What do you believe about yourself that is a flat-out lie?

So much of what the Holy Spirit is working in us as believers begins with how we identify ourselves, and how we understand ourselves as persons. The Spirit works to impress on us our new identity in the eyes of God. There are so many facets to this that we never do receive the full understanding. Our minds would simply explode! We receive it piecemeal, little by little.

On the other hand, a self-identity fostered in us by the world . . . that is, a pattern of self-understanding that is accepted as an unquestioned and unquestionable fact, but which in truth is a product of the lie spoken by the serpent long ago and repeated in various forms to every person in every generation since . . . that pattern of self-understanding is something that does not go down without a fight. This battle between lies that we have long believed and truths that are new and in fact don't really seem to fit the evidence, this battle is waged in our very minds and hearts, day in and day out.

Here's the point. We who are in Christ are being renewed and reformed, quite shockingly, into the likeness of Christ. And here's the other point. Most of the time, we do not believe it. Oh, we accept it as a theoretical matter, as something that always remains conveniently "spiritual," but not as something that can be experienced in our own bodies and minds. This is how I understand that faith can grow. By a growing faith I do not mean a growth in intensity or passion, but an application of faith to more and more areas of our lives, and in part that means to more and more areas of our own self-identity. Believing, in the midst of the brutal scrum that is life, that God is working in us what he said in his word he would work in us by the Holy Spirit, and walking that out, by faith, in specific areas of our lives.

An example: learning, the ability to learn and grow, is a heavenly reality that is only experienced in shadowy way in the here and now. In the new heaven and earth, when God's will is done throughout the creation, we will be full-time learners, always delightfully growing in the knowledge of God, forever. So, our foretaste of that as believers, our downpayment, is the experience of renewed minds even now through faith.

A friend of mine is struggling to learn some new and very complex matters in the course of training for a new job. Part of his struggle to learn is in trusting that in Christ he can do this thing. That, in fact, this matter to which he has set his mind is one of the "all things" that are now possible for those who are in Christ Jesus. And also that, however much he has in the past accepted a self-identity as one who is "a slow learner," the truth is that even now, in this training situation, as he faces these grueling tests of the mind, The Holy Spirit is equipping him to leap these hurdles, to overcome these obstacles, and to win this victory!