December 12, 2013
“What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be a God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him.” Galatians 2:19 The Message
What does it look like when God fills in the inside of your life with the life of His Son? What is a life of faith? What choices are facing you today? “A real Christian is an odd number anyway. He feels supreme love for the One whom he has never seen, talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another, empties himself in order to be full, admits he is wrong so he can be declared right, goes down in order to get up, is strongest when he is weakest, richest when he is poorest, and happiest when he feels worst. He dies so he can live, forsakes in order to have, gives away so he can keep, sees the invisible, hears the inaudible, and knows that which passeth knowledge.” (A. W. Tozer: The Root of Righteousness) The life you have received in Christ changes everything about how you live and how you see the world. You cannot remain comfortable on the world’s terms. In Christ you begin to see every area and interest of your life as God’s possibility of revealing the indwelling life of Christ in you. You don’t have to force yourself or go out of your way to “act” like a Christian. You simply begin to live out of the life that Christ is living in you. There are little changes that no one else will see but you. You no longer are “trying” to live this life or “impress” God in order to earn a blessing. You’re alive today in the faith of trusting the life of Jesus living in you. That will affect everyone you are around today. It only takes a moment …
“Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteousness before you or have our good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine”, but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.” Galatians 2:20-21 The Message
Ken Chester: Grace-Gripped is sent M-F to Odd Men and Women following Jesus and friends of Priority One (ken@priorityone.org)
