30th December 2024. My reading at the edge end of 2024 brought me to Martin Luther’s, “The Freedom of the Christian“, and Greg Beale’s “Union with the Resurrected Christ” this morning. I experienced in my study and meditation this morning of what Luther wrote about how the soul with a firm faith is not only united with God in His gospel promises in Christ but is also “saturated and intoxicated by their every power.“

Every human being (apart from the Godman, Christ Jesus), experiences a moment in their development where they must confront and attempt to overcome a low self-concept. The self-concept is an individual’s own perspective of self. It is how they interpret all of life’s experiences thus far upon their existence and then attempt to make sense of their identity and meaning in the whole scheme of things in life.

The man who did much work on the psycho-social development of the individual is Erik Erikson, a Danish Jewish unheralded psychologist who did psychotherapy with Anna Freud, the daughter of Sigmund, often grudgingly acknowledged as the father of modern psychology.

Referring to the illustration above, do note stage 5, “Identify vs Role Confusion”. Erikson hypothesized quite correctly that the individual goes through 8 stages of potentialities and crises in each stage. Whenever each stage ends with a psychosocial “deficit”, that deficit is brought over to the next stage. The implications are obvious. By the time residual deficits enter stage 5, one can see why each one of us struggle to understand our own existence in life. Who are we, and what are we are huge questions to navigate through life’s seas. Having a good captain who has crossed these treacherous terrain helps.

Luther is his writing referred above, spoke how it is God’s Word in Christ, and how “this ingestion by the Word communicates to the soul of the believer all things that belong to the Word”. Luther goes on to add, “by this means, through faith alone, the Word of God justifies the soul of the believer and all the properties of God – His holiness, truthfulness, peace and freedom – are imputed to the soul.”

I really wish I had someone explain this to me when I hit my teen years. My teen years were engulfed in chronic low self-concept with its components, low self-esteem, and low self-image. Not to mention low self-worth! And mind you, I was “into” God those years. Albeit as a Roman Catholic. And even when I was converted at age 14 into Protestant Charismatic Christianity, it was a mixed bag of ups and downs in my walk with the LORD. Chiefly because the genuine gospel of Christ like how it encapsulated the faith of the fathers and passed on to the Reformers of the 16th Century in Europe was not understood by me.

I had glimpses and precursors of the genuine gospel faith every time I meditated upon Psalm 1, Joshua 1:8, and John 15:1-8. I would receive hints from the LORD that He has so much more. I just did not know what more.

It took me 34 years of floundering around in church-circles, among Charismatic trends and fashions, and coming up to spiritual dead ends continually to realize something was not right.

God in His mercy and grace brought me to the mp3 page of the late Rev Dr Timothy Keller, and I began to listen to the genuine gospel finally! I was mystified. How could I have missed this genuine gospel once and for all given to the fathers? I later understood as I read voraciously through Luther, Calvin, and the Puritans, that indeed it is easy to let the “hinge”, and “article” of justification by faith in union with Christ to fall, and to be lost for the church, and the individual believer themselves to lose sight of the glorious Christ.

I also realized in my studies on union with Christ that faith, walking in the Spirit, the Word of God, Meditation and Confession upon God in His Word are all powerfully interconnected.

My studies this morning then pivoted to Beale’s “Union with the Resurrected Christ”, page 179, and I meditated upon 1 Cor 1:30, “But by His (God the Father) doing, you (I) are in Christ Jesus, who became to us (me) wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and Redemption.”

Beale goes on to expound that verse, that as believers, we “are represented by Christ as having perfectly become these things because of their positional identification of unity with Him.”

In other words, as God made Christ to be sin for us so that in Christ, we may become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21), so likewise, in Christ, God’s perspective and truth of who I am in His Christ is an objective reality for God Himself. My subjective experiences of vacillating feelings and emotions are not affecting God in the least! God sees me in Christ as perfect righteousness, sanctified and redeemed.

See why our union with Christ crushes a low self-concept? See why Scriptures say in Rom 8:37, “But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.” (NASB)

So many believers struggle with a low self-concept because this glorious gospel truth has not been preached and taught clearly and consistently for it to take root in the hearts of believers. Pastors and preachers are so busy preaching expository sermons without exposing Christ! And only Christ preached in His glorious gospel of justification by faith in union with Him can save us and keep saving us (sanctification).

When a believer meditates upon Christ, and what He has done to save us, and the world, the Holy Spirit then mediates the grace of revelation to the heart. This revelation by the power of the Holy Spirit makes our union with Christ a powerful reality. This revelation involves meditation and confession of the gospel of Christ. This is what is meant by “preaching the gospel to oneself”.

This is a potent means to crush not only low self-concept, but to also empower and energize believers into the mission field. To be outward looking. To seek the kingdom of God, God, and all His righteousness, in all of life. Soli Deo Gloria.