As a believer of Jesus Christ it is vital that we understand what it means to be “in Christ.” Many Christians do not fully understand the depth of the phrase “in Christ” and it keeps them from fully experiencing the riches, glory, and freedom that Christ accomplished on the cross. They are unable to have a intimate personal relationship with God. They are unable to experience many of the promises of God. And they often live in a state of striving to gain something that is already within them. I believe that this truth is one that we need to study frequently to keep it fresh in our mind and heart because it is essential to our walk with God and to having the life that is available to us because of Jesus. We can not experience the fullness of our freedom, of our relationship with God, of a good relationship with ourselves, or victory in this life without fully understanding what it means to be “in Christ.”

When you receive Jesus as your Lord and savior his spirit was planted into your heart. You become not only a human being, but also a spiritual being as your spirit was birthed when Jesus came into your heart. Since he now lives in you he is part of you and you are part of him. Everything that he is so are you ”in Him.” As a result of this when God looks at you he sees you just as he sees Jesus. Because God wanted a way to cover the ugliness of the human nature he created a plan and a way through Jesus. As a result of that plan we are able to stand before God blameless, holy, and in perfect relationship with him because we are “in Christ”.(Colossians 1:22)

Jesus accomplished everything that needed to be accomplished in order for the law to be satisfied and fulfilled. Then he gave himself as the ultimate sacrifice to pay for all of our past, present, and future sins. No greater sacrifice could be given to atone for our sins and since we are in him it is as if we give the same exact sacrifice when we ask God for forgiveness in Jesus’ name. God knew that our human nature was flawed by design because of Adam and Eve actions in the garden and there was no way that we could be the sinless perfect beings that he longed for us to be. Even though we were full of sin, rebellion, and disobedience he still yearned to have a relationship with us and for us to have a peaceful, joyful, content, and satisfying life (Romans 5:8). Because of the oath that he had made with our ancestors he couldn’t go back on his word so he created the way by us being “in Christ”. In God’s eyes we are his perfect children through Jesus (2 Corthians 5:21).

It is so easy to get caught up in our own faults, failures, struggles, mistakes, behaviors, inabilities, and even our good works that we become more focused on what we are not rather than who we are “in Christ”. Then that opens the door for the enemy to start putting lies in our head and cripple us with guilt, shame, fear, and condemnation. Now I think that it is safe to say that most, if not all, Christians want to do right, want to please and glorify God, want to make him proud to call us his child, and don’t want to ever disappoint him. And when we fall short of standards and expectations that we have placed upon ourselves it can have a tremendous negative impact on our spiritual life if we lose sight of the fact that we are “in Christ”. Everything that we lack he has, everything that we are not he is, and anything that we may be missing he provides, so we are complete because of our unity with him. We are complete, lacking nothing, and able to do all things through Christ (Philippians 4:13).

In and of ourselves we are nothing more than a sinful human being. We fall short of God’s standards all of the time. But because God does love us so much and wants us to be able to be who he created us to be, to love and enjoy life, and to have a close personal relationship with himself, he created a way to do so. He made the way but Jesus’s death on the cross. If you believe in Jesus and accept him as your Lord and savior then he lives in you. Everything that he is so are you. Anything that you are not he is, therefore, so are you through him. You are perfect, worthy, accepted, loved, blameless, capable, able, righteous, wanted, smart, strong, joyful, peaceful, forgiven, and the Apple of God’s eye, all because you are in Christ and he is in you. The more that you learn of all that you are “in Christ” the freer and happier you become. The more of what you learn is possible through Christ the more unstoppable you will become. Hold tight to the truth of your identity in Christ and never stop seeking out and reminding yourself of those truths. And always remember that whatever you lack or are not in your own natural nature you are in your spirit through Christ. You are already everything that you need to be “in Christ” (the deepest part of your being which is your spirit). You just have to believe it and through that faith you will start to become all that you were created to be. It is a lifelong journey and God is cheering you on as you walk it out saying, “look at my child that I love so much. Keep it up and never give up.”

A few scriptures that you can study about who you are in Christ are:

2 Corinthians 5:17, 5:21, 5:19 Romans 6:11, 6:23, 8:1 Galatians 3:26 Ephesians 1:3, 1:4, 2:10, 2:13 Philippians 4:19 2 Timothy 2:1, 1 Peter 5:10