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Grace on Trial - Week 3: Identity Concerns · Your Daily Grace

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  Welcome to your Daily Grace by Timothy Wilder Grace on Trial Identity Concerns Does Grace ignore Ongoing Sin Struggles? Part two in the previous post, we talked about the reality of ongoing struggles. Many believers know what it feels like to fight battles that seem to linger far longer than expected.
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  I certainly do. For most of my life, anger was one of those battles.
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  If I'm being honest, it still appears from time to time. The difference is that it no longer has the same hold on me that it once did. What is interesting to me is how that change happened. I cannot point to a program that fixed me. I cannot point to a season where I finally became disciplined enough. I did not discover a secret technique, follow a special plan, or master anger management.
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  If I could point to those things, I would probably be tempted to take credit for the results myself. Yet something has changed. When I look back over the years, I see that I am not the same man I used to be. The change has been gradual, sometimes so gradual that it was difficult to notice while it was happening. It feels less like self improvement and more like God quietly reshaping something deep within me that has caused me to think differently about spiritual growth. For a long time, I assumed lasting change came from focusing on the problem. If I struggled with anger, I needed to focus on anger. If I struggled with some other weakness, I needed to focus on that weakness.
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  Scripture points our attention somewhere else. Paul tells believers to reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus Our Lord.
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  Romans 6:11 NKJV Notice where the focus is placed. Paul does not tell believers to constantly identify themselves by their failures. He reminds them who they are in Christ.
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  The Christian life is not lived from the outside in it is lived from the inside out. The Gospel does not begin by changing our behavior and eventually giving us a new identity.
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  God gives us a new identity, and that new identity gradually influences the way we live.
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  Paul describes this process in another beautiful passage, but we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image. 2 Corinthians 3:18 NKJV Transformation is God's work Notice also that Paul says we are being transformed. The language describes an ongoing process rather than an instant event.
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  That has been encouraging to me because it explains much of what I've experienced.
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  The struggle may not vanish overnight, but God has not stopped working. Change may be slower than I would prefer, but slower does not mean absent. Titus says that the grace of God that brings salvation teaches us. Titus 2:11 and 12 NKJV Grace does more than forgive.
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  Grace teaches, grace shapes, grace transforms, Grace produces growth that flows from a new identity rather than from fear, shame or self effort.
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  When I look at my own life I still see areas where growth is needed. At the same time I see evidence that God has been faithfully changing me for years. The battle is not completely gone but neither am I the person I once was.
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  That is what gives me confidence, not confidence in myself, confidence in what God's grace is able to accomplish. When you look back over the last several years, can you see places where God has changed you even if the process was slower than you expected?
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