Identity: You Are a Saint
When I was in my 20s, I joined what was called an "accountability group" at my church. On the first day, I received a card titled "The Magnificent Seven" with seven questions we were supposed to ask each other weekly:
Have you been with a woman anywhere this past week that might be seen as compromising?
Have any of your financial dealings lacked integrity?
Have you exposed yourself to any sexually explicit material?
Have you spent adequate time in Bible study and prayer?
Have you given priority time to your family?
Have you fulfilled the mandates of your calling?
Have you just lied to me?
The idea was that if we knew we'd face these questions each week, we'd be less likely to sin in these areas. It sounded logical, but it didn't work for me. In fact, constantly focusing on these potential sins sometimes made me more tempted.
Over time, I began to believe these struggles were simply part of who I was. I'm a guy, so I'm going to lust. I'm a guy, so I probably won't spend enough time with my family or reading my Bible. I believed this was just my identity, and I had to fight hard against these "natural" tendencies to become more holy.
The "Sin Management" Confusion
The more I talk with others, the more I realize I'm not alone in this experience. Many of us have been taught a confusing message in church: put your faith in Jesus for forgiveness of sins, but the moment you accept His forgiveness, you must start cleaning up your life to look more like Jesus because you're still "a dirty, rotten sinner."
Our entire focus becomes sin management—identifying sin in our lives so we can eliminate it. Yet for many of us, the more we focus on sin, the more we find ourselves sinning (which by the way is exactly what Paul confirms in Romans 7).
But What Does Scripture Actually Say?
Let's look at how Paul addresses the people in local churches:
Philippians 1:1: "Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi..."
Ephesians 1:1: "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus..."
Colossians 1:1-2: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints..."
You might think Paul only called exemplary churches "saints," but look at how he addresses the church at Corinth—a church with serious problems that Paul frequently had to correct:
1 Corinthians 1:2: "To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling..."
The Reason Behind Our Sainthood
In Romans 6, Paul explains how we can be called saints:
"We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life… For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin."
When Jesus died on the cross, you died with Him. Paul categorizes people as either being "IN ADAM" or "IN CHRIST." Each of us is born "IN ADAM," with a sin nature that leaves us spiritually dead. But when we put our faith in Jesus, our old self (the one "IN ADAM") dies.
Now you are "IN CHRIST" instead of "IN ADAM," which means the power of sin that was present at the core of your being is gone as well. Paul says in verses 6-7:
"For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin."
In other words, you no longer have a sin nature. The old you with a sin nature has died with Christ, and now you've been resurrected with Christ into someone new.
Count Yourself Dead to Sin
In Romans 6:8-11, Paul says:
"Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus."
The Greek word translated as "count" here is a banking term, sometimes translated as "reckon." It means to take into account or to reason.
What Paul is saying is that it's a fact—an eternal truth—that you are dead to sin. So, take into account that actually true about yourself in this temporal realm.
Walking in Your New Identity
Let me illustrate this with a personal story. Years ago, my daughter Ava broke her ankle. After six weeks in a cast and wheelchair, the doctor took the cast off, showed us the healed X-ray, and told her she could start walking with a boot. But when we got home, she refused to put weight on her foot. She was afraid because of what used to be true—that her ankle was broken.
Even though the doctor had confirmed her ankle was healed, Ava hadn't yet accepted this new reality as true for her life. So she kept hopping around on her good foot or using the wheelchair. Her actions aligned with what she believed to be true, not with what was actually true.
Many of us do the same thing spiritually. We hear the truth that we're different people, that our old selves are gone, that sin's power is dead in our lives—but we don't count it as true because we feel differently. As a result, we get stuck in cycles of sin.
Your True Self
As Dan Stone writes in his book, "The Rest of the Gospel":
"Our true self is who we are at the spirit level. At the deepest level of your personhood you are not a sinner. You are a saint. You are God's holy, righteous, blameless child. You have His nature. In your deepest personhood, your desires are not in conflict with God's will. Your deepest being always wants to do your Father's will, just as Jesus wanted to do His Father's will. This is your eternal, changeless identity. This is who you are. That you experience thoughts and feelings and even behavior to the contrary does not change the fact. Only by accepting this by faith can we begin to experience its reality."
Accepting this by faith means "reckoning it"—counting it as true in your life even when your mind and emotions tell you otherwise.
Breaking Free from Sin-Focus
This is how Satan tries to undermine us. He knows these truths about us, but he knows that if he can keep us focused on our sins, our feelings, and our failures, he can prevent us from living out the reality of our sainthood in Christ.
This is what happened to me in that accountability group. Because I thought of myself as "a sinner saved by grace" and focused so much on sin, I continued sinning repeatedly.
But after I began learning about my new identity in Christ as a saint—that the old me had died and the power of sin had been dealt with—once I understood and reckoned this in my life, those sins from the accountability questions held much less power over me. I began to act according to who I really was: a saint in Christ.
Living as a Saint
If you've put your faith in Jesus for salvation, the old you has died. You may not look dead, feel dead, or always act dead, but God says you are dead. Will you agree with Him—the One who created you—or will you trust your feelings instead?
You are a saint IN CHRIST. This is your identity. As you set your heart and mind on heavenly realities where this is true about you, it will change how you act down here.
Stop focusing on sin management. If you've been thinking your job as a Christian is to focus on your sins and try not to sin with God's help, just stop. Our focus should be on Christ and what He's done for us, who we've become in Him, and how He now works through us.
In Romans 6, Paul said, "the death Christ died, he died to sin ONCE FOR ALL; but the life he lives, he lives to God." Jesus is still alive, living His life, but where does He now live? IN YOU!
He is living His life in you and through you, so let's focus on Him and who we are in Him—a saint—and the sinning will take care of itself.
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