You're Not Disqualified. You're In Process.

You gave your life to Christ. You know you’re forgiven, washed, made new. So why does that same old habit — the one you thought you buried — keep finding its way back into your closet?

That’s the question Efrain and I sat down with on this episode, and it’s one most Christians feel too guilty to say out loud. If I’m really a new creation, why do I still fall back into the same stuff?

Efrain lays out a distinction that reframes the whole conversation: there’s a difference between your positional truth before God and your lived, everyday experience. The moment you trust Christ, your position changes completely — you go from enemy of God to son or daughter, in an instant, no waiting period. But your habits, your strongholds, the parts of you that are “second nature” — those don’t get erased in that same instant. The Holy Spirit works those out over time, at a pace that looks different for every person.

Confusing the two is exactly what the enemy wants. If he can convince you that a relapse into an old habit means your position never really changed, he’s got you exactly where he wants you: ashamed, hiding, and pulling away from the God who already secured your standing.

I don’t just teach this — I live it out loud. I quit smoking cold-turkey for my son, only to relapse the moment I landed overseas alone, stressed, and back in a familiar routine. I’m not saying that to justify it — I’m illustrating it: becoming new doesn’t inoculate you against the pull of the old. It just changes what happens after you fall — you get back up, instead of staying down.

One of the most direct moments in the episode: Efrain pushing back on the idea that grace means “how I live doesn’t matter.” Grace frees you from the penalty of sin — but if there’s genuinely no visible change over time, Efrain says, that’s worth examining honestly rather than hiding behind theology. Grace isn’t what lets you off the hook to keep doing whatever you want. It’s what makes it safe to keep fighting.

The conversation turns to Peter — how he cursed in the moment he denied knowing Jesus, using his own words to distance himself from Christ under pressure. Efrain’s point lands hard: the “small stuff” — your language, your habits, the things you assume nobody’s tracking — reveals exactly where your heart actually is. People notice the difference in you before you ever explain your faith to them. I back it up with my own story: a rental-car employee, a total stranger, telling me “I knew you were a godly man” after five minutes together and one turned-down offer.

The episode closes on what might be the strongest line of the season. Most of us default to picturing God as the light waiting for us at the far end of a hard season. Efrain reframes it: He’s not at the end. He’s in the tunnel, with you, right now, in the dark part. That’s the whole posture of this episode — not “get it together and then God will meet you,” but “God is already with you while you’re getting it together.”

If an old habit came back after you gave your life to Christ, that doesn’t mean nothing changed. It means you’re in the process — the same process every believer walks, the one that started the instant your position changed and continues for the rest of your life. Keep getting back up. Keep walking in the identity that’s already yours, instead of trying to earn one you were already given.

Efrain and I dig into all of this — and a lot more — on the full episode, “Old Habits vs. New Identity: From Old Self to New Creation.” Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or watch it on YouTube.

And if this episode challenged you, don’t sit with it alone. Send it to someone who needs to hear it today.

You’re not disqualified. You’re in process.