The Chinese are Coming

What would you say if I told you that you are financing Chinese concentration camps and helping them build ICBM’s? What if I told you that Iran, North Korea and the PLO have benefitted from your financial investments? Despite our Lord’s command to love our enemies, I don’t think that extends to financing their evil intentions. Yet this is exactly what millions of Americans are unwittingly doing through their investment holdings. Private and government retirement plans are buying equities and bonds in Chinese concerns. Many mutual funds and other “basket” investments now include companies that support the Chinese effort to become the next world superpower.

The latest issue of Imprimis has a shocking article detailing the depth to which Americans have gone to finance the Chinese program of world domination. The author of the article is Robert W. Robinson, Jr. Robinson was a member of President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council. He has served in several other high-level positions that give him a clear view of the subject of Chinese plans. Robinson’s article is quite detailed and perhaps too arcane for general consumption. I will summarize what he wrote hoping to wake readers to the eminent danger.

Robertson begins by explaining how important President Reagan’s economic strategy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union was in precipitating their demise in 1989. Simply put, the USSR was using Western capital to finance their plans for world domination. President Reagan used his power to systematically defund Russia’s efforts. Reagan’s plan involved no guns or missiles, but he destroyed the USSR as completely as if he had ordered a nuclear strike on Moscow.

Robertson believes that America is now in the same position with China that Reagan was with the USSR. Robertson goes into fine detail to show how China has been systematically penetrating the American markets through trade deals, clandestine investment, industrial espionage and outright theft. China relies on American dollars to finance its expansionist policies. China gets those dollars in a number of subtle ways, but the most egregious is through investment by American mutual funds and retirement programs, both private and government sponsored.

Once upon a time, I was a Registered Representative. Since that time, I have been more aware of the importance of financial markets to the average person. Back in the 1990’s, we were concerned about responsible Christian investing: no alcohol, tobacco or other “sinful” investments. Several mutual funds were created to meet the need for “socially conscious” investing. These funds typically underperformed, so many languished or disappeared. Money was more important to people than principles.

In this current situation, we may be dealing more with our very existence as a free country than as a “moral” country. If China continues to leverage its control over American markets, they could conceivably create a situation that would make the crash of 1929 look like a church picnic. I’m not an alarmist; I know God is in control. I also know that He expects us to do what we can to promote justice and equity in the world. Promoting China promotes the opposite of our cherished principles.

You are pretty much powerless to change what your company retirement plan invests in. We all have some say in what our government plans invest in. Robertson suggests that what is happening has already run afoul of SEC regulations and government restrictions on foreign investment. As arcane as it may be, I am asking that any of my readers who understand what this all means to make some noise. Call a congressman; lobby your investment counselors asking them to investigate this; check what your mutual funds etcetera are involved with.

This situation may be an example of what Yeats meant when he wrote in “The Second Coming” that the center cannot hold. We may be spiraling into the void. He prophesied, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst \ Are full of passionate intensity.” The “rough beast” he foresaw may be Chinese. Do what you can or don’t be surprised when the second coming is not what you expected.

The Virgin Shall Conceive

The question of how the birth of Jesus came about is common at this time of year. I don’t mean the King James version from the Gospel of Matthew, “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.” The idea that Mary was pregnant without the cover of marriage is not hard to believe. People generally have no problem with the idea that Matthew and Mary had to travel to Bethlehem to partake in the census. Government intervention in private family events is well understood. What troubles some of us who believe that Mary was a virgin is precisely how the pregnancy was initiated.

First, I want to confirm that it is absolutely necessary that Mary be a virgin. If Joseph or any other human male was the sperm donor, Jesus’ mission would have been doomed from the beginning. Since the Father had sent the Son to pay the ransom price for the entire human race, the Son could not have sin of His own to pay for. Every human born since the Garden of Eden is born in Adam’s lineage. What that means is that all humans are under the curse of Adam which is separation from God. So, if Jesus were born in Adam’s line, He would not be the spotless lamb, the sinless man to take others’ sin.

This situation necessitated a unique birth. The subject who was to take the punishment for the sin of all mankind could not be born of Adam. However, the subject had to be a representative human to pay the human price for Adam’s disobedience. This is the dilemma: how could there be a human who was not “human” for the purposes of sacrifice? We are told that God accomplished this with language that is open to interpretation.

When Mary asked how she could be pregnant, never having “known a man” meaning she was a virgin, the angel from God said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.” That is Luke’s version. Matthew has the angel from God tell Joseph, “that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” Mark doesn’t mention it and John simply says, “The Word [the eternal Son of God] became flesh.” None of these explanations satisfies the curious mind. Not mine anyway.

Given the necessity that Jesus be outside Adam’s line, I am compelled to ask how God accomplished that when He used Mary, clearly a human from Adam’s line. Two explanations arise. Commonly, theologians have declared that since lineage was accounted through paternity (the father’s line), Mary’s lineage was not important if she was a virgin. The Holy Spirit was the “father,” and Adam’s line was interrupted. This is satisfying for most people.

I am more inquisitive than most people. I have always wondered if the Holy Spirit introduced a non-Adamic sperm into Mary’s egg thus avoiding Adam’s parentage. This could work legalistically, but it is not fully satisfying. Mary’s Adamic nature is still in half the Messiah’s DNA. There is a second possible explanation. I admit I am far beyond biblical confirmation, but I propose a possible alternative. What if the Holy Spirit did an “in vitro” fertilization, placing a fertilized egg or an embryo into Mary’s womb? In this way, God would have completely avoided the cursed Adamic line.

I find possible support for this in the Greek text that explains what happened. The Gospel of Matthew comes closest to describing what happened. Joseph is told that, “Mary was found to have [something] in her womb from the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 1:20) The simplest explanation of this is that Holy Spirit deposited in Mary’s womb a creation from God which met the requirements of being human yet not being from Adam’s corrupted line. Paul calls Jesus the “second Adam.” Since God formed the first Adam of earthly materials (the dust), could He not form the second Adam from whatever materials met the criteria?

All of this may have dulled your happy Christmas spirit, but I hope not. God’s ways are not our ways, clearly. Yet, He wants us to know that what He does is righteous, holy. God did not violate His justice when He placed the sin of all mankind on His only-begotten son. The Son had to be a spotless sacrifice. The sacrifice had to be something special.

I could be wrong. I am not presenting this theory as a biblical fact. I am suggesting what I have reasoned could be a way to reconcile the need for a sinless Savior with the fact that He was born of a human parent. When you look at the manger this Christmas, bow in reverence to a God who accomplished for us what we could not do ourselves. That is the message of Christmas. I don’t know how He did it, I simply rejoice that He did. Hallelujah! And Merry Christmas.

What’s the Haps, Bro?

Sometimes the King James Version says something so right that you have to admire it. When speaking of how Ruth found a field to reap a small harvest for herself and her mother-in-law, the KJV says, “her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz” (Ruth 2:3 KJV). Birds “light on” a branch; mosquitoes “light on” an arm. Ruth happened to (her hap) light on a field that would lead to more than that night’s supper. Just as God's eye is on the sparrow, he knew Ruth’s need and was there for her.

In case you wonder sometimes if the Old Testament has anything worth reading today, look at this passage from Ruth. First some history: Old Testament law required land-owners to leave the edges of their fields unharvested so that the less fortunate could “glean” from them. Gleaning means picking up what is left over. Record this: Ruth gathered what was “left over.”

Second, Old Testament law had what was called the kinsman redeemer clause. A “kinsman redeemer” is a person who, as the nearest relative of another, is charged with the duty of restoring the rights of another and avenging his [or her] wrongs. Ruth’s “rights” were to have children of her Israelite husband, but he died before that could be accomplished. As such, she stood by law as one who had had her rights denied. Little did Ruth know that when she vowed to follow Naomi, her mother-in-law, back to Israel, she would get the opportunity to have those rights granted.

So, her “hap” was to choose a field owned by the next nearest relative of her departed husband. If you know the story, you remember that the nearest relative didn’t care to fulfill his duty and gave Boaz the right to take on the kinsman redeemer role. He did. The progeny from that marriage eventually brought forth the one named David from whence comes the one called Messiah. All because Ruth’s, “hap was to light on a part of the field belonging to Boaz.”

What’s the lesson? Nothing is without significance. By “happenstance” Ruth went to a field that was owned by someone who could make the course of history flow in the correct channel. The Messiah came to redeem the world (That’s another kinsman redeemer fulfillment, by the way.)  The most insignificant things can change the course of history. What if Brutus had flinched at the last moment when Julius Caesar walked by? What if John Wilkes Booth’s pistol had misfired? What if Admiral Yamamoto had decided the weather was not right for the Pearl Harbor attack? What if the assassin’s bullet had missed Martin Luther King? History turns on the most “insignificant” things.

Because I believe in a God who is in ultimate control of the outcome, I can trust in the details that lead to the outcome. I don’t have to like it in the outworking. Jonah probably didn’t enjoy his time in the smelly insides of the great fish, but it worked for the greater good of Nineveh, one of the greatest cities of his time. Moses probably didn’t relish his time on the backside of the desert in Midian, but it prepared him for God’s mission: freeing his people from bondage. Jesus certainly did not look forward to his torture and execution at the hands of the Romans (via the Jewish leadership), but He endured for the joy set before Him.

Don’t dismiss the “small stuff.” Someone wisely said that the devil is in the details. More importantly, the God who runs the universe is also in the details, and He overrules the devil every time. When it is our “hap to light on” something we don’t understand, know this: The God who knows everything is working everything for our good, and he will never lead us into anything we cannot handle with Him present. Keep your eyes open; redemption is at hand.

And the Light was Good

If you are a regular reader, you know that I am fascinated by many things, but few interest me more than the intersection of science and faith. I am not one who sees contradictions or disagreements between what God’s Word says and what science asserts. I firmly believe that where such differences appear to exist, the problem is either in our interpretation of the biblical text or in our understanding of the science. The problem is never in the biblical record itself.

Some of the most heated debates concerning science and the Bible center on the first few paragraphs of Scripture. Naturally, many unbelievers argue that the concept of an omnipotent deity creating the material universe is a pre-scientific myth. The best approach to that position is to pray that the Spirit who gives faith to the fallen would open their hearts (and then their minds) to the truth.

There are other issues that even believers struggle with. Did God create all things ex nihilo (out of nothing), or did He begin with a pre-existing something, perhaps an earlier creation of His? Does the Bible in fact claim that God completed His creative work in six twenty-four-hour periods? Did all the creatures survive on a vegetable diet as originally created?  How could God create light (Day One) before light-makers (Day Four)?

I would like to suggest a possible answer to the last question. Know that the theory I propose stems from a deep reverence for the biblical text and a desire to treat it as literally as the context will allow. In that framework, I suggest that when God spoke light into existence, His creative act included more than just the visible spectrum of electro-magnetic (EM) energy which we call “light.” Light is the only part of the spectrum that would be sensible to the first readers of the text, so the idea would be coherent to them. Science has since discovered that visible light is a miniscule part of the full EM spectrum (on a linear scale it is 0.0035%).

We have also learned that much of what was thought to be “matter” is really not matter but energy. As science has bored deeper into the nature of all material things, it has become clear that what we call matter is in fact organized energy. I mean that the building blocks of “matter,” such things as protons, neutrons, electrons, etc., may actually be packets of energy. The science beneath this assertion is still in its infancy. Einstein began the discussion of whether light is a particle stream or an energy wave. Strangely, scientists have discovered that light behaves as a stream of particles when studied as particles, and it behaves as a wave when studied as a wave. As far as I know, there is still no clear explanation for this phenomenon.

Elementary logic insists that if A and B are different, A cannot be B and B cannot be A. Therefore, light cannot be both a material particle and an energy wave. If I set that dilemma aside for the moment, I can still see how God could have brought energy into existence initially and then organized it into the forms we know as matter. The text of Genesis lends itself to that idea.

According to the Faithlife Study Bible, “The Hebrew word for “create” (bara or בָּרָא)…. conveys the idea of ordering or determining function, suggesting God’s creative activity consists of bringing proper order and function to the cosmos.” In other words, God spoke the building blocks of the material universe into existence and then organized them into the organic and inorganic things we perceive as matter and energy. Chaos first; then order.

Curiously, the Hebrew words for evening and morning to delineate the days of creation also lean toward the idea of organizing. For reasons of His own, God chose to begin His day with “evening” and end it with “morning.” We know the Jews have historically followed this order; they begin the day with sunset. When you consider that according to Genesis 1:2, God started creating when “darkness was over the face of the deep,” it makes sense that evening would be the beginning of the creative day

The New Testament continues support for this concept. The Greek word for the material universe is “cosmos” and has a basic meaning of “order.” The opposite of order is chaos. Sin, by the way, is stepping out of order into chaos. “Walk in the light,” John says, “and we have fellowship….and the blood of [Christ] cleanses us from all sin.” Interesting. God started it all in darkness; then turned on the light. Chaos first; then order.

There are additional New Testament passages that lend support to this theory. In Colossians 1:17, Paul asserts that Christ “holds all things together.” Years ago, when scientists discovered that the nucleus of an atom has an unknown force holding it together, they dubbed it the Colossian Principle. I suspect it was tongue-in-cheek for the secular mind, but I find it quite descriptive. Christ, by the Word of his power (Hebrews 1:3), does indeed hold the material universe together.

For an explanation of what will happen if He ever releases His hold, read 2 Peter 3:12, “and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.” (KJV) Splitting the atom has uncovered an energy source like no other. We refer to “nuclear power” and “nuclear bombs” to explain the awesome power that results from releasing the force that holds the nucleus together. Imagine the energy that will be generated when Christ calls an end to this material universe in preparation for the New Heavens and New Earth. Imagine the energy (heat) that will be generated when every atom in the universe expends is nuclear energy. Fervent heat indeed!

According to the Faithlife Study Bible, “God calls His handiwork good seven times in [Genesis 1]. The Hebrew word used here [for “good”]… generally describes what is desirable, beautiful, or right. In essence, God affirms creation as right and in right relationship with Him.” I picture God sitting back on the seventh day and saying, “All right!” Sadly, things went all wrong shortly thereafter, but God promised to bring things back to “right” when He sent the Word (His organizing principle) to be the Light of humanity (John1:4 LEB) One of the many things Jesus called his followers was “the light of the world.” The church, as Christ’s body, is the light shining in the darkness as many Old Testament prophecies proclaimed.

As believers, we are rescued from the power of darkness and relocated in the kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son, who is the Light. (Colossians1:13) In response, we let our light shine like stars in the universe so that our fellowman may see God’s goodness (order/righteousness) and turn from their darkness (chaos/sin) to the Light of the World. It all began when God said, “Light! Be!” And it was good!

Honor the King

Many Christians are unsupportive of the lifestyle and language of President Donald Trump as am I. His lewd remarks and thoughtless Tweets display character traits that no believer can admire. I have written previously that despite his character flaws, President Trump has been the best friend Christians have had in the White House since Ronald Reagan. His administration has done much to reverse the anti-Christian bias that his predecessor instituted. Trump’s selection of conservative judges at all levels of the court will have positive consequences for years to come.

Even non-believers must admit that the economic situation is vastly improved under Trump’s leadership. This makes sense, his being a consummate businessman who, regardless of the progressives’ class hatred, has amassed a personal fortune proving he knows how to make business succeed. His foreign policy positions with respect to China, Iran and North Korea have also put America back in the position of a superpower to be reckoned with rather than a weakling to be ignored. I also believe his stance with Mexico and the border are in America’s best interest in the long run. (See Pilgrim’s Progression and Man the Lifeboats)

In spite of these empirically measurable benefits to the common good, some Christians still resist the idea of supporting President Trump, many to the point of refusing to vote for a second Trump term. This is unfortunate because any selection from the contestants on the other side of the aisle would be a worse choice in almost every way. Be assured that if conservatives stay away from the polls or cast a protest vote for a non-electable candidate, a Democrat will win the White House in 2020. The coattail effect will likely shift the balance of power in the US Congress as well. Thus ends America being made great again.

Enough about politics; what about the important matters? This morning I was reading the account of King Saul’s death and soon-to-be-king David’s reaction in 2 Samuel. The background is familiar to most of my readers, but I will briefly fill it in. After King Saul directly disobeyed God with regard to the Amalekites, Samuel informed him that the kingdom would be given to another. The prophet then proceeded to anoint the shepherd boy, David, as his successor. During the many years between his anointing and ascension to the throne, David was mercilessly mistreated by Saul and hounded as a criminal worthy of death.

In spite of Saul’s despicable behavior, David remained honorable, refusing to take Saul’s life on two occasions when he could have easily done so. Then when the report of Saul’s demise reaches David (via an Amalekite, ironically), rather than rewarding the bearer of the news, he has him executed for reportedly killing God’s anointed servant, Saul. David honored God’s choice of king because of the honor due the position, not the man.

This is where I began to think of the situation with Donald Trump. Christians don’t like him. His personal habits are not admirable for the most part. Yet he is God’s “anointed” in a manner of speaking. Romans 13:1 says that the powers that be are ordained by God. If you believe as I do that even election results are within God’s sovereign control, then you have to admit that Donald Trump has been placed in power in accordance with the ultimate purpose of God, whatever that may be.

Later in Romans 13 (verse 7) Paul instructs believers to give honor to whom honor is due. Remember that the “powers” Paul referred to were the vicious, pagan Romans who persecuted Jews and Christians with social restrictions, torture and death. By comparison, Trump is a “saint.” Not that that matters, since honor is due him because he is President. In my case, I intend to honor him by voting for a second term. I would ask my fellow-believers to consider David’s relationship with King Saul and imitate his behavior. Plug your nose if you must but honor the office by voting Trump another term. The alternatives will be much more unpleasant in my opinion.

Save the Electoral College

This is not a political blog: it is civics. If we don’t understand our civics, we will go astray in our politics. Most people in this country are in dire need of a civics lesson. (Note to educators: put Civics back in the high school curriculum.) Please keep reading even if you are sick of the political scene. This blog is inspired by the latest issue of Imprimis, a monthly publication of Hillsdale College. Right away some of you are squirming, but please stay with me.

In the article in Imprimis, Trent England, a well-credentialed conservative speaker, summarizes a speech he gave at Hillsdale in April of 2019. He makes a strong case for the continuing existence of the electoral college to select our future Presidents. Dr. England believes that the current effort to eliminate or weaken the Electoral College is pure partisan politics in a gambit to garner undeserved power in Presidential elections. He bases his argument on the very reasons our Founding Fathers created the Electoral College system in the first place.

The wise men who established our form of government realized that direct election of the national leader had two possible undesirable outcomes. First, it might become a popularity contest with people voting only for their favorite son candidates. Secondly, more importantly, popular voting could allow more populated areas of the country to gain an unfair advantage over lesser populated areas. Dr. England points to examples from history when a popular vote was countermanded by the electoral vote resulting in a President elected by majority of States if not a majority of votes. This makes for a better representative type of government.

That word “representative” is significant. We do not have a democratic (small “d”) form of government, despite the misapprehensions of the likes of Hillary Clinton who opined after the Florida debacle of 2000, “In a democracy, we should respect the will of the people, and to me that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College.” The United States of America has never been a democracy (sorry, Hillary), nor did the founders want it to be.

The Founding Fathers rightly saw that a true democracy – one man, one vote – could easily devolve into the tyranny of the majority. Today, for example, a true democracy would mean that our national policies and politicians would be dictated primarily by the East and West Coast, a situation those of us in “flyover” country would detest. But that is precisely why so many Democrats (Progressives) want that unfair advantage.

Dr. England points to another very good reason to maintain the Electoral College: it limits the effects of voter fraud. Because each state chooses electors to select the President, fraud in one state would affect only that state’s selection. This is still a cause for worry, as free and fair elections are fundamental to our type of government. However, if we did away with the Electoral College, the whole country would suffer under the “vote early and vote often” attitudes of places like Illinois where someone once bragged that even the dead get a vote.

If you are watching politics these days, you may have heard of the national Popular Vote Interestate Compact, or NPV. Dr. England correctly reveals this ploy as a Democrat attempt to do away with the Electoral College by slight of hand. NPV takes advantage of a loophole in the language which mandates the Electoral College. Each state is allowed to determine how it selects electors. NPV would allow states to ignore their state’s voters if the national popular vote supported a different candidate than their state vote. Hidden in its name, NPV shows that it would ignore a given state’s popular vote and promote the popular vote nationwide, thus taking away the will of its own voters. It is instructive that only Democrat-controlled states have signed on to NPV so far.

I have attempted to summarize what I think is a very important argument for the continuation of the Electoral College. You can read the entire article on the Hillsdale College web site. This blog may seem to have nothing to do with Heaven (which always matters most), but I believe the free and fair elections our country has held for two centuries are responsible for the free and fair (mostly) representative government our founders envisioned. If we lose this freedom and succumb to the wishes of the liberal elite, Christianity will probably be outlawed outright. We could still live under that stricture, but it would not be pleasant. I pray it does not come to that anytime soon.

Lies We Have Been Told

From Sunday school to Bible college to seminary I have been told that sanctification is a process. The reasoning was that justification was complete at the moment of regeneration; glorification will be complete at the moment of translation; sanctification is the process through which believers must labor between the other two. No one ever challenged this reasoning until a couple weeks ago when Ray Leight (Bethel Church, Redding, California) blasted us with the truth: sanctification is completed when justification takes place.

This biblical truth is so plain and simple that it is a wonder that we have believed the lie. Simply understanding what sanctification means clearly puts it in the category of things completed at the moment of regeneration. To be “sanctified” means to be made holy. The Greek language does not have two different words as does English: “holy” and “sanctified” are from exactly the same Greek word (hagios). There is another lie buried here that says I am not already holy in God’s sight – I absolutely am. The Bible tells me so. The righteousness of Christ was imputed to me when I came to Him. Period.

This misunderstanding of sanctification or holiness has given rise to another pervasive lie among believers. Many Bible-believing, born again, blood bought Christians think their works have something to do with their salvation. Years ago, I canvassed our church neighborhood with a survey intended to identify people who might be interested in attending our services. The survey ended with the Evangelism Explosion question: “If you were to face God tonight, and He asked why He should let you into Heaven, what would you say?” Scores of people who had identified themselves as church-going, Bible-believing Christians said, “I have lived a good life.” This implies they believed their good works earned them a place in Heaven. Ugh!

When challenged on this position, most immediately said that they knew works couldn’t earn them anything, but the lie was already out of the bag: their gut-level response was to resort to their “goodness” as if they were doing something worthy of Heaven. This is deadly. While James does insist that true faith produces works, both he and Paul are crystal clear that works save no one. There are whole denominations of Christians and many quasi-Christian groups that preach works as the means of salvation. They are dead wrong. Paul clearly says that anyone who relies on his works is still dead in his sin. Period.

Perhaps the most debilitating aspect of the lie that sanctification (or salvation in total) needs our works is what it does to one’s true identity. This was the core of what Ray Leight exposed in his teaching. The minute we believe we are not good enough to merit God’s grace, we have fallen prey to the lie. If you re-read the last sentence it becomes obvious: “merit God’s grace” is a non-sequitor. One can never “merit” grace. By its very definition, grace is a gift. God graciously imputes Christ’s righteousness upon believers so that when He looks at one of His, He sees Christ. No work is needed. The work was done on the Cross and applied when the dead one became alive in Christ. Period.

This does not mean that our behavior doesn’t matter. Paul shoots down that thought in Romans 6 by reminding us that believers have crucified the old man bound by sin and now live as slaves to righteousness. To continue in sin, as the writer of Hebrews says, is to crucify Christ afresh. Jesus’ death on the Cross delivered everyone who accepts His gift from every sin everyone ever committed. All sin for all time is paid for by Jesus’ blood once for all. Period.

This means that as a believer I am holy, righteous, sanctified completely, and I am seated at the right hand of God with my Savior, Jesus, right now. That is what God sees. Remember that God is not bound by time as we are, so He already sees the completed work all the way to glorification. I am certain to mess up repeatedly after my justification and sanctification are completed. That is moot. God already accepted Jesus’ payment for my messes – all of them. I am complete IN CHRIST. Therefore, my true identity is also IN CHRIST. I am who Jesus is. That’s what God sees.

Bottom line: we need to stop believing the lie that we are anything but totally and completely sanctified at the moment we accept Christ’s sacrifice as our payment for our sin. We need to get out of our heads, as the saying goes, and start getting in the spirit. Our spirits are made new at the moment of new birth. Our heads (souls) still need to be aligned with God’s order. That’s where the work comes. Renew the mind, Paul says in Romans 12. Stop thinking of yourself as a “sinner saved by grace.” You are a saint (root word: holy or sanctified) living by grace. The same grace that saved you now enables you to live the life of Christ if you will remember to live by the spirit instead of by the flesh.