Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Alan Platt
Read between
January 27 - February 7, 2020
The reality you need to discover is that the starting point of our relationship with Jesus is actually the “finish” square. It is not our final destination because we start at the “finish.”
Our spiritual life begins at the FINISH. We start right at the top, at the perfection that Christ has already achieved!
When Jesus cried out, “It is finished!,” we were included in an event that changed our entire existence.
Our spiritual journey involves discovering our true identity, and that discovery begins when we discover ourselves in Christ and claim His declaration, “It is finished.” The game is over – we have won!
It is the invitation to join me in seeing how great the salvation is that Christ has already accomplished for us.
Good news must be good news – without buts, hidden agendas, or deceptive fine print.
The key to unlocking the mystery of the gospel is understanding who Jesus is and how His death on the cross impacts us.
Jesus Christ has completely disqualified us from all guilt and qualified us all for a life of victory and abundance.
Finally, the gospel becomes my own personal story, because I have been included in God’s great love story!
The law made man aware of his sinful nature and his deep need for a Savior who would be able to deliver him.
The law made man aware of his sinful nature and his deep need for a Savior who would be able to deliver him. The law led us to Christ.
Man’s critical condition could in no way quench the overwhelming love of God. He
Christ’s victory includes each of us personally, and this is what we need to discover.
I am not obedient to Him because I am working to be included in the Gospel or to win His favor. Christ has already paid the price. I am already included and I have already won His favor. I honor and obey Him because it is the natural outflow of my love for Him.
In the Old Testament, people’s motive for obedience was fear. They were fearful of God’s judgment because they were unable to fulfill the law.
“Heavenly places” is no longer our destination, but rather our starting point.
We do not work to be good enough to reign with Him in heavenly places one day. No, Christ paid the full price – there is nothing more that we can do. We now respond to what He has done by believing it, and this faith influences how we live.
We all have a conscience – the internal policeman that makes us feel uneasy when we’ve sinned and is quick to point out if we’re on the wrong track. Paul says that even heathens, those who do not have the law as their guideline, do the things that the law demands.
Guilt is like a weight resting on our shoulders after we do something we know is wrong.
Our conscience is very sensitive when it comes to experiencing guilt and shame.
Guilt brings a lack of confidence before God.
Where guilt is the result of having done something wrong, shame does not need a wrong deed to be done, but is rather a permanent sense of wrongness.
Shame brings a humiliation that robs you of your self-worth.
We are guilt-laden beings, held captive under the power of sin, and drifting ever further from God. We are guilty and ashamed, our identity is that of a sinner, and we live and think like sinners.
If we do not truly realize how totally lost we were as a result of our sinful nature, we will never need a Savior and the saving work that Christ did on the cross for us will never be of value to us.
When you understand that you are completely lost as a result of your sinful nature Christ becomes your focus and your only hope!
The crucifixion was a success – there was nothing else needed to save mankind; the price had been paid in full!
Righteousness means that we have been declared “not guilty,” or rather “innocent,” by God and that we have been completely approved and accepted by Him.
Righteousness is the position you hold in Christ, it is not something you receive in various measures. You are either righteous or sinful – you are not one or the other at different times.
Salvation involves the total restoration of a broken person to wholeness and a full life.
Religion is man’s attempt to rectify what Adam did wrong. By contrast, faith is understanding that nothing that we do right could ever restore our position with God; Christ has already done everything that was necessary.
Hebrews 10:14 tells us that it took one perfect sacrifice by one perfect person to perfect a lot of imperfect people:
Trying to contribute something towards your salvation is like doing what Adam and Eve did when they covered themselves with fig leaves to hide their shame.
God found us in Christ long before he lost us in Adam.
If you do not live according to the purpose for which you were created, you will also become damaged.
Guilt and shame oppressed all of mankind and made us slaves of an inferior way of living.
There can be no greater news than to hear that we’ve all been totally freed from this lifestyle.
Christ died on the cross to deal with your identity as a sinner; He came to deliver you by becoming sin so that you could become the righteousness of God.
As long as you believe you are a sinner, you will act like one.
Righteousness is a position of total innocence.
Mankind is no longer prisoner to Adam’s bloodline. We now qualify as a new race, a new species born of God:
God’s ideal for every person is that we would be who He originally created us to be. The only way you’ll ever get this right is to discover each day who you are in Christ. The greatest and most liberating discovery you could make is that Christ is not only an example for you, but rather an example of you.
You cannot love if you do not consider the object of your love valuable. God’s love for man was the proof that He deemed us extremely valuable.
But the essential result of sin is not missing out on heaven, it is the separation between ourselves and God and the loss of the intimacy that is supposed to exist between us and God.
When you sin, what you are really missing out on is the taste of heaven that is available here on earth – the intimacy you could be enjoying with God and the rights of citizenship in heaven.
The lightning bolt of God’s wrath against sin struck Jesus in our place and we now experience His favor.
The cycle of guilt has three primary components: conviction, condemnation, and repentance.
If we cannot see ourselves with Jesus on the cross, the cross actually means nothing to us.
Doing something wrong does not determine your identity. Run to what you know you truly are.
You walk in the Spirit by reminding yourself that you have a new identity in Christ and refusing to see yourself as a sinner.
