The Key To The Gospel Is In The Prepositions

Joyce Meyer: you’ve just seen the story of a woman who had such a poor self-image, felt that she was worthless to the point that she would sell herself for a mere ten dollars. Perhaps your feelings about yourself don’t manifest the same way hers did but if you do have bad feelings about yourself, if you devalue yourself, feel that you’re worthless or you feel that you don’t have any gifts or talents, or you don’t really see that you’re putting anything into life and you wonder why you’re here, it will manifest in some negative way in your life if you feel that way about yourself. So here with me today is a wonderful guest and a friend of mine, Mark Hankins, who is going to help me teach you who you are in Christ.  Mark, thank you for being with us.

Mark: Glad to be back.

Joyce: We had a good time yesterday and I believe that today we’re going to put the icing on the cake, so to speak. So let me ask, why do I have worth and value in Christ?

Pastor Mark Hankins: Because everything God did in Christ, he did it for us and set it to the credit of our account as though we did it.  Actually one writer said the key to the gospel is in the prepositions. When I read that, I thought I should’ve paid attention in English class because he said little words like “for, with, in, through, and by” actually are the key to the gospel. The preposition shows our relationship to God. So everything Christ did for us, then we did that with him. That’s why Paul said, “I was crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” then he says, “we died with him, were buried with him, and were raised with him.” so because he died for us, we died with him and now we are in him and through him, we can do all things. So literally understanding who we are in Christ determines our whole identity of who we are — not what happened to us because what happened to Jesus is greater than anything that’s ever happened to us.

Joyce: I believe there are a lot of people watching today who really don’t have that understanding of who they are in Christ and I think hearing us, I feel is sparking a little spark of hope. But I felt really in my heart that we need to share with people that this is not going to be an overnight fix — that becoming convinced or thoroughly believing that you have worth and value through what Christ did takes a renewing of the mind, and it’s really important that people don’t give up. I have probably said a million times in the last thirty years, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ.”

Joyce Meyer: It was great because I wanted him to be in a class where everything was all wonderful and perfect, but the lord taught him and the lord taught me, “no, you’re to be that light for that little boy so that he can feel the love of God.