If a brush fire was coming your way as you stood in an open field, there is no way you could out run the fire. What would you do to avoid the flames? The only thing that you could do would be to start another fire and burn an area of land for you to stand on—because burned land cannot be burned twice! You would then have to stand, unmoving, on that scorched land as the brush fire’s flames passed around you.

This is what God has offered. When we stand in Jesus, we stand on sacred, holy ground already burned by the fire of judgment. Jesus took on the sins of the world and has already gone to hell for us. Therefore, the land cannot be burned twice!

I do not want to stand before God as my Judge and be found lacking, so I stand today before Jesus as my Lord. My identity is not just a positive thought of how I would like to be. No, my identity is forever established in heaven as righteous, redeemed, holy, washed, and new—because of Jesus’ finished work here on earth!