Nov 30 - By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain . . . —1 Corinthians 15:10

We say things such as, “Oh, I shouldn’t claim to be sanctified; I’m not a saint.” But to say that before God means, “No, Lord, it is impossible for You to save and sanctify me; there are opportunities I have not had and so many imperfections in my brain and body; no, Lord, it isn’t possible.” That may sound wonderfully humble to others, but before God it is an attitude of defiance.

Oddly enough, today’s Utmost and my devotional from In Touch Ministries nearly match.  In Touch’s message was that we need to see ourselves as saints, not as the sinners we were. Yes, we still sin, but we are now sanctified by God’s grace (1 Corinthians 1:2) and we need to live in that, not in memories of our past sinfulness.  As Chambers rightly points out, finding that line between humility and saintliness can sometimes be difficult. 

The solution to this identity crisis is to change the way we think about ourselves. If we don’t, we’ll rely on how we feel, and Satan will bombard us with reminders of our failures and sins.

It always strikes me how we seem to naturally correlate faith and feelings.  Some people become very emotional during corporate worship or prayer, reinforcing the connection between faith and feeling.  Similarly, who hasn’t heard a believer talk about the warm, tingly feeling they felt all over the minute they accepted Christ and were in-filled with the Holy Spirit?  It was the lack of such feelings that kept me skeptical about faith for years—every one of my efforst to "ask Jesus into my heart" were met with silence, not tingling. When I finally heard someone say “faith is not an emotion, it’s a choice” a huge puzzle piece fell into place for me.  I don’t have trouble choosing Christ; if I’m still right with Him despite the lack of a physical sensation when I chose Him, then I’m good with that.  I can’t say that I necessarily feel “born again” or that I feel that I’m “a new creature.” I pretty-much feel the same as I always did.  My choices, however, have changed as a result of choosing to follow Christ.  While it would be nice to experience some warm, fuzzy feeling every time I make a choice pleasing to Him, it’s critical to know that the lack of such a feeling is not an indicator of lack of faith or that “I did it wrong.”  Had I known this years ago I probably would have become a Christian much sooner.