Our Standing VS Our State
Father God, thank you that we can spend time together reading and studying your holy word. Lord I pray for all listening to this study to understand the differences between our standing and our state and to not fall into legalism nor to fall into abusing grace. In Christ's name we pray, amen.
In chapters 1-5 we have learned about our spiritual condition when we are without Christ, the downward spiral of sin, how we cannot save ourselves, how we are justified by grace through faith alone and that we are eternally secure in Christ Jesus from the moment that we believe the gospel. Now, we will learn in the next three chapters about how to walk in the Spirit instead of after the flesh.
It's important to really understand first of all the difference between your position and your state. "Our standing is our position “in Christ” (our justification). Our state is our practice or conduct in our daily life growing in the grace doctrine (our practical sanctification)."
As a believer your standing with God NEVER changes. Once you have believed the gospel, you are justified.
However, your state can and should change. God wants us to mature spiritually through the word and to live out the grace doctrine as well. Our state changes as we:
• Read and study God's word rightly divided.
• Meditate on scripture, which means to really think over the verses so that it goes from being just head knowledge to getting down into our hearts.
• Believe God's word. Reading, studying and biblical meditation on God's word rightly divided daily leads to faith.
• Live out the grace doctrine, which means to yeild ourselves over to obey God's word rightly divided.
It's important to understand also that you need to rightly divide the scriptures to really spiritually mature. You can still have some spiritual maturity without rightly dividing but it won't be much and you risk not walking correctly according to God's will for us today, possible loss of rewards in heaven, and other issues like living in religious fear, guilt and condemnation instead of in peace, joy and thankfullness. So, to mature spiritually its very important to understand God's word rightly divided.
Homework: Words mean things. Every word of God is pure. Pay attention to words and define them. Try not to overlook things. Do you really know what a word means? Example: What does the word "reckon" mean in verse 11 of this chapter?
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