DEC 9, 2023
'For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.' Romans 6: 5-8 NKJV (emphasis mine)
Before we begin this step in our daily self-inventory, let's remember the first step. If we have been given new life in Christ, we have died to the old life and now are in a process of learning to live in the new life we have been given. We DO NOT learn to become confident in our old self! That would be both foolish and devastating. Instead, we daily discover what it means to live life as someone who is united with Christ.
My new life has potential that I have not fully realized until I start to choose it regularly. Being one with Christ changes everything. I may have known about Him before, but if He lives in union with me and I with HIm, I take on His identity to find my own.
When I was living through betrayal in my marriage, I found myself hearing internal prompts and insights into what was really going on with my husband. To be honest, I had a profound relationship with the Lord of intimacy and trust. Despite that, when I would sense that something was not quite right, or the Holy Spirit would say a word or two to me about what was in the darkness, I usually pushed it away.
It was frightening to me. Eventually I would ask my husband about it. Every time, he would deny everything, and me questioning him would lead to great conflict, blaming, belittling and defensiveness. So, I learned to squelch my 'instinct'.
Later in my journey, I learned that husbands and wives become tuned into each other in a profound physiological way in marriage. There is a 'dance' they enter into that reciprocates fear, joy, pain, etc. It is chemical and can even syncronize their heart beats, hormones and emotions. In short, a married couple lives in a back and forth unspoken connection of sorts. What one does affects the other in ways that no other person can. Truly, in this God is revealing to us what it means for marriage to form 'one flesh' (Matthew 19:4-6) and for two people to become one (Ephesians 5: 28-30).
When I am discovering my new life in Christ, and because of the union my husband and I came into, I could have confidence that I was privy to truth. Disillusionment was not guaranteed just because my husband was betraying me and hiding it. Truth was accessible no matter what my husband did or said. Does that mean I would know everything all the time? Absolutely not. But it did mean that I could have confidence in my ability to know it because of the two provisions I described (my union with Christ and my union with my husband).
Why does this make such a difference in my healing journey?
When I began to live with this confidence, I saw options on how to move forward. I could dialogue with the Lord according to what I knew in my heart. I could wait on the Lord according to what He had revealed to me and not just what my husband said or did. This is called discernment.
Discernment is about knowing you have the ability to make appropriate judgments, choices and decisions. It is about knowing what is happening 'to me,' but it not overtaking me. I am not 'out of control' because of it. Even more, discernment gives me the ability to say, 'this is sin,' and 'this is what I will do about it.'
In the next blog, I will describe more about how this developed in my life along the way. To be clear, I am still growing in it and still have so much to learn! For now, though, let's begin by examining our lives daily to see how much we are believing these truths and how much we are being given the gift of discernment on a daily basis!
However, if you are reading this and still do not know what it means to have received the Life of Christ as a free gift, please reach out to me! I would love to share with you what this means. If you know what this means but are struggling to live it out, please email me for a free copy of a Scripture prayer you can pray daily to receive this truth into your heart and thinking. The starting point is most important because it sets our course for all of life.
I would love to hear from you and share my journey with you!
Jana
Beginsathome22@gmail.com
#2. Confidence With Self, Part 1
.png)