"I am crucified with Christ."
"I am crucified with Christ."
Paul was unable to keep on thinking, speaking, and acting in his original strength because he continually was being "killed."
The important step in the transition from our old personality to our new personality is the "killing" of the first personality.
Are you and I prepared for this "death"?
"Nevertheless I live. Yet, not I, but Christ lives in me."
This means that my thinking, speaking, and acting are proceeding from the Life of Christ and not from my human life.
I realize that Paul was not fully in Christ at the time of the writing of the Book of Galatians, but he was pressing toward this goal.
Our familiar goal of going to Heaven to live eternally in a mansion is not presented in the Scriptures as the goal of salvation.
The goal of our salvation is to know Christ; to be filled with all the fullness of God; to live by the Life of Christ.
It makes a practical difference in our Christian discipleship whether our goal is eternal residence in a mansion in Heaven, or, as in the case of Paul, to know Christ to the uttermost.
It would make a big difference in your Christian life, and mine, wouldn't it?
Going to Heaven to live forever is not a scriptural goal. Living by the Life of Christ as He lives by the Life of the Father is a scriptural goal. We need a change of goal if we are to grow in Christ and stand in the moral chaos that is approaching America!
Our goal is to make the transition from the life of Adam to the Life of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The life of Adam consists of eating, drinking, working, playing, and reproducing.
The Life of the Lord Jesus Christ consists of thinking, speaking, and acting as the Father thinks, speaks, and acts.
It is the prayer of the Lord Jesus that each one of us become one with Him in God just as He is One with God.
This means that we must think, speak, act as we "see" the Lord Jesus thinking, speaking, and acting. Then we are related to Him, and to the Father through Him, just as He is related to the Father.
Now, exactly how do we learn to life by the Life of the Lord Jesus, to think, speak, and act as Jesus is thinking, speaking, and acting.
It is a matter of continual prayer and obedience, and of repeated deaths and resurrections.
Each day and night we make numerous decisions, most of them minor, occasionally a major decision. How we make each decision determines whether we are nurturing our adamic life, or the Life of Christ in us.
Let us say we are deciding what to eat for breakfast. (I realize that multitudes of people in the world have only one choice, or maybe no choice since they have no food. But this is a simple example that many people in the world would recognize).
Should I eat eggs or oatmeal?
We can decide from our appetite, or our diet, or what we are accustomed to. But here is an excellent opportunity to look to the Lord for His choice. If you become accustomed to asking Jesus about minor decisions, you probably will look to Him for major decision.
You might be considering moving to another state or country. You may wish to investigate many facts about where to move, and you should do this. But in addition, you should look to the Lord Jesus and ask His opinion.
Perhaps a nuclear warhead has landed near to your neighborhood. You do not know if you should panic and join the people fleeing from your city. But if you hold steady in prayer, God will guide you.
Learning to live by the Life of Jesus is an art. It is a good idea to begin with one area of your life, like when to set aside a time to pray and read your Bible. Then what to do during your spare time, if you have any.
Once you make the attempt to pray continually, as Paul advised, you will discover many opportunities to look to Jesus for direction and strength.
There are several forces that hinder our entering the rest of God, in which we continually are looking to Christ for wisdom and strength.
One force is the sin that lives in our flesh. When the Holy Spirit shows us a sin, we are to confess it and ask Jesus to help us resist the sin.
If the passions of sin are burning in us, it is nearly impossible to keep looking to Jesus for help with the decisions we are making.
Personal ambition is another such distraction.
Self-will is the greatest of all the forces that keep mankind, including Christians, from serving the Lord. We absolutely must take up our cross of deferred desire and follow the Master at all times.
Most of us have many idols, sometimes people; sometimes things; sometimes situations. We must give each of these up to Jesus as He calls for them. We must place our treasures in Heaven. They will be kept safe for us and given to us in the Day of Resurrection, if not before.
No one gives up any person or thing to the King, the Lord Jesus, without receiving it back many times over.
The answer to the problem of the transition from our old life to a new life in Christ is faith—faith that God is loving; that He is kind; that He knows and understands the desires of our heart; that He is fair; that He is patient; that His desire is that we attain to eternal righteousness, love, joy, and peace.
So it is true that the righteous live by faith.
We understand therefore that if we abide in Christ the time will arrive when we are a totally new creation, old things will have passed away, all has become new and is of God.
All that God has spoken concerning us has come to pass.
Then we can assist with the task of reconciling to God the peoples whom He has created.
I believe that if Christ is forming eternal righteousness, love, joy, and peace in us, Heaven will be a better place because we are there.
Heaven is a desirable place because of its inhabitants. Will we add to or subtract from its desirability should we arrive there?
Heaven is what it is because of Christ. The more of Christ that is formed in us, the more of Heaven we bring wherever we are.
Righteousness, love, joy, and peace are found in Heaven only to the extent Christ is there. Are you and I adding these virtues wherever we are?
Will we add righteousness, love, joy, and peace to Heaven should we arrive there; or will we add hatred to Hell should we arrive there?
What would Heaven be like if Christ were not there? Would Heaven be different if you and I never were there? Would it be lacking something of value, a presence that brings righteousness, love, joy, and peace?
Every person who is willing to set aside his or her own life that Christ might live, strengthens Christ's hand in the war again Satan. A Christian believer who never has abandoned his own will and plans may be strong in prayer and righteous in behavior. But the overcoming of the evil in the creation can be accomplished only by Christ Himself. This is why the death of our old nature is so necessary.
The Christian Church is to travail in birth in our day that Christ may be formed in us. He is the Ruler whom God has chosen. All of our Christian activities are of eternal value only as they contribute to the forming of Christ in us.
We make it possible for God to destroy Satan as we deny ourselves, take up our cross of deferred desire, and follow and obey the Master with the greatest possible diligence.
The believers residing in the spirit world will mill about, having fellowship and worshiping God, perhaps occupied with some sort of project, until those predestined to be changed into the image of Christ have satisfied the Father that righteousness has come to the fullness. Then God shall give an angel the power and authority to imprison Satan in the Bottomless Pit.
The imprisonment of Satan shall take place after the victory of Armageddon.
And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. (Revelation 20:1,2)
When Christ has been formed in His brothers, righteousness has come to the fullness, and Satan has been hurled down from his position in the heavenlies, those in Heaven shall rejoice!
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. (Revelation 12:10,11---NIV)
It can be maintained, therefore, that the true Christian goal is to be transformed into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then we will be about our Father's business, whether we are on the earth or in Heaven.