God knows you not as you once were but as who you now are. Jesus said to his Father: “As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” (John 17:18) We are in the world but are not of the world. As a “new creation” in Christ we have a new origin. So even in the dirtiest places, physically, we are as spiritually clean as Jesus was when he was on earth. When a repentant prostitute washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair, no sin was awakened in him because no sin slept in him.
None of us was born a sinner but we were all born with the fallen nature of Adam, which is prone to sin, and became sinners when we sinned knowingly against God. But when “born again” – “born from above – we became “partakers of the divine nature” — the sinless nature that Jesus was born with.
That is why the Apostle John could write: “That which is born of God cannot sin…” Yes, we can and do sin physically, but our new spiritual nature does not. Indeed, it cannot sin. When tempted, we need to “reckon ourselves as dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ”.
Have you been living “beneath” your status in Christ by thinking of yourself as the sinner you once were and not as the new creation you now are? Then it’s time to begin living the “above” life in Jesus Christ. God loves you, Jesus died for you, and the Holy Spirit works in you to set you apart for His own purpose in this sinful world, which you are no longer “of” but must live “in”.
So, make it your daily goal to live “above” it — just as your Lord Jesus did. “The prince of this world comes but finds nothing in me.” Nothing that responds to him or any of his temptations. Let’s pray that we too will be able to say the same!