{"id":28,"date":"2026-10-01T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/goodtree.us\/faithco\/?p=28"},"modified":"2026-10-08T09:35:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T14:35:47","slug":"confession-identity-i-am-and-what-governs-reality-part-4","status":"publish","type":"faithco_working_note","link":"https:\/\/goodtree.us\/faithco\/working-notes\/confession-identity-i-am-and-what-governs-reality-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Confession, Identity, \u201cI AM,\u201d and What Governs Reality \u2014 10\/1\/26 (Part 4)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Speaker 1: <\/strong>Yeah, and I think too, like Paul says, let us hold fast to our confession. Um, I don’t think that confession that Paul was talking about there was I’m a sinner I’m the chief of sinners. Woe is me. I’m unworthy, God’s worthy. I must decrease, He must increase. I am nothing, He is everything. I don’t think that’s the confession that Paul is encouraging us to hold fast to. I think the confession that Paul is encouraging us to hold fast to is I am who you say I am. And um, I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus even in spite of our feelings. And I think sometimes our feelings are the only opportunity we actually have to move in faith. The Bible says that the just live by faith and I think sometimes that is that plays out uh in a real life situation when we feel our feelings are opposition to the truth. Right? So we feel impatient. We confess, God, I thank you that you’ve made me patient. We don’t feel like loving our neighbor and we we confess, God, I thank you that I have not called to be led by my flesh or by the feelings but but by every word that proceeds out of your mouth and I am going to respond to the truth that you’ve spoken and the spirit spoken. And I thank you that you have given me the same kind of love and compassion for the lost and the hurting and for this person that just wronged me that Jesus had for those people, I think that’s the kind of confession that we hold fast to even in the midst of sin if we sin. We say, God, I thank you that that’s what I did, but that’s not who I am. God, I thank you that You by your grace and by your mercy, you pointed out where I’ve sinned against you, but I thank you that you don’t call me a sinner. God, you call me a saint. God, and I ask you to and I thank you that your blood cleanses me from that unrighteousness. I don’t want to be unrighteous in your sight. And so God I’m confessing to you that while I may have sinned that’s not my identity. That’s not who I am. I think that kind of confession, that kind of repentance pushes us and to run to the Father rather than causing us to draw back like Adam and Eve did in the garden and try to hide our shame and feel like we’re not worthy You know the Christian life a lot of times can be perceived as I’m taking two steps forward, five steps back. Taking three more steps forward, one step back. It’s this constant Pursuit of attaining holiness. And I think sometimes we can get that out of what Paul said. And not that I have already attained. But I press on to to achieve or to receive the prize of the high calling Like I think what paul is stating there is not necessarily I’m trying to obtain righteousness so much as like he’s continuing to pursue holiness recognizing that union and communion and dependency on God that we have The oneness like that God is still infinite That we can’t think that we’ve achieved understanding or knowing fully about who he is. And I think that leads to another thing that Paul says where Paul says to fight the good fight of faith. A lot of times we think that means fighting the devil um and and we we equate that to spiritual warfare, but I do think that fighting the good fight of faith is more fighting to stand in the identity that Christ paid for. through the finished work of Christ. Because it’s out of that identity, it’s out of that being that all of the doing flows. And so if you can’t get the being right, the doing is not going to come. And it’s going to seem a hard work. What we’ve been discussing here is that it should be easy for apple trees to produce apples. So we believe in the church and we teach in the church that it’s easy for sinners to sin because that’s what sinners do. But we also say it’s hard for saints to produce fruit of righteousness and not sin because the old man is still alive and still present and I-I think that If that’s the truth that you believe, that’s the truth that we’ll experience. So it’s really a doctrine of demons, right? Because there’s a lie there. There’s a lie that says you’re not free<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Speaker 2: <\/strong>Yeah. “You’re not free” might be the lie under everything you’re describing. Because once I accept that premise, everything else can be built on top of it The old man is still alive, sin is still who you are, holiness is something we’re endlessly trying to achieve, never something we walk in. But Paul keeps writing things like, “Our old self was crucified with him,” “sin will not have dominion over you,” “having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” So the good fight might not be fighting to eventually become free, but holding fast to the freedom he says is already true. And that’s where confession becomes something different. Not rehearsing distance from God, but agreeing with what God says is true. Then repentance is not collapsing back into an identity of sinner, but returning to the truth about who He says you are. It’s not denying that sin happened. It’s saying, that doesn’t define me. Thank you for cleansing me. Now teach me to walk in what’s true. And maybe that’s how your apple tree image fits here. Trees don’t strain to produce fruit. They abide. They live out of what they are. Abiding flows into being, flows into fruit. Not doing to achieve to become.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Speaker 1: <\/strong>Yeah, and I think one of the things that I think about is and Neville Goddard was talking about how powerful I am statements are and I think I want to approach that topic very carefully because I think I am is, you know, that’s how God responded to Moses when Moses said and who shall I tell them has sent me and he says tell them I am that I am sent you. And so not to be cavalier or blasphemous with using that phrase but I think there is a lot of power in I am statements and if we can constantly make our confession I am statements that contradict what is even written in the scriptures then It’s like we talked about before. It’s really a confession of unbelief It’s it’s not. it’s not agreeing with God, it’s saying God, I wish this was the reality is. And I think that confession of unbelief subverts faith. That’s-that’s the kind of thing that when we try to come before the throne of grace can’t come boldly because of all of these I am statements that we’ve been holding on to contrary to what he’s spoken in his word<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Speaker 2: <\/strong>Yes, Exactly. It’s not the grammar that carries power, it’s agreement. The question is always, who am I agreeing Am I agreeing with the stranger’s voice or with the one who calls me by name? So, “I am” in that framework isn’t me trying to create reality. It’s me receiving an identity God declares and refusing to let accusation overrule it. So when feelings say “I’m just a sinner” or “I’m unworthy,” faith can answer, “Yeah, but He says I’m righteous in Christ,” or “I’m His child.” Not as bravado, but as saying back what He said. And the fight of faith then is often simply holding fast to that confession when everything else is arguing with it.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Speaker 1: <\/strong>Yeah, and I think those statements can be offensive to people. Like, for instance, if I say I am perfect realizing that my perfection is based on His righteousness. But nevertheless, I make that statement, I am perfect. And the first time I said that, I felt like I might be struck down with lightning or something like that because it felt like a lie. My feelings betrayed what my words were saying. I am perfect but forget where I was going with this. I think<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Speaker 2: <\/strong>Right. I think the “but” there is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Hebrews 10 holds two things together without a “but.” By one offering, He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. Perfected, and being transformed, without pitting the two against one another. So if “perfect” sounds shocking, Maybe the shock is exposing how foreign agreeing with God about our standing can feel, if we’ve been trained to argue with it. Humility might not be insisting, “No, I’m not who you say I am.” But rather yielding even my self-assessment to His. And then the “yeah but” points the way we’ve been tracing. “You’re not perfect. Look.” “Yeah, but by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” That’s agreement, not presumption.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Speaker 1: <\/strong>I think the point I wanted to make was this the source of my perfection. If I say I am perfect because I did everything perfectly. Then that’s pride, and it puffs up. But if I say I am perfect because He made me perfect through His Son and through the sacrifice on the cross then it doesn’t puff me up with pride because the Bible says that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble, but it’s really a a statement of humility coming into agreement with what He said in His word while the the listener without a qualification could view that statement I am perfect as a proud statement. If you qualify it with the source of where that perfection comes from and say, you know what? I I am perfect, but not by any of my own works, like Paul says, ‘Let anyone should boast.’ But by His work, I am made perfect and I am made righteous. Then it puts the it puts the glory where the glory belongs because He’s the one deserves it. And the and the crazy part about all that is is that we become partakers of that glory. We get to enjoy the benefits of that glory. Even though we didn’t do the work and I think that’s what seems unfair about Christianity to m- the rest of the religions is that you’re receiving something for free that you didn’t earn through self effort. And every other religion says no, it’s only through self effort that you’re able to obtain these things. They’re still under the thinking of the old covenant. You’ve got to do to be<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Speaker 2: <\/strong>Right. Same words, different source. If perfection is self-produced, that’s self-glory, but if it’s received, it spotlights the giver. So the scandal of grace offends the merit system. Do to be versus be to do. And the paradox you’re pointing to is that grace can make a bold confession humble, because it magnifies the giver and not the receiver. “I am righteous, but He is my righteousness.” That’s agreement, not boasting. Maybe faith learns to speak audaciously about itself. precisely because It’s cautious about where the credit lands.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Speaker 1: <\/strong>Thoughts: Phrases:
Victims of what we see and do not see. Rather than victors because of His word and finished work.
Fear of death. Motivates us in the wrong way. Death has a way of motivating us from the wrong source.
Communion = coming into union with Him. The two becoming one. It’s more than drinking a cup of juice and eating some bread.
Jesus was vexed at Lazarus’s tomb – because he was standing before unbelievers as the Life and all they could see was death.
The problem is with what we see. I lift my eyes up . . . where my help comes from.
We live out of our head. Intellectual Knowledge.
His promises are yes and amen. He’s not administratively changing his mind. He’s not sitting at a desk approving of sickness, disease, and death. He paid to remove them and their power from over man. He’s not administering or giving something that he paid to remove. He redeemed man from the curse. So, how can we be cursed any longer? He became a curse for us.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Speaker 2: <\/strong>
Fear of death \u2014 motivation from the wrong source<\/p>\n

This connects beautifully to Hebrews 2:14\u201315. Christ came to destroy the one who had the power of death and to deliver those who \u201cthrough fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.\u201d<\/p>\n

That’s bigger than simply being afraid of physically dying.<\/p>\n

Fear of death produces bondage.<\/p>\n

And \u201cdeath\u201d can become a motivational system:<\/p>\n

Do this or something terrible will happen.<\/em><\/p>\n

Protect yourself.<\/em><\/p>\n

Preserve yourself.<\/em><\/p>\n

Don’t risk.<\/em><\/p>\n

Don’t expect too much.<\/em><\/p>\n

Don’t step out.<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s completely different from being compelled by Life.<\/p>\n

Jesus isn’t merely someone who can prevent death:<\/p>\n

\u201cI am the resurrection and the life.\u201d \u2014 John 11:25<\/p>\n

Which takes us directly to Lazarus.<\/p>\n

Jesus at Lazarus’s tomb<\/p>\n

Your thought here deserves deeper study because John 11:33’s language is stronger than simply \u201cJesus was sad.\u201d The Greek embrimaomai<\/em> carries a sense of being deeply moved, disturbed, even indignant; translations handle the nuance differently.<\/p>\n

And look at the scene.<\/p>\n

The Resurrection and the Life is standing in front of them.<\/p>\n

Yet everything around Him is declaring death.<\/p>\n

Lazarus is dead.<\/p>\n

The tomb says death.<\/p>\n

The stone says death.<\/p>\n

The mourners are proclaiming death.<\/p>\n

Martha says, essentially, If You’d gotten here earlier…<\/em><\/p>\n

Mary says the same.<\/p>\n

And Jesus has already told Martha:<\/p>\n

\u201cI am the resurrection and the life.\u201d<\/p>\n

She responds by moving the resurrection into the future:<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.\u201d<\/p>\n

That’s fascinating in the context of our discussion.<\/p>\n

Jesus isn’t telling her merely about a doctrine of resurrection.<\/p>\n

Resurrection is standing in front of her.<\/p>\n

She knows the theology.<\/p>\n

Jesus is trying to get her to see Him.<\/p>\n

That fits your mirror\/Word theme almost perfectly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lift up my eyes\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

And now Psalm 121 becomes more than inspirational language:<\/p>\n

\u201cI will lift up mine eyes\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

There is an intentional redirection of sight.<\/p>\n

That doesn’t mean denying what’s below. It means choosing where I look to interpret what’s below.<\/p>\n

Peter walking on the water is almost a physical enactment of this whole theology.<\/p>\n

Jesus: Come.<\/p>\n

Peter moves according to the Word.<\/p>\n

Then Peter sees the wind.<\/p>\n

The wind was real before Peter noticed it.<\/p>\n

But when what Peter saw became more authoritative to him than what Jesus said, his experience changed.<\/p>\n

That is an extraordinary picture of what we’ve been calling double-mindedness.<\/p>\n

Living out of our heads<\/p>\n

And this is where I think your distinction about intellectual knowledge matters.<\/p>\n

We can know all of this as doctrine while living according to another reality.<\/p>\n

I can intellectually know:<\/p>\n

Christ is my righteousness.<\/em><\/p>\n

and emotionally\/functionally live:<\/p>\n

I’m unacceptable.<\/em><\/p>\n

I can know:<\/p>\n

God is my provider.<\/em><\/p>\n

and live:<\/p>\n

I’m on my own.<\/em><\/p>\n

I can know:<\/p>\n

By His wounds we are healed.<\/em><\/p>\n

and live with no expectation of healing.<\/p>\n

I can know:<\/p>\n

The sheep hear His voice.<\/em><\/p>\n

and assume God probably won’t speak to me.<\/p>\n

That’s precisely the gap between information and embodiment you’ve been circling.<\/p>\n

The goal isn’t merely knowing more truth.<\/p>\n

It’s truth becoming flesh in us.<\/p>\n

Which takes us back to Jesus as the Word made flesh\u2014and your conviction that looking into the Word\/mirror isn’t reducible to reading more pages. Jesus embodied the Father’s reality.<\/p>\n

Communion \u2014 coming into union<\/p>\n

I’d be a little careful about making \u201ccommunion\u201d an etymological claim that literally means \u201ccoming into union\u201d; English communion<\/em> comes through Latin communio<\/em>, carrying ideas like sharing, participation, fellowship. But the theological connection you’re making is absolutely there, and 1 Corinthians 10 actually gives you stronger footing:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Greek is koin\u014dnia<\/em>: participation, fellowship, sharing.<\/p>\n

So communion isn’t merely:<\/p>\n

Remember something Jesus did while eating bread and drinking from a cup.<\/p>\n

There is participation language here.<\/p>\n

And then Paul immediately speaks of the bread and says:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor we, though many, are one bread and one body\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

So your union theme belongs here strongly without needing the English wordplay to carry it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the promises of God in Him are Yes\u201d<\/p>\n

This could become one of the major pieces of the faith\/certainty argument.<\/p>\n

2 Corinthians 1:20:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Your phrase \u201cGod isn’t administratively changing His mind\u201d is provocative, but I understand exactly what you’re getting at.<\/p>\n

You’re rejecting a picture of God where Jesus spends His ministry destroying sickness, oppression, bondage and death, bears the curse, announces freedom\u2014and then the Father subsequently sits behind a celestial administrative desk selectively dispensing the very things Christ came against.<\/p>\n

That deserves careful biblical development, particularly because there are difficult passages that need to be reconciled rather than ignored. But your central question is substantial:<\/p>\n

What does the finished work tell us about God’s disposition toward the curse?<\/p>\n

And Galatians 3:13 is unavoidable:<\/p>\n

\u201cChrist has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

So then ask the question exactly as you just did:<\/p>\n

If He became the curse to redeem me from the curse, why would I interpret the curse as evidence of His present intention for me?<\/p>\n

That’s worth sitting with.<\/p>\n

Because it doesn’t necessarily mean, \u201cNothing resembling the curse can presently touch a Christian.\u201d<\/em> Our experience plainly raises questions about that. But neither should experience be permitted to silently rewrite \u201credeemed us from the curse\u201d until it means almost nothing in practice.<\/p>\n

And this takes us right back to the problem of sight.<\/p>\n

Maybe the tension isn’t solved by denying either side.<\/p>\n

We see death.<\/p>\n

Yet Scripture says Christ abolished death and brought life and immortality to light (2 Timothy 1:10).<\/p>\n

Christians physically die.<\/p>\n

Yet Jesus says, \u201cWhoever lives and believes in Me shall never die\u201d (John 11:26).<\/p>\n

We see creation groaning.<\/p>\n

Yet we’re told redemption has already been accomplished and we’re also awaiting \u201cthe redemption of our body\u201d (Romans 8:23).<\/p>\n

There is an already\/not-yet tension in the New Testament. But\u2014and this is important for your argument\u2014the not yet<\/em> should not be allowed to erase the already.<\/p>\n

Otherwise Christianity becomes almost entirely deferred:<\/p>\n

Someday you’ll be free.<\/em><\/p>\n

Someday you’ll have life.<\/em><\/p>\n

Someday you’ll be righteous.<\/em><\/p>\n

Someday you’ll experience union.<\/em><\/p>\n

Someday you’ll <\/em>overcome<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

While the apostles repeatedly speak in accomplished language:<\/p>\n

You have been crucified.<\/p>\n

You have been raised.<\/p>\n

You have been set free.<\/p>\n

You have been made righteous.<\/p>\n

You have been brought near.<\/p>\n

You have received the Spirit.<\/p>\n

You have been redeemed.<\/p>\n

So perhaps the question underneath this entire section is:<\/p>\n

Am I interpreting the finished work through what I presently see\u2014or learning to interpret what I presently see through the finished work?<\/p>\n

Because those two approaches can produce radically different Christian lives.<\/p>\n

And that brings us all the way back to your opening phrase:<\/p>\n

Victims of what we see and do not see\u2014or victors because of His Word and finished work.<\/p>\n

That feels like it belongs very near the center of what Faith Co is becoming.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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