If you see a dropdown menu offering books by someone named David Walker, it’s not authorized, and those are not my books. I’m trying to find out how to get rid of the dropdown. My apologies in the meantime.

If you abide in Me and My word abides in you, then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

Welcome to another Terrific Tuesday, where we take a look at God’s word, His kingdom or His people to see what we can learn about ourselves, Him and/or our relationships with Him.

In a recent Sunday School class, a guest teacher posed the following question: are we sinners who are saved by grace, or are we saved people who still sin? Sound like a trick question? Sound like there’s no difference?

My immediate answer without thinking was that we are both. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Maybe so, but it was the wrong answer.

If we Christians consider ourselves sinners who are saved by grace, we place a subtle emphasis on the sinner part. We identify ourselves as sinners and then qualify that by pointing out that we are saved by grace.

Truly we were sinners, and we were saved by grace—but that entails more than just fire insurance. When God looks at you and me today, fellow Christians, He sees us through the filter of the atoning work done by Jesus. He sees us as already seated with Jesus in heavenly places.

Our identity is as saints, not sinners. We are saints, saved by grace. We still sin and will continue to as long as we live on this earth, but sin is not our identity. We are saints, born again into the kingdom of God as brothers of Jesus Himself who, as the eighth chapter of Romans says, is the first-born among many. We are His brothers and sons of the most high God, and we need to think of ourselves as such. This is our identity, our heritage and our destiny.

Do you have a New Testament passage or concept you’d like to see discussed here? Maybe something you’ve never quite understood. I’d love to hear from you about that, too. I’ll try my best to explain it.

For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.