You Have Divinity in Your DNA

You have divinity in your DNA, and that’s no April Fool’s joke! Yet most Christians live unaware of this mind-blowing reality. Today, we dive into a moment when Paul walked into a church and was shocked to find... mere humans. He rebuked the Corinthians, not for being bad, but for being merely human when they carried God’s divine nature. The gospel isn’t a behavior management program; it’s a radical exchange, the old for the new. It’s a co-crucifixion and a co-resurrection. Sin isn’t about bad behavior but about mistaken identity. You’re not a sinner. You’re a saint infused with God’s divine nature. Walking in this truth isn’t prideful—it glorifies the One who gave you his very own spirit. So today, you can boldly declare: I have divinity in my DNA!

Chapters

• 0:00 Happy April Fool's Day!
• 2:09 Paul's Rebuke of the Corinthians
• 3:46 The Gospel is an Exchange
• 7:02 Sin is an Identity Problem
• 10:04 Today's Kus Word

Transcript

Michele: 0:00

It's April Fool's Day and this is Today's Kus Word. Welcome to Today's Kus Word, where we try to bore you silly with the most ridiculous teachings from the Bible that aren't even true. You definitely don't want to listen to this podcast or share it with a friend, because you've really got better things to do with your time. April Fools! Hey there, new creation. Well, happy April Fool's Day. I had way too much fun making that intro, and I was talking to my friend, Megan at church a couple weeks ago and she was telling me about a particularly rough day that she was having at work. And so Megan told me that she started to think to herself, what are some good Kus words that I can say right now that would really help in this situation? Yeah, that's what we want. We want you saying those good Kus words, those meditations, those declarations, those encouraging words, those truths from scripture that you can pull out of your back pocket anytime you need them. So that's why we practice saying them during the show, and you do practice saying them during the show, right? Because that's your job. Okay, now that we got that out of the way, let's continue on our identity series that we started, that we launched into yesterday, where we talked about you being a new creation in Christ.

Michele: 1:40

And I want to continue in that series today and ask you this, what if I told you that Paul the apostle walked into the church in Corinth and he was shocked to find human beings? I know it sounds like an April Fool's joke, but it's real. Turn over to 1 Corinthians, chapter 3, starting in verse 1. I'm going to read it from the ESV. But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it and even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says I follow Paul, and another I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human? Ouch! Okay, imagine walking into a church today and saying y'all are acting like humans and that is a problem. That is essentially what Paul is saying to the Corinthian church. He expected these believers to be so much more than who they were being. That was his rebuke. He was frustrated not because they weren't being nice people. He was frustrated because they weren't being divine.

Michele: 3:33

The gospel is not a behavior management program or, as Dallas Willard would say, a sin management program. The gospel is an exchange. You exchange your old, sinful human nature for Jesus's perfect, divine nature. Yep, I don't know if you've ever heard that before, but it's true. Paul expected to walk into a room full of little Christs. That's what Christian means, little Christs but instead he found people who said I follow Paul, I follow Apollos and Paul's like what are we picking middle school dodgeball teams? What is this? So

Michele: 4:34

The gospel is not just an upgrade to your sinful nature, your morality. The gospel is a transformation of your nature. This is why it's called good news. Your old, sinful human nature is, say it with me, dead. Galatians 2:20, Paul said I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live. That means he dead, but Christ lives in me. The old you is dead. The old self, with its insecurities and sin and guilt and shame, is dead, co-crucified with Christ. And then, if you look at Romans 6, verse 4, it says this we have been co-resurrected with him so that we could be empowered to walk in the freshness of new life. You and I have been grafted into Christ. We carry the DNA of divinity. So when Paul walked into that church in Corinth he expected to see divinity on display. Instead, he saw regular, normal human beings doing regular, normal human things.

Michele: 6:14

Now is this just a behavior problem? I don't think so. So in our Western evangelical church mindset we've been taught that sin is all about what we do. It's our transgressions, it's our rule breaking, it's our bad behavior. But in the New Testament the word for sin is hamartia. This is a compound word. It's actually two Greek words ha, which means without, and morphe, which means form. Sin literally means without form or distorted in form. So sin is not about what you do. Sin is about who you believe you are. Sin at its core is an identity problem, not a behavior problem. But if you have an identity that's wrong, wrong behavior is going to naturally flow from that. So the root issue is our identity, not our behavior.

Michele: 7:36

If you believe that you are just a sinner saved by grace, you are going to act like just a sinner saved by grace. I know that is a sacred cow phrase for a lot of people in the church, but for me it is like, as one of my friends said, nails on a chalkboard. You are not a sinner. You are not a sinner. You have a divine nature. You have divinity in your DNA, and I wish we heard this more in church.

Michele: 8:19

Jesus did not come, die on a cross and be resurrected to make you a nice person. He did not come to make you good. He came to kill you, to kill the old sinful nature and to restore to you the divine nature his divine nature that God always intended for you to have. The gospel is not about being good, it's about being like God. And when Paul walked into that Corinthian church, he expected to see divine beings walking in the newness of life, knowing who they were in Christ, but instead he saw mere humans acting the way mere humans act.

Michele: 9:20

You have been co-crucified and co-resurrected with Christ. The old you is dead and the new you has divinity in your DNA, and we always talk about wanting to glorify God with our lives. Do you want to know one of the best ways to do that? One of the best ways to glorify God with your life is to walk in the truth of who you are. This is what Jesus came and died to give you, to give you himself. So here's Today's Kus Word for you, Megan, and the rest of you. I have divinity in my DNA. I have divinity in my DNA, and that is no joke. Thanks for joining me today on this April Fool's Day, and if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who still thinks that they are a sinner. And remember you can send me a text message. Just click the link down in the show notes that says Text Michele, and have a wonderful day. I will see you again tomorrow.