(Download) "Identity Crisis: Who are you?" by Olalekan Ogunniyi ~ Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Identity Crisis: Who are you?
- Author : Olalekan Ogunniyi
- Release Date : January 29, 2021
- Genre: Christianity,Books,Religion & Spirituality,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 336 KB
Description
One of the major challenges limiting an average believer today is the question of identity. The average believer is faced with the crisis of rightly living out his identity. He wants to please God and at the same time he discovers there is a longing to please the world too. There is a constant battle to either yield to the flesh or the Spirit.
The new creation is described in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” The word “therefore” refers us back to verses 14-16 where Apostle Paul tells us that all believers have died with Christ and no longer live for themselves. Our lives are no longer worldly; they are now spiritual. Our “death” is that of the old sin nature which was nailed to the cross with Christ. It was buried with Him, and just as He was raised up by the Father, so are we raised up to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). That new person that was raised up is what Paul refers to as the “new creation.”
To understand the new creation, first we must understand that it is in fact a creation, that is, something created by God. John 1:13 tells us that this new birth was brought about by the will of God. We did not inherit the new nature, neither did we decide to re-create ourselves anew, nor did God simply clean up our old nature; He created something entirely fresh and unique. The new creation is completely new, brought about from nothing, just as the whole universe was created by God ex nihilo, from nothing. Only the Creator could accomplish such a feat.
Second, “old things have passed away.” The “old” refers to everything that is part of our old nature—natural pride, love of sin, reliance on works, and our former opinions, habits and passions. Most significantly, what we loved has passed away, especially the supreme love of self; alongside self-righteousness, self-promotion, and self-justification. The new creature looks outwardly toward Christ instead of inwardly toward self. The old things died, and were nailed to the cross with our sin nature.
Along with the old passing away, “the new has come!” Old, dead things are replaced with new things, full of life and the glory of God. The newborn soul delights in the things of God and abhors the things of the world and the flesh. Our purposes, feelings, desires, and understanding are fresh and different. We see the world differently. The Bible seems to be a new book, and though we may have read it before, there is a beauty about it which we never saw before, and which we wonder at not having perceived. The whole face of nature seems to us to be changed, and we seem to be in a new world. The heavens and the earth are filled with new wonders, and all things seem now to speak forth the praise of God. There are new feelings toward all people—a new kind of love toward family and friends, a new compassion never before felt for enemies, and a new love for all mankind. The things we once loved, we now detest. The sin we once held onto, we now desire to put away forever. We “put off the old man with his deeds” (Colossians 3:9), and put on the “new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).
This book seeks to emphasize, and point the believer in the direction of who God has made him, what God has given him and how he can appropriate all these to his own advantage