Npg Radio 1980 #3 - Radio Interview — Norman Grubb

Week 6, Program 1. This is David Ord with today's Union Life broadcast. God is the Chief Executive in His Kingdom, and He doesn't live by a book of rules or by a manual. He lives according to what He is.

He loves, for example, not because a code of ethics tells Him to love, not because He feels He ought to love, but because He is love. Now that's what God desires to bring about in us. We're to be like Him, like Christ.

Union With Christ as the Source of Christian Living

And how? Not by copying Him and trying to be like Him, but by actual union with Him so that what He is will be expressed in and through us. So we partake of, as Peter said, we express His divine nature.

Now how is this accomplished in us? How do we reach this? How can mortal man become an expression of Christ Himself? Well, we're in a series of broadcasts which we've entitled, Who Am I? And our guest on this series of programs, to explain it to us, is a man who wrote the book by that title, Who Am I?, Norman Grubb.

And we're talking now about the replaced life. And we've been considering together the way that we did express Satan's nature because he manifested his life through us, but now we express the nature of Christ because he has become our replaced life.

Norman? Norman, can you tell us, how is it that a person gets into a real grasp of their union with Christ and really knowing who they are? How does this become real to them?

Because life isn't grasping, it's being grasped. And the fact is we're all spontaneous whether we know it or not. We didn't know we were spontaneous expressions of the spirit of error and operating on his self-centered, self-interested ways of life.

We just did it. We didn't even know it. We were, as it were, tempted by the spirit of God to do a few good things, but we merely responded a moment to this temptation and came back to who we were, self to self.

Now the question is, how do we therefore find ourselves as equally spontaneous as expressions of Christ in his self-giving life as we were aware of Satan in his self-centered life, his self-loving life?

Christ’s Death and Resurrection as the Basis of the Replaced Life

We were talking on our last talk on the redemption basis to this being a reality. And that was that Jesus Christ not only bore our sins, which were a product, but when he was made sin, sin is the spirit of error expressed through the human body.

Therefore when his body hung on Calvary, the Bible says God made him to be sinned. In other words, he was in God's own sight. God made him as if he were Satan expressed through all human bodies. And the point of that is, when the body does die, out goes the spirit.

So the mendaciness of the body death of Jesus Christ, the burial of Christ, was a demonstration out had gone from that by representing our body as the spirit of error. And in the Resurrection it came in in the place of spirit of error, the spirit of truth.

Now the point is, how did this become as spontaneous to us, Christ living his life by us, and as it was spontaneous to us, Satan living his life by us. Now the first thing the Bible tells us is he gives us facts in the Bible which in our minds and hearts we can recognize and accept.

And that's why he gives us this fact in Romans 6. In his dying he died two sins. In his precious blood he died four sins. In his body death he died the two which made the spirit of error, which is Satan, who is Mr. Sin, went out.

And in the Resurrection, his spirit came in. And there he says, when you see that as a given fact, that is in the Scripture, that is in historical explanation of what he went through on our behalf, you reckon that.

He says reckon it. Reckon means against appearances. You don't look at yourself and say, well what about my deviations and weaknesses. That's not the point of the moment. He says it so, you say so. You don't feel it.

It doesn't seem to be honest. It doesn't seem to be real. He says it, say it. That's what the Bible calls the obedience of faith. We make a big fuss about works of obedience don't get you there. You don't obey by reading the Bible or obey by praying.

You obey in the end. It may come through the reading of the Bible and praying, but by believing means you have inwardly said, that's what I am. Obedience of faith is obeying, saying in faith what he says you are.

If he says reckon yourself dead unto sin, allow them to go unto the Lord Jesus Christ, I say so. It's all appearance, it's all feeling, that's because he says so. Of course my heart is, I wouldn't be interested.

So I take that line. Now you don't live by reckoning, you live by realising. I mean by that, if you hold up say a book in your hand and you say to a person, I reckon I've got a book in my hand, you say what's the matter with you?

Why do you reckon that you know it's a book in your hand? What's wrong with you? Why do you put the word reckoning? Reckoning means you're not quite sure it is. So because you're not quite sure, I reckon I have a book in my hand.

So of course you don't say, I've got a book in my hand. In other words, that's realising. It's spontaneous, I've got a book in my hand. So now in this case, this doesn't become spontaneous fact until the reckoning, I reckon that I'm crucified with Christ and Christ says to me, I know, I am.

Something's got to happen in between the two. And this is the phase in which our faith on this total level becomes fact. Our faith has become a fact concerning our sins level that shuttles off from God and sends us on the road to damnation.

That went out, and that's become a fact as we said, by our process of believing, which means the Spirit of God came back and confirmed by the inner witness which is inner substance to us, yes you are delivered.

So we rest on the fact that we're saved by grace and free and so on. We have to move into another process of faith by which it becomes equally real to us that not only are sins forgiven but we're not really we at all.

That our humanity now is an expression of the living, it's a living person in us, a living spirit, a living Christ, a living Father operating by us and in a spontaneous way we just be it and that's a fact.

Romans 7 and the Exposure of Self-Dependence

Now that doesn't take place until we have a shall I say a revolutionary shake-up on the self-life. Because that's where we're to be selves, that's the whole point ourselves to be a spontaneous representation of himself.

Now therefore the self-life is the point. Now we said all along our problems with our self-life we were deceived in thinking there was a certain amount which we run by self-effort, self-action, independence, we should explain that but therefore Satan lied to us and he used this for self-independence and caused us to think well we really are expressing him.

So we have to go through a phase it comes in every Christian life, it's put in the Bible after Romans 6. Romans 6 if you reckon yourself that Romans 7 says I don't know yet, it hasn't worked out yet. Romans 7 it didn't work out.

Romans 8 you move it it does work out. So Romans 7 here is where we're sending our attention and that's where until we have some hard knocks we can't get away from our compulsive idea, of course I run my life haven't I, that's all my life, of course I'm responsible.

Of course I can't fight my battles, of course I have my affairs, I, I, I, I, I, as if I was independent which is a lie. Now that's a lie. There's no such thing as independence, there cannot be, it's not in existence.

So it's only a branch expressing whichever vine it is or the vessel with whatever whichever the living or dead waters in it or a temple which God's in it so it's the agency or body which is operating.

So there isn't such a thing as independence, it's a lie. We don't know it's a lie. So we have to go through a phase when we're dissatisfied because we think we should be better. We think we shouldn't collapse in those sins and have these hates and fears and lusts and and dislikes and worries and like I said, all those, those or, or, or failure to have the power of God and the peace of God and the love of God we ought to have and all those different ought tos, ought tos, ought tos.

We've got to go through a phase when we gradually become disgusted with ourselves. Maybe disillusioned with ourselves and self-condemning and hide it because we ought to be different. We almost always see it in folks at meetings that when they hear victory I'm not like that.

I'm not like that. I oughtn't to have these sex appetites or I oughtn't to have my jealousy of the people. I oughtn't to be worried. But I do. Underneath, I hide it. But I do. I don't want to but I do.

So I've got to show the guilt. You show the guilt. It's all right to talk there but on its side, underneath, I don't live like that. Now, the slurs, I think I ought I ought to live. That's my slur. Not that I don't live but I think I ought to live is my lie.

That's the lie. And therefore, when I think I ought to produce these truths of spirit, I ought not to express these flesh activities. I'm condemning myself. Now, I've got to come to revelation. I'm not meant to.

Now, that's a revelation. And we have to face the fact most of our churches and most of our teachers give us the ought to life. That's why the Bible says a very profound thing in Romans 7. It says you're dead to the law.

But we're not dead to the law until we've got this thing clear. The law came to show me up. Not to make me right. To show I'm wrong. We said in the earlier teachings how the law came to show I'd committed sins.

Not that you didn't commit them, but you did commit them. By the law came the knowledge of my sins. I had done these things. That brought me to see my knee as Jesus Christ. Now, here it says I'm dead to the law.

I'm not dead to the law while I think I ought to. Now, see, in the old life, the law said you didn't. Now the law says you can't. Now that's pretty deep. Because I'm told I can. I've been taught for my whole life that I do it.

I should keep the commandment of God. I should pray. I should my whole church life, I should keep my church suited. I should be decent in the home. My whole life is built on this. It's a lie. So the law quietly says I'm here to show you not only you didn't, but you can't.

Now, why can't I? You see, I can't if I've settled in to take further explanation, if I've settled in to an inner reality that I'm not living my life, but the deity is living it. And that deity is changed.

And the new deity that is living life is Jesus Christ living his life. But I've got to know that spontaneously, not just reckoning. I've got to know it. No, I don't know it. I don't know it because I never knew it was Satan living in me.

That's why he tricked me. That's why the Bible says he deceived me. I didn't know he lived in me. I thought he influenced me. I thought, well, I'm out of influence. He lived in me. So, you see, the influencing of self-dependence is a lie.

Isn't it? Fulfilling my duties is a lie.

And we're going to be picking right up on this subject in tomorrow's broadcast. We're on the same station, five days a week at the same time. You've been listening to our guest for this series of programs, Who Am I?, Norman Grubb.

Now, we'd like to give you a booklet of Norman's called The Key to Everything. It was published by Moody Press. We want to send it to you free of charge. If you write to 4606 Lamar Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee 38118, or call area code 901 -795 -0121.

That's 901 -795 -0121. That's 901 -795 -0121. The address again, in just a moment, mention the booklet, The Key to Everything. There's no charge, no request for money. Until next time, this is David Ord.

Program 2: Reckoning and Realising

Program 2. This is David Ord with today's Union Life broadcast. Paul of Tarsus came to a tremendously profound realization when he said, I have been put to death with Christ on his cross so that it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.

This life, he said, that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave his life for me. Paul had begun to experience a way of life, the very heartbeat of which was no longer himself, but Christ.

The whole motivation for all of his life, the impulse for all he accomplished was Christ living through him. Paul knew who he was. Now we're in a series of broadcasts which we've entitled, Who Am I? And one of the most important things any of us can come to understand is who we are in Christ.

A man who wrote a book by the title Who Am I? was Norman Grubb. Norman is with us in a series of programs and we've been talking about the replaced life. And we're discussing at the present time how a person comes to an awareness of who they are in Christ.

Norman, I want to ask you, you began to talk in the last program about the whole subject of reckoning. Just what is the right kind of biblical.

Reckoning? Well, biblical reckoning is a.

First stage to realizing that all faith is that. When I say I go to a person's home, I reckon I'm going to that home. Faith is constantly when I'm there. I realize I'm there, so reckoning is the first stage moving into realizing because the realizing doesn't come from the faith, it comes from the object.

When I say I'll go to that home, the realization doesn't come from I go, it comes from the home. And there the home says, here you are, you're in my home. So reckoning is my relationship to something and the realizing is something because that's my relationship to you, I've got you.

This is the fact now. Food is yours, the home is yours, whatever it is. The difference between reckoning and realizing, I take it to be that. And that's why we can't live by reckoning, we live by realizing.

And probably on a new birth level, we've known that because usually the realizing comes pretty quick. Not always, there are those who don't, but there's a great many that say when you have moved in knowing your sin condition and you receive Jesus Christ as a faith back up, oh I am!

And we don't say, I hope, I am! No, realizing. I don't say, I believe I am. Oh I am, Christ is my savior. I am forgiven. I've moved quickly from reckoning to realization. Usually it's so quick. Now that's because my problem isn't really my past sins and my future destiny, it's my present self.

I'd like to be forever a present self, I'd like to live forever in the now. There's no other tense except for now in the end. Eternity is really now, now, now, now, now, that's all it is. That's why Jesus says, take no thought for anything else from today, that's all you're living.

And so the real answer isn't that my past sins are out and my future is assured, but my present life, that's what isn't right. So I'm not spontaneous in my present as I am about my past sins and my future destiny.

And that's what we're discussing now. I can't find that spontaneity until I've got it clear where the self fits in the spontaneity. That's my problem. My problem isn't Christ. It isn't Christ for me or Christ for him, it's me.

I don't seem to fit. I seem to go wrong. I don't fit. And the importance of that is, life is mean operating. See, in the relationship between a universal and its way of expression, its own expression is through its form, it's seen through its form.

The form is in the foreground. God is in the foreground, his creation is in the foreground. A light is in the foreground, a lamp is in the foreground. Through the lamp, light expresses itself. Now, the trouble, therefore, the point is, we humans are to be in the foreground.

So we've got to be the right type of humans if we're to be spontaneous God-expressions. God, then, is a background, expresses his humanity, expresses himself, his deity, through our humanity. Like unknown to me, Satan expresses his deity through my humanity.

That's why I didn't know. So my problem remains how self-exposure, that's this chapter in Romans, Romans 7. And my trouble is, I've been deceived into thinking that self-effort is rather respectable.

And what I've got to learn is the worst sin is self-effort. Now, I think the worst sin is lying, or hating, or fearing, or lusting. No, no, no. The self, there are forms of self-effort really, there are forms of independent self.

My independent self fits in, does these things, hates and fears and lusts and so on. My trouble isn't the product. My main problem is self-effort, independent self. That's my sin. Now, that's what Romans 7 shows you.

Sin is trying my best, think I ought to be better, accepting condemnation of myself. That's my sin. My sin isn't that I did the loose of a temper, or I did do, that's not the sin, that's just a detail.

The sin is, I think I'm the person who shouldn't do that. That's the point. That's why Romans 7 says, you're not true to the law, because the law will remain while you've got a wrong perception of yourself.

The law came to say, you think you're right, no you're not, keep the commandments. You couldn't, until you found your lost sin and got saved. Now it says, the law comes again, you think you're right, no you're not, because you think you can.

Not, then you thought you couldn't, that you didn't do it. Now you can't do it, you've got to learn the law, and you can't. Till you can, you can't, and your sin is, I can. So my worst sins, I can. That's very subtle, because all churches think you ought to.

All churches, you want to pray, you want to keep the Bible, you want to do so and so, and then it's built on a false consumption. So our churches treat us wrongly. So it's very difficult to get wrong with our very church's show.

It's really continuous in the basic sin. The basic sin is, what sin dwells in me, it's self-centeredness dwelling in me, it's self-reliance dwelling in me. It may take this form, that I hate or do that, that's just detail.

The sin is that I run my own show. I ought to. I can't. And therefore I take a false guilt by saying, oh look, you know, I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have felt like that, I do. I say I shouldn't, I shouldn't, I shouldn't.

See, so our whole life is tied up in false guilt, false condemnation. Now see, that's what Paul found out. He had it in Romans 7. He said, I learned by covetousness. He said, he's a very sensitive man.

I kept all the other commandments, they're out there, they're apparently out there, shouldn't to you, shouldn't so and so. The last commandment is you shouldn't even desire wrongly. You shouldn't desire other people's goods and so on.

You shouldn't covet other people's things. Oh, forlorn to that. See, he still thought he could be something, could be or could be not something. He didn't, of course, yet know Christ in him. Now, immediately, he was filled with covetousness.

That wasn't he. He thought it was. Oh, I desire everything I shouldn't have. I was awful. I thought, oh, I couldn't covet. I'm full of covetousness. He called it full of concupiscence. He said, sin arose.

That was sin. Sin slew me. He didn't know it was sin. He thought it was himself. He thought, I was now being a rotten covetous person. I shouldn't be covetous. I am. What's wrong with me? He didn't know.

He still thought he should be different. He didn't know that he should is with sin. That self-reliance is with sin. And you see, therefore, he's in the hands of the spirit of self-reliance. He says, yeah, and therefore you're what you want to be.

I'll make you my self-reliance is your covetousness. I'm in my self-reliance is all doing my own stuff. All right. You own stuff. You're covetous. It wasn't he at all. It's Mr. doing his own stuff. He's a Satan.

I'm a covetous person. I'm a lustful person. I do all things I shouldn't. That's Satan, of course. I run me own show for me own ends. Therefore, when I think I ought to, I think I really don't know it's Satan.

And so my sin is I ought to and ought not to and should. That's Satan. I've got you. Now what you should do is you do what I like, which is you should covet. Got you? So he said, I had to go through a whole day.

I had the dog on me at last. I want to do right because I'm born again. I delight in the law of God, not the old thing of the law of God. It's a beautiful thing. But I can't because he thinks he can. That's very subtle.

That's very subtle. At last he says, oh, why is it I want to and don't? It says that the will is present with me, but how to perform I don't know. I don't know. I haven't got the power. I ought to have.

He hadn't. So the law is there. Why do you think you ought to? At last he says, oh, no, it's not going to be. I'm just a container. The ought to person has sinned in me and therefore he causes me to go his ought to.

His ought to way is to do the thing the flesh does. That's his ought to. And so while I think I'm ought to, I'm enslaved. I'm the ought to person. Self active person. I can't conquer my hates and fears and tempers and stuff.

I think I ought not to. I'm guilty. So I live in this guilt. As I say, when you talk victory life, 90 of the congregation look guilty because they're mistaken. They think they shouldn't do it. You see, think I should be different.

That's their sin. Not that they did it or tempted, but I should. It's their sin. Or I should not. Now that's the depth of Romans 7. When suddenly Paul says, oh, it's not I. It's Mr. self, Mr. ought to.

Mr. thinks he can do it himself. Is in me. Causes me, has got me and therefore it's doing itself to me. And I do these things I shouldn't do. Because until you know Christ got you, although you're born again, you're within reach of that slavery.

Because you don't know yourself yet, you know your sins are out. You don't know yourself yet and the value is you've got to know yourself because until you do know yourself you won't operate spontaneously rightly.

So you're operating spontaneously wrongly because you're still in this, you don't know the way out. Therefore still in I should be different, which is part of the old thing. So I've got to have an inner revelation.

It's not I should be. That's stuff. I'm just a vessel. Drop it. I'm a vessel. Vessel does nothing. Vessel can say drop it. Therefore in one sense we've got to come, as I say, from being a wrong self to a no self.

That's difficult especially for men because men think they can do things. I think it's more difficult for men to come into it than women. Because women have that in them which they to some extent have a yielded life.

I run the show. I earn the wages. I don't talk. I can't do nothing. It's ridiculous. So it's a great thing for a man to say I'm just an old pot. I mean it. There's a great breaking on our self-life there.

But I've got to come there. I've got to be just a pot. I've just got to be a branch. A branch is just the agent of the divine. I've just got to be a temple, temple to the God in it. I've just got to be a slave, a slave doing my boss's work.

That's all I am.

Now we're going to be picking right up with this theme because we're beginning to get now to what really makes the difference in living this Christian life. Not that I can live it, but I'm a container to contain Christ who lives the Christian life through me.

This is very different to what many of us have often heard but it is why so many Christians are discouraged, defeated and don't know the victory life. Now be sure to hear the remainder of programs in this series.

We're going right on tomorrow. We're on five days a week on this station and we'd like you to have Norman's booklet published by Moody Press. We want to send it to you free of charge. It's called The Key to Everything.

Write to 4606 Lamar Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee 38118 or call area code 901 795 -0121. Program 3. This is David with another Union Life broadcast. One of the most remarkable statements to be found anywhere in the New Testament is in the words of Jesus himself when he said, I can of my own self do nothing.

Jesus’ Dependence on the Father and the Believer’s Dependence on Christ

God in the flesh said, I can of my own self do nothing. He was deeply aware of his own inability as a human being to accomplish the will of God. Then how could it be that so many of us as Christians believe that we can live the Christian life?

Well we've been considering in a series of programs which we've entitled Who Am I? What Our Inheritance Is in Christ. What it means to live the life of Christ now. And we've been considering this with a man who wrote a book called Who Am I?

His name is Norman Grubb. Norman is here with us on the program for this series of broadcasts. Norman, I want to ask you if you'd just pick up right there with us and telling us why it is that Jesus himself said, I can of my own self do nothing.

Well we Christians don't believe that.

Of our own selves we can do nothing. We can't believe that until you've got the self in the focus. You see, I'm possibly brought up that I do do things. How do I say I do nothing? And the basic reason is that we've started life, as we continually said, under the illusion that we did things.

Where the truth is the doer always was, the deity in us. That we don't know. We've been taught that we never operated by our own nature at all, by our own motivation. From the beginning we started by the false spirit of error in us, which was the spirit of independent self, running his own show.

And it connected us to the idea that we can run our own show. So as deep as we run our own show, of course I can do things. Therefore to discover that I never did it, I never did run my own things, when I discover that, then I may be conditioned to say, now I change over and I still don't run them because Satan once ran them in me and now Jesus Christ ran them in me.

But that's a revelation in between that. And that revelation is in the chapter of Romans 7 where we get the final issue. It isn't our sins. It's ourselves with this false concept that I do things by myself.

I can do things by myself. I do things by myself. That's Satan. That's what Satan says to God. I do things by myself. I won't go your way. I do things by myself. In fact, in me, I do things by myself.

I can do them, I do them. And that means I live under the control of self-interest itself. And I can't escape the drives of self-interest itself. Therefore, although I'm already saved, now my past sins are out and I'm a new creature, therefore I have a new love in me for the ways of God and my future is assured.

While I still haven't got myself in focus, I still am under the point I think I can do better myself. That's the sin. That's Satan. So I'm still, not meaning to be, I'm still in the powers of Satan. So I can't then conquer my I shouldn't do this, I should do that, I shouldn't do that, and so on.

I can't make it work because I'm still under the power of independence, which does what it wants. And what it wants, if it wants to do a sin, it does a sin. So the second radical revelation is that the self does nothing.

I got it when God said to me, you're a vessel. As a young missionary, I thought I ought to have more of God's love and more of God's power. And God said, you're all wrong. Love isn't a power, a thing.

I'm that love. I'm a person. Love isn't an emotion. Power isn't a thing. Christ is the power. I'm the power. You don't get a thing. You don't become something. You're only a part. You're a vessel. You contain me.

I got my first door in life there. You don't become something. I hadn't got it then clear that I had been operated by another person who operated in me that was Satan. I hadn't got that clear exactly later on.

Now therefore there is a radical second exposure. And I doubt on the basis of the word of God, anyone comes through merely on the first exposure of sins. Because sins are the act. Sin is self-relying self.

It isn't forms of sin. It's self-relying self that runs its own show. That's what Satan is. And he's caught me to make me think I'm like that. So I've seen this power of self-relying self which is sin.

That's sin dwelling in me. It isn't losing my temper or beating somebody up or hate or something. It's self-relying self. Self-relying self in the end does what it's tempted to do, what it wants to do if it can't conquer these things.

That's self-relying. It likes its own ways of course. That's what Satan is. So the second exposure on Romans 7, on sin and the exposure it's sin that dwells in me. Sin is self relying self. And that's why in that chapter it says the law will be there while you think you do it.

The law says do it. Now it says you can't. Before it said you didn't. Now it says you can't. Then Paul says in that chapter when I would do good, evil is pleasant with me. He couldn't do good or evil you see.

He hadn't got it. I would do good, self-relying self. Evil is pleasant with me because you see it's still evil good. I would do good, it's still self-good. That's evil good. So evil is pleasant with me.

When I'm doing good, that's evil because it's evil good. Because the human doesn't do the good or the evil. The evil is Satan expressing his self-satisfaction with the operation by me. I'm just the agent.

And good is Jesus Christ operating his self-giving life through me. So there's a radical revelation, a crack that has somehow dawned to me nothing more to do with me. Which is a difficult person to get to when we're built on be what you can be.

Do what you can. And when the church teaches like that, to see the duties. That his life is my duties. So it's a awful tear away from the very thing my churches are teaching me. They are literally, for me I do nothing.

Is what you say Jesus said of myself I could do nothing. Now when I get that which in Romans 7 means I've got the negative, oh it isn't I, it's sin that's the negative Romans 7. It isn't I should do this, shouldn't do that.

It's sin it's the self-effort stuff in me. He's got me when I think I'm self-effort he's got me, he says oh why don't you come my way sin. Self-effort way, self-reliance way, you're in my powers. It's got me.

When I realise it's sin, oh he no longer gets me then. Oh no, he's that's a liar. Now it's a liar if I know, back in Romans 6, if I know that in Christ's body that went out the error went out, the spirit of truth went in.

If I know that that's the value of having the truth first. If I know it in Christ's body died to sin, up went the spirit of error in resurrection he came, the spirit of truth, not just his blood taking my sins away.

If I know that, then like Paul did oh I see he says, I see it isn't sin that grows in me because Christ grows in me. I never saw that he said. I'm a no-nothing I'm a nothing, I'm a vessel. But now the other spirit operating in my vessel, the spirit of truth, so the spirit of error.

And so he said, then Paul said, oh no I said, no the principle spirit of life, in Christ Jesus the spirit of life is Christ expressing the spirit of God spreading his life through me. Operates through me, in Christ Jesus set me free from the other one.

All life the positive is built on the foundation of the negative which swallows up. That's to say you couldn't get saved until you were a sinner. You didn't get saved just by having Jesus. You got saved because you were a sinner needing Jesus.

You had to have your negative first. I'm a lost sinner. When I was a total negative I'm a lost sinner done for, then Jesus Christ could build on that foundation and said, yes now I turn that into a person in which you're redeemed.