What It Means to Be Truly Alive in Christ

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Living Influence with Bill Thrall and Scott Boyd

Episode: What It Means to Be Truly Alive in Christ

Release date: September 4, 2025
Hosts: Bill Thrall and Scott Boyd

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Overview

In this episode, Bill Thrall and Scott Boyd explore the transformative meaning of being "truly alive in Christ." Building on their previous discussion about what it means to be "dead" in Christ, they now move into the reality of new life and identity as believers—how embracing God’s declarations about us can break the hold of shame and condemnation. The hosts articulate the connection between our view of ourselves and genuine influence, emphasizing that living out our true identity shapes how we love, relate, and serve others.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Shift from Death to Life in Christ

• Transition from Last Episode: The previous episode focused on whether we are “really dead”—dead to the old identity. This episode examines whether, and how, we are “really alive” (00:03).
• Beginning Eternal Life Now: Bill expresses excitement that, in Christ, we’ve already started our eternity:

  "I love the thought that I've already begun my eternity." (00:28)

Jesus’ Work: Addressing Both Sin and Shame

• Beyond Sin to Shame: Bill highlights how Christ not only took our sin but also bore our shame. Living in shame means not trusting Christ with it, and once we are “dead,” shame no longer defines us (01:02 - 02:22).
• Resurrection as Proof: The hosts discuss Jesus’ resurrection as confirmation of new life—in abundance, not just existence:

  “I came to give you life and to give it to you abundantly.” (02:22)

Believing God’s Declarations About Us

• Identity in Ephesians 1: They challenge listeners to truly believe biblical declarations—adopted, holy, righteous—not just as positional, but as present reality (03:16 - 06:13).
• Difficulty Believing ‘Holy’ and ‘Righteous’: Many participants can accept being “adopted,” but struggle with being “holy” or “righteous” (05:33), often seeing these as unattainable.

The Indwelling Spirit as Evidence of New Life

• Holy Spirit’s Presence as Proof: Bill explains that God’s Spirit cannot dwell in an unholy place—His presence is evidence that believers are holy (06:34 - 08:14).
• Dissonance in the Church: Scott notes a disconnect for many:

  “But God doesn't see me as holy. You can't live with those. That's just not, that's not logical.” (08:21)

Positional vs. Actual Transformation

• Positional Theology Critiqued: The idea that we’re only “positionally” holy/righteous, but not really, is challenged. Bill insists,

  “What if the reality is that I have been made new, That I have a new life?” (09:42)

Living From Identity, Not For It

• From Striving to Trusting:

  “The Christian life is living like Jesus because that's who you are. And the great evidence that that's who you are would be your righteousness. And the great evidence of your righteousness would be your love.” (10:52)

Love as the Mark of New Life

• Jesus’ New Commandment:

  “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, just like I loved you... because of your love for one another.” (11:48)

• Love Over Judgment: Bill notes that Christians often default to judgment, but Jesus called us to love (12:52).

Receiving Love—The Hardest Part

• Vulnerability Needed: Most people are more comfortable giving than receiving love due to fear of rejection or pain (13:06 - 13:39).
• Bill’s Story: A leader from the underground church in China shares the difficulty and healing power of expressing and receiving love (15:45 - 16:54).

Grace and Resistance

• Fear of Grace Leading to Sin: Some resist this message, fearing that emphasizing grace and new identity will promote sin (17:24 - 17:33).
• Fruit as Evaluation: Scott shares how he gauged the truth of the message by observing whether love increased in his group:

  “How I was able to continue was I would notice, is the love in this group increasing or decreasing? ...it would be the affirmation that I was on the right track...” (18:11)

Purpose Flows from New Life

• Great Commission Rooted in Identity: Bill encourages listeners:

  "What if because I have life, I have new purpose? ...He gave me a new life. So with a new purpose, I could be used of God to make a difference in this world." (19:18)

• The Church and Influence: The decline of the Church’s influence is tied to judging rather than loving the world (20:02).

Moving from Shame to Freedom

• Final Challenge:

  “Could I trust him with my new life and not let the old me define who I am? That’s how I move from shame to no condemnation.” (20:24)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• "Shame does not define a dead person. But if I'm dead, then shame doesn't define me." — Bill Thrall (01:22)
• "The Holy Spirit cannot dwell in an unholy place. And if he’s in me, then I'm holy. It is the evidence that I am holy." — Bill Thrall (07:09)
• "Don't give up the opportunity to be deeply loved for the fear of being hurt." — Scott Boyd, recalling Bill’s words (13:59)
• "Love is the proof of my righteousness." — Bill Thrall (12:43)
• "If I expose and say I'm gonna allow my needs to be known... What if? Not only are they not met, but I'm judged or I'm hurt." — Scott Boyd (13:40)
• "What if because I have life, I have new purpose?" — Bill Thrall (19:18)
• "Could I trust him with my new life and not let the old me define who I am?" — Bill Thrall (20:24)
• "There's a cliff that you kind of have to leap off of to believe this message. ... What if God really is in me? What if he's really made me righteous?" — Scott Boyd (21:21)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction & Defining the Theme: 00:03 – 02:22
• Jesus: Sin, Shame, and Resurrection: 01:02 – 02:22
• God’s Declaration of Holiness and Righteousness: 03:16 – 06:34
• The Indwelling Holy Spirit & Logic of Holiness: 06:34 – 08:14
• Disconnection in Embracing Holiness: 08:14 – 09:53
• From Trying to Trusting Grace: 10:26 – 10:52
• Love as Proof of Righteousness: 11:48 – 13:05
• Learning to Receive Love: 13:06 – 14:38
• Stories of Love Increasing in Practice: 16:54 – 18:48
• Purpose: Living Out the Great Commission: 19:18 – 20:24
• Personal Leap of Faith Into New Identity: 21:21 – 21:49

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Conclusion

Bill Thrall and Scott Boyd passionately invite listeners to stop striving for an identity that God has already given and to embrace life, holiness, and purpose as present realities in Christ. The natural outflow is a life marked by love—evidence of this new creation. They challenge the audience to risk believing God’s declarations, to receive love vulnerably, and to be agents of grace, not condemnation, in the world.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[A]

Last podcast, we asked the question, am I really dead? This week, I have another question. Am I really alive?

[B]

Amen.

[A]

Welcome to our podcast. Well, Bill and Voldemort, it seems like we're beginning to go in circles. Talked about death last week, we're talking about life this week, but we really have been made alive.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

In a new way.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

And that's what we're going to talk about. And it's. It's. It's exciting to. To begin to think about it. I. I love the thought that I've already begun my eternity.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

As I've done this grace message, I found myself more excited to be alive than I've ever. Than. Than ever before.

[B]

Those are good words. Yeah, those are really good words. We're kind of in a process together. We've been imagining, how do I move from seeing myself in shame to living without condemnation?

[C]

Right?

[B]

And we're discovering that there are some answers in Jesus. Like, for instance, Jesus died for my sin. We all know that. Less known, at least in our experience, is that he also took upon him my shame. If I see myself in my shame, that means I'm not trusting him with it. But then he goes on and I ask this question, is he able to do that? Is he able, our last time, is he able to take me into his death? Because if I'm dead, shame no longer defines me. Shame does not define a dead person. But if I'm dead, then shame doesn't define me. And as we said last time, well, I don't stay dead. But what happens is, in his resurrection, he takes me. And so the question I want to ask as we start this one is, is Jesus able to give me new life? Did he really? The Son of God raised from the dead, is the resurrection of Jesus the proof of all he accomplished? I believe the answer is, he's the one who said, I came to give you life and to give it to you abundantly.

[C]

Right.

[B]

You just talked about being in enjoyment of your life. That's called abundance.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And so we sit here and we say, are you guys trying to tell us that the reason I, as a human being in Christ, a saint in Christ, can live without condemnation is because I have a new life. The old life that was defined by my shame is dead. Oh, if I could just believe that. What's keeping me from believing that miracle? Mostly it's because no one's taught. No one's teaching me to believe it. Who's teaching people to believe they're dead so that shame no longer Defines them.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Now we sing about being alive with lots of hymns and lots of songs that are sung about being alive. But I want to do the same thing we did with death. I want to ponder it. Forbidden.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to be a new creation in Christ? What in the world does it mean to be recreated in the image of Christ? You know, we're talking about the significance of Jesus Christ, and God treated us like him. Now, I don't know if you ever pondered that, but I ponder that and I go, whoa, what. What would be the evidence of my new life? Would I be like him a few years ago? I don't know, 10, 20 years, doesn't matter, you know, what would Jesus do as a mantra to how to behave? What would Jesus do? No, no, no. Stop it, stop it, stop it. Let who you are because of your life be identified by at least these things. One of the ways that he declares me alive is that he tells me that I am made, remade the image of Christ, truly holy and truly righteous. Sometimes in our cohorts, we have our audiences. Look in the New Testament, especially in Ephesians, chapter one, to discover who God says they are. And there's a long list of who God says we are there. And I'll say, just list them all. Then I'm going to ask you to do something. Is that true about you? And so they break into groups. And in breaking into groups, I say to them, now what I want you to do is if you believe it's true about you, everybody gets a point. So if you group of four, you have four. If there's only three of you, there's three. And there was a group of engineers, and they came up with 2.76. I don't know how you do that, but the point is, many of them can say fervently, oh, yeah, I'm adopted. I'm a child of God. And then when we come to the word holy, they go, not so much. They come to the word righteous.

[A]

Not so much, I think, come to the word righteous. And they go, that's. Isn't that heresy?

[B]

Even worse.

[A]

Even worse, yeah.

[B]

So they go, I can get the fact that I'm called and adopted, and I can blessed with all spiritual blessings, but oh, man can't be holy. And what they're doing is they're trying to put the declaration of God on who they were instead of hearing the declaration of God as who they are. How would anyone know, as a believer that they're holy?

[A]

I Just got confused. They put the declaration of God on who they were.

[B]

On who they were. Can't be holy. A sinner can't be holy. I'm full of shame. Don't tell me I'm holy again. No, you're screwing with me.

[A]

Right.

[D]

So the self that has not yet died.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

They're saying that's the declaration.

[B]

They did. They didn't get last week's lesson.

[C]

Right.

[B]

They don't believe they're dead.

[C]

Right.

[B]

But let's assume, let's agree with God, that we're alive. Yeah, we're holy. In John chapters 13 to 17, I. I personally call it the theology of Jesus. And in the theology of Jesus, he. Introducing the Holy Spirit, he says, and. And he shall be with you. And for the first time in history, this theology is taught. And he shall be in you. Yeah, he shall be in you. Now, the Holy Spirit cannot dwell in an unholy place. And if he's in me, then I'm whole. It is the evidence that I am holy.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So I say to many people, I'll say to all of you, do you believe the Holy Spirit of God is in you? Oh, yeah. I'm a Christian. Yeah. The Bible says the Holy Spirit. Yeah. Well, let me tell you, remind you something. He's in you because of who you are in Christ. You're holy. Or he couldn't be there, but because he's there, you are holy. You are new in Christ. Now this is so beautiful. What if I could learn to trust God's declaration of me and believe that the Holy Spirit of God dwells in me because I am holy? Paul says in Romans, chapter eight, if the Holy Spirit of God is not in you, then you do not belong to Christ.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So a great evidence that I am alive is the Holy Spirit dwells in me.

[D]

And that is such a beautiful truth. And it's that dissonance that is frustrating to me in my own mind because you ask and people say, of course, that's what it means to be a believer. But God doesn't see me as holy. You can't live with those. That's just not, that's not logical. God uses the mind. It's not just, you know, and so I like to dwell on what you're saying.

[C]

Good.

[D]

It's so, it's so meaningful. Like if that is true, then it must, it must be true that I am now perfect in his sight, absolutely holy.

[B]

Holy.

[A]

And, and so the majority of the church that doesn't live in this grace, right. That lives with A sin form of sin management. I'm still a sinner. They find dissonance in their interpretation of this statement, says the Holy Spirit's in me. And their interpretation of this, it says I'm righteous, right. And so then they have to come up with this.

[D]

Maybe it's the. The deposit of something to come. I don't know, you know, talking about.

[A]

Yeah, or, or, or it's no, there's this acetate God holds up when he looks at you.

[C]

Right.

[D]

At these special glasses.

[A]

Through Jesus, you know, and so it's because. Because Jesus is here. You're holy.

[C]

Right.

[A]

But if I take that. No, you're not.

[C]

No, you're really.

[A]

Not really.

[C]

But.

[B]

And yeah, that's. That's called positional theology. It's. A lot of people believe it.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

But what if the reality is. What if the reality is that I have been made new, That I have a new life?

[C]

We.

[B]

You read it to us earlier last week. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live.

[D]

And the life is no longer I who live.

[B]

Exactly.

[D]

It is no longer I who live. That was last week.

[C]

We're dead.

[A]

And the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the.

[B]

Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Huh. We might be tying some strings together.

[A]

And then we go. I. This all might connect, not nullify the grace of God.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

For righteousness were by works. Then Christ died for no purpose.

[B]

There you go.

[D]

That's right.

[B]

There you go.

[D]

And as we time out, Jesus is saying, stop.

[B]

Stop trying.

[D]

Stop worrying. And trying. It is.

[A]

It's already done.

[B]

It's done. So, so we. We are. We are pondering together a new life. Holy like Jesus. But isn't the Christian life about striving to become like Jesus?

[C]

No.

[B]

The Christian life is living like Jesus because that's who you are. And the great evidence that that's who you are would be your righteousness. And the great evidence of your righteousness would be your love. I've said it. I'll repeat it as many times as people will listen. These are Jesus's words. A new commandment I give you that you love one another, just like I loved you. And the world will know you characters are my disciple because of your love for one another. And a whole lot of people wish he hadn't said that letter part. Because what they would like to say is, and the world will know you are my disciples because you sin less than they do. Could I remind all of us as Christians, do you have any idea how frustrated Your world is with your judgment of their morality. What if you love them? Which was what he asked us to do, not condemn them. But anyway, that's a different subject. But let's stay in his words. A new commandment I give you. It's not like the old commandments. He's God and he knew something. The law did something. The principle of law toward humanity will always do something. It'll prove humanity is unrighteous. That's the purpose of the principle of law. Not something to us to follow or something to measure ourselves by. But it measures our unrighteousness. So Jesus say, I gotta. You're my disciples. You three guys. You're my disciples. I have a new commandment, by the way. Voldemort, Bill and Scott. It's something you can do. Why? How can I do this new commandment? Because I'm righteous.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

See, love is the proof of my righteousness.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Because Sid does something. You said it earlier. Another one of our Sid keeps me. You went like this. Sin keeps me. Focused on me.

[A]

Focused on me.

[B]

You know what love does?

[A]

Lets me look up love.

[B]

Causes. I love that.

[A]

Lets me look up and notice and see you guys.

[B]

You.

[C]

Right, you.

[B]

So I teasingly say. You've heard me say this many times, Voldemort. In order for you and I to love each other, we're both going to have to learn to receive love. I've discovered something in my audiences. Most of us would rather give love than receive love. But you can't experience love if you don't receive it.

[D]

That is so true. And I've been learning that more and more. Especially because there's risk. Because I may get hurt.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

If I expose. If I expose and say I'm gonna allow my needs to be known for the potential to get. What if? What if? Not only are they not met, but I'm judged or I'm hurt.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

I remember you sharing. It's, you know, don't give up the opportunity to be deeply loved for the fear of being hurt.

[B]

Say that again. Say it again.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Don't risk receiving love and feeling the love.

[B]

Right.

[D]

Because you're afraid that you may get hurt. And I've done that so much of my life, even with my own family, with my kids, because I have been hurt. And yet when you do allow yourself to be loved, it starts a chain reaction. It really does. It allows you now to love and return.

[B]

You know what? And in the wisdom of Jesus, what we're talking about right now is this new life, experiencing grace in Love makes me healthy. Love heals. It literally has the power to heal.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So much of mankind's dysfunction, emotionally and psychologically is in the realm of not being loved.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Because acts of sin are acts of non love. And so if we loved each other, we would be less hurt. If we let myself be loved, I'd be less hurt. Wow. I think I kind of like this theme. I think I kind of like this. And yet, for whatever reasons, and there's lots of them, you have this pervasive theology that keeps you focused on what you're doing wrong, keeps you focused on what you ought to do, keeps you focused on what you should do.

[C]

What.

[B]

What if we could pray, and I say this to our audience again, what if we could pray these short prayers? Spirit of the living God, convince me that I am new. Do that. Convince me that I am holy. Convince me that I.

[A]

That I'm loved.

[B]

I'm loved. Just convince me of that. I was doing some training of Asian leaders years ago. Well, not that many, but a few years ago. And. And one of the leaders was from the underground church that doesn't exist in China. There's thousands, millions of them. But. But anyway, and after my teaching on a subject very similar to this, on love, he came up to me and he's a very short man, and he. He said, bill, could. Could I ask you to do something? Sure. He said, would you stand up? Sure. He says, I've never done this before to a man. He said, could I hug you? I said, sure. And he hugs me. And then he said, oh, that was hard. I said, really? Yeah. He said, now this is going to be harder, Bill. And I don't want to. He almost said, I want to apologize in advance. Okay. Well, he said, I want to tell you that I love you, Bill. And we both got real emotional and he was trying to hide his emotion and. And then he. He made this statement. I'm going to go home and I'm going to practice what I just did.

[A]

With you 15 years ago. Started teaching my. I had a men's group. We would meet at 6am on a Tuesday morning, have coffee, really strong coffee. The guy that made the coffee liked strong coffee. I had got a hold of your book, the Cure.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

And I started to teach the lessons out of the Cure and teach about grace and about believing that God was in us and that he made us righteous. And. And there's people that resist the message.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

They resist this message because it feels like there's no effort. And if there's no effort. They're fearful that they'll.

[D]

Well, it's off on sin.

[C]

You're not.

[A]

Yeah, they'll just. They'll just go off and sin. And so. So I would have people that would come against me. I mean, I had one guy go to the pastor and say he shouldn't be leading the men's group because of teaching this grace. So you have this resistance. And then I'd have people just in the audience and they'd just be grumpy and they'd tell me about it and tell me what they didn't like and, well, what about the scripture and those kind of things? How I was able to continue was I would notice, is the love in this group increasing or decreasing? Absolutely.

[D]

That's cool.

[A]

And it would be the. It would be the affirmation that I was on the right track because I. I would see it was increasing. I would see, not only do these guys enjoy each other more and care about each other more and. And they ended up not only doing that meeting, they'd meet on another day and they'd ride bikes and meet on us. I mean, they just. They became really good friends.

[B]

Started to work.

[A]

It did.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

But I also hear stories of like, I called my daughter yesterday. I hadn't talked to her in three years. And love would increase in so many different ways. And it does work. It's an amazing thank you message.

[B]

Really important.

[D]

That's good.

[B]

Thank you. Very, very excellent. What if I would just for a moment, just for a moment, just quietly before my God, say, thank you, God, for making me new. Thank you, God, for giving me a new identity. Teach me to live into it. And then I'm gonna add just one last part. What if because I have life, I have new purpose?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

What if. What if I could learn to live into the purpose of my new life? You know, it's like, we know it, we preach it, we hear it in church all the time. The Great Commission, you know, the Great Commission is still my purpose. It's still your purpose. It's the reason he keeps us on earth. He could have taken me home the day I accepted Jesus, but he didn't. He gave me a new life. So with a new purpose, I could be used of God to make a difference in this world. My observation is the church in America has never had less influence on our culture than it has today.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And that less influence is kind of scary to me because I'm watching trends develop that in my younger years were not true. How is that happening? Because unfortunately, the church took a position of judging the world instead of loving the world.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And so let's talk about this. My reality. Is my Lord Jesus capable of dying for my sin? Is my Lord Jesus capable of taking upon him my shame? Is my Lord Jesus capable of bringing me with him into death? And now with a great big celebration, is my Lord Jesus capable of bringing me into life? Could I trust him with my new life and not let the old me define who I am? That's. That's how I move from shame to no condemnation.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

It gives me the freedom to love.

[B]

Amen.

[D]

And the love that enables people to start to trust the God in me.

[B]

Amen.

[D]

And transform. Transform their life. It's about the influence that I know I desire. And.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

But I need to feel that love first.

[B]

Amen. Amen.

[A]

There's a cliff that you kind of have to leap off of to believe this message. You gotta kind of leap off and say, what if. What if God really is in me? What if he's really made me righteous? What if I really am alive? And what if I began to trust that? And freedom and trust he was in me? What if I discovered life? Man. We want you guys to discover life with us.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

It's changed my life. I have a passion for this message because of that. Please share this with other people. I want everybody to hear about Bill Thrall, but I really want everybody to hear about Jesus and the message and the things that he did for us at Calvary.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

Thank you for listening to the podcast. We're really glad that you're here. We'd love to know that you're here. And so if you could leave a comment, we would appreciate. Appreciate that. But more importantly, if you know someone that should listen to this or hear it, we would love for you to share it with them. Thanks again.