When Christians find themselves dealing with sin, they often try behaviour modification.
Let me save you some time here. It won’t work!
I was speaking with a man, and one of the issues he had was smoking marijuana. He said he didn’t know what to do about it.
When I told him that, he laughed and said, “You’re kidding, right?”
I said, “No, I’m not.” I again said, “I want you to say out loud, every time you have a thought about it, ‘I’m the righteousness of God.’”
He said, “Well, what if I go get it?”
I replied, “Say, ‘I’m the righteousness of God.’”
He said, “What if I roll a joint?”
I said, “Say, ‘I’m the righteousness of God.’”
He said, “What if I light it?”
I said, “While you’re lighting it, say, ‘I’m the righteousness of God.’” He thought I was playing.
He said, “Well, what if I put it to my lips?”
I said, “Well, if you’re going to take a puff, right before you puff, say, ‘I’m the righteousness of God.’”
You know what? He called and told me that he had said it so much that as he attempted to smoke, he realized, “I am the righteousness of God!” And he got rid of it. He threw it away!
Here’s what I’ve come to understand. We don’t have a behaviour problem. We have an identity problem.
Because we don’t understand who we are, we allow our behaviour to try to tell us who we are. Your bad behaviour tries to convince you that that’s who you are. But if you’ll receive the identity that you have in Christ first, then your identity in Christ will change the bad behaviour.
What we’ve tried to do is modify the bad behavior before we understand who we are in Christ Jesus and the identity we have in Him. You see, I am holy right now. I understand, and I accept that I am holy—right now.
As you grab hold of the reality that you are the righteousness of God and that you are holy right now, your behavior will change—effortlessly.
Your righteous identity will produce righteous behaviour in you!
Creflo A. Dollar
Charis Guest Speaker
