PSA Lesson 3

Once we have been born again through faith in the Lord Jesus, we have been submerged into His death and raised again to His resurrected life, and we now have a new position. In Ephesians 2 we have this marvelous chain of events that has occurred by the grace of God. We begin life’s journey dead in trespasses and sins vs 1. We might ask just what does that mean, we are not dead, we are alive up walking around etc.? Verse 2 and 3 go on to explain, we ordered our conduct according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air (the devil) and according to our own innate lust of the flesh being by nature children of wrath. This is what it means to be spiritually dead. Then we read those wonderful words of life:

But God who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Vs 4-6.

God has made us alive or resurrected us because that is what God does to dead people. It is as our Lord has stated, “Because I live, you will live also” (John 14:19). As we have been identified with His death so also we are identified with His resurrection (Romans 6:4-13). Next, He has raised us up and seated us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. This is one of the all-time great declarations of the Bible. We who were once dead in sins are now seated in the heavenly places. This is our permanent, unchanging place, this is the reason why we will never be separated from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). All that is left for us is to live like those who are seated in the heavenly places rather than those stuck in the muck and mire of this world. We are to daily appropriate by faith what God has done on our behalf to the extent that it impacts every moment of our life. Feeling discouraged? Why? You are seated in the heavenly places. As believers we have more reason to have a positive mental attitude than anyone else. So many of the Lord's people suffer from a lack of self-esteem which is a real tragedy. It is not a matter of self-esteem, it is a matter of Christ-esteem and He sees us in heaven. Therefore, may our world view, our philosophy of life and our daily walk always demonstrate the reality of what it means to be a heavenly people. Let us be a people looking up, let us be a people always positive with a positive spiritual attitude that Christ has made us something better than we could ever do for ourselves and let us live like that kind of heavenly people.