaks often of the heart. The word heart can mean different things depending upon the
context. Most often, the heart refers to the soul of a human being that controls the will and emotions.

When we are born again, God performs a heart transplant, as it were. He gives us a new heart. The
power of the Holy Spirit changes our hearts from sin-focused to God-focused. We do not become
perfect (1 John 1:8); we still have our sinful flesh and the freedom to choose whether or not to obey it.
However, when Jesus died for us on the cross, He broke the power of sin that controls us (Romans 6:10).
Receiving Him as our Savior gives us access to God and His power—a power to transform our hearts
from sin-hardened to Christ-softened.

When we were separated from God with hardened hearts, we found it impossible to please Him. We
tended toward selfishness, rebellion, and sin. With new hearts we are declared righteous before God (2
Corinthians 5:21). The Holy Spirit gives us a desire to please God that was foreign to us in our hardened
state. Second Corinthians 3:18 says that we “are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing
glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” God’s desire for every human being is that we
become like His Son, Jesus (Romans 8:29). We can become like Jesus only when we allow God to rid us
of our old, hardened hearts and give us new hearts.

4. You get a New Nature.

2 Peter 1:4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them
you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world
because of sinful desire. (ESV)

At salvation God gave you a new nature -- a spiritual (or divine) nature. While you still retain your old
sin nature, you now have new options: you are free to obey your new nature or you can obey your old
nature. Before salvation, you were a slave to your old sin nature. Now you have been freed from that
slavery to serve the Living and true God.

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And
the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

5. The Holy Spirit comes into your life permanently.

The Bible says that once you believe, that God in the person of the Holy Spirit comes into your body to
indwell with you. He comes to give you new life, new understanding, and a new power to resist

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