ManageYourEmotionsBook8.5x5.5_RevJULY.indd

around in the valley of guilt when you could be scaling the moun- tains of sanctification and service. If your desire is to break free from the chains of shame that bind you, carefully consider the following: Fulfill your salvation. “Wait a minute preacher,” someone might ask, “I thought salvation was strictly a matter of grace through faith, requiring no works on the part of man. So why are you asking us to fulfill something God has already provided?”The answer is be- cause there are countless believers out there who are at peace with God (see Romans 5:1), yet don’t have the peace of God (see Philip- pians 4:7).They’re saved, but not sanctified, surviving but not thriv- ing.The Holy Spirit is resident in, but not president of their lives. I believe that is one reason the Bible commands us to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”We must bring to frui- tion what God has implanted in us by His grace and mercy. Fortu- nately we are not on our own, “For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12- 13). This brings us to that small yet significant phrase in our key verse for the chapter, “In Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).The terms “in Christ,” “in the Lord,” and “in Him” appear 164 times in Paul’s letters alone and are vital to what it means to be a child of God. “To be ‘in Christ’ does not mean to be inside Christ, as tools are in a box or our clothes in a closet, but to be organically united to Christ, as a limb is in the body or a branch is in the tree. It is this personal relationship with Christ that is the distinctive mark of his authentic followers.” 93 It is also this “in Christ” relationship that gives us the strength to shield ourselves from the arrows of false guilt the enemy shoots at us. Just like I said, “make sure you’re converted” in the last chapter, I now challenge you to take that conversion to a new level, working out what He has worked in. Forgive yourself. Perhaps this has been assumed and implied in what has already been written.Yet because so many people strug-

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