Identified or Simply Interested?
I have
been crucified with Christ . . . —Galatians 2:20
The inescapable spiritual need each of us
has is the need to sign the death certificate of our sin nature. I must take my
emotional opinions and intellectual beliefs and be willing to turn them into a
moral verdict against the nature of sin; that is, against any claim I have to
my right to myself. Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ . . .
." He did not say, "I have made a determination to imitate Jesus
Christ," or, "I will really make an effort to follow
Him"-but-"I have been identified
with Him in His death." Once I reach this moral decision and act on it,
all that Christ accomplished for
me on the Cross is accomplished in
me. My unrestrained commitment of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the
opportunity to grant to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.
". . . it is
no longer I who live . . . ." My individuality remains, but my primary
motivation for living and the nature that rules me are radically changed. I
have the same human body, but the old satanic right to myself
has been destroyed.
". . . and the life which I now live in
the flesh," not the life which I long to live or even pray that I live,
but the life I now live in my mortal flesh-the life which others can see,
"I live by faith in the Son of God . . . ." This faith was not Paul’s
own faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith the Son God had given to him (see Ephesians
2:8 ). It is no longer a faith in faith, but a faith that transcends
all imaginable limits-a faith that comes only from the Son of God.
(Taken from Oswald Chambers – “My Utmost for
His Highest” March 21)