1. DISCOVERING WHO YOU ARE IN JESUS CHRIST BY DISCOVERING WHO JESUS CHRIST WAS

2. We will never understand who we are until we understand who Jesus was. Mary conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit, which means that God was his Father. Through the New Birth we become sons of God, and are as sinless in God’s sight as Jesus was at birth. Do you really believe this?

3. If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God through the Virgin Birth, why should you find it hard to believe that you are a son of God through the New Birth? It’s what God’s Word says.

4. “Now we are the sons of God” and are not of the world even as Jesus was not of the world (John 17:16) We were “born from above” by the same Spirit that overshadowed Mary and enabled her to conceive. The difference is that we needed to be “born again” to be as sinless as Jesus was when he was born.

5. We are “new creations” in Christ. As the firstborn from the dead, Jesus is “the beginning of the [new] creation of God” (Revelation 3:14) As a New Genesis creation, we live in a new landscape, we speak a new language, and we know one another for who we now are – not for who we once were. (2 Corinthians 5:16-17)

6. We exercise spiritual abilities in the same way that Jesus did. He could do nothing without his heavenly Father. Nor can we. Yet “as he is, so are we, in this world.” (John 5: 19; 1 John 4:17) A head of grain is identical to the seed that was sown. (John 12:24) The Firstborn Son and his brethren have the same holy nature as their heavenly Father. (Hebrews 2:11-12)

7. The Firstborn stands in privileged relationship to his Father. To him belongs the birthright, the blessing, and the double portion. The Father has given His Son “life in himself”, which he gives to “whomsoever he will” (John 5:26,21). Jesus the Firstborn received the promise from his Father, and baptized the waiting disciples in the Holy Spirit. The Firstborn Son still baptizes those who come to the Father through him.

8. Jesus said to his disciples, “I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” He did not say “our” Father and “our” God, because that would have made them his equals The primacy belongs to the Firstborn. Later born sons, although born of the same father, are not equals.

9. Jesus was the Firstborn of the New Creation (Colossians 1:15), which cannot sin, because it is born of God. (1 John 3:9) In our new identity we are dead to sin, are filled with God’s Spirit, and can live as Jesus did and do the works he did. (Romans 6:3)

10. First temptations appear in the form of questions, aimed at raising doubts as to whether we are who God has said we are. This is how Satan tempted the first Adam and the last Adam (Genesis 3; Matthew 4:3-6)

11. Victory over such questions comes when we do not doubt our identity and refuse to perform in order to prove that we are sons of God. A surge of authority surfaces in us when God’s word on our lips triumphs over the temptation to prove who we are. (Luke 4:14 )

12. We do not struggle to live the Christian life but simply allow Jesus to live his life through us by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the essence of the Christian life.