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There is a belief, held my many, that it’s possible for us to live the Christian life. Can you believe that? I know what you’re thinking; “Come on, no one really believes that, do they?” Yes; I’m sorry to say that some Christians actually believe they can do it.
So, this article is for the sake of these dear people who are trying so hard to live a life they can’t possibly live.
There was never a moment in the life of the Lord Jesus that was without spiritual significance, because there was never anything He did, never anything He said, never any step He took, which did not spring from His relationship, His living, vital relationship with His Father. Thirty-three years of availability to the Father so that the Father, in and through Him, might do all His will.
Jesus told His disciples that the Father had given all things into Jesus’ hands. Why? Because Jesus Christ was completely available to Him. For the first time since Adam, there was a Man on earth Who in all things placed God’s will above His own. The secret of spiritual victory is found in the same place Jesus Himself lived, in the power of God’s Spirit, which is poured into the surrendered heart as a deep sense of sufficiency. Jesus was completely surrendered to the purpose of God. That was the special nature of the way He lived His life. There were no conditions, no expectations, no deals with His Father about the things He would do, if God would do certain things; He didn’t demand to be married, or rich, or never tired, or never sorrowful, even when facing the suffering of the cross itself, He said, “Not my will, but thine be done…” He was able to live in the power of His Father’s life, because His own life was in His Father’s hands.
How, specifically, did our Lord make Himself available to His Father?
“When He (Christ) entered into this world, He said, ‘sacrifices and offerings You have not desired, but instead You have made ready a body for Me’ [in the womb of Mary]. Then I said, ‘Lo, here I am, I have come to do Your will, O God. . .” (Hebrews 10:5-7)
Like us, Jesus had a body, soul and spirit, and He had to live His life on this planet we are all so familiar with. He knew that to win the battles He would face and to make sure His life accomplished God’s will, He would have to place all He was on the altar, to offer His body, His life, to His Father.
Jesus loved and trusted His Father enough that He had no problem surrendering all He was into His Father’s care, and in John 20:21 Jesus turned to His disciples (and through them, to us) and said, “As the Father has sent Me, so now I send you…” Just as Jesus lived by the power of His Father, we are to live by the power of Jesus’ life. Major Ian Thomas once commented during a lecture series,
“What is eternal life? Is it a place that you are going to when you are dead? Is it a peculiar feeling inside? If you were to ask a normal congregation, or any sort of Bible class or Sunday school in an evangelical church to define eternal life, you would be amazed at the strange answers you would get. When does eternal life begin? Does it begin when a man is physically dead? No! Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Eternal life is not a particular feeling. It is not your ultimate destination. If you are born again, eternal life is that quality of life that you possess right now, at this very moment, in your own physical body, with your own two feet on the ground, and in the world today! And where does this life come from? From Jesus; He, Himself, is that life!”
Because Christ indwells us, we are made partakers of His own life. We have literally, not metaphorically, become the dwelling place of God through the Spirit. If we will make our humanity as unreservedly available to the Lord as He did to His Father, we can know, in this life, what it means to live by the strength of Jesus Christ.
The way of personally experiencing the life of Jesus Christ each day is through personal faith and the full surrender of all we are to Him. We give Him the use of our body, our whole being, our personality, and in return, He brings us, increasingly through the years, into the experience and joy of drawing our strength from His glorious life.
This life is hidden from so many, partly due to the lies and deception of the enemy seeking to convince us that such a life cannot be ours, and partly due to our own selfish desire to keep ourselves in the position of ‘master’ and ‘lord’ of our destinies. But Jesus promised us that whoever would depend upon Him would be able to do the things He did, things that could only be explained by the Father’s power and life working in and through the Son.
In Galatians 2:20 Paul said, “The life I now live in this flesh, I live purely by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
Paul was actually living in the strength of Someone else’s life. This is something none of us are accustomed to, but nothing else is the Christian life. We aren’t meant to be religious, or spiritual sounding, or dedicated, or amazing; we are meant simply to live by the life of Jesus: His life, His strength, His will. If we can learn to do that, we will know what the real Christian life is meant to be. As Paul says, “Christ is us, the hope of glory.” (Col.1:27) “. . . for it is God Who works in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” (Phil.2:13) “We who are alive, are always being delivered unto death [to our own will] so that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” (2 Cor. 4:11)
Each time you and I submit our will to the will of God and turn our backs on man-made religion and immorality, we touch true spiritual life.
One thing I have learned about this life (the hard way) is the secondary, almost irrelevant nature of all that is not purely spiritual in our lives. We have decorated Christianity with Western culture and tradition to the point that it’s nearly impossible to distinguish what matters from what doesn’t matter. In many parts of the world, this is not so easy to do. Suffering has a way of stripping away all that is superficial and leaving either the truth or an obvious deception. In many third world countries if you are in a church that is hungry for God, it’s pretty obvious, and if you are in a church that cares only for religious activity and trappings, that’s fairly obvious, too. Here in America, we can sort of mix everything up in a nice spiritual looking package and forget why we are really here.
This is why it is so important to talk about the life of Jesus. That life, seen in us, lived by us, or smothered by our superficiality, is all that really matters to God. Christianity is Christ, pure and simple. His life, His power, His will, His purpose fleshed out in men and women surrendered to Him. Anything else is a distortion at best and a horrible lie at worst.
After 30 years serving his Lord, Paul was able to identify with absolute certainty his primary goals for his life, and he sums them up in his letter to the Philippians in chapter 3, the first part of verse 10. The New English Bible translates Paul’s statement this way; “All I care for now is to know Christ and to experience the power of His resurrection.”
To this man, who had seen so much and who knew so much of what true Christianity was all about, the ultimate issue for him was knowing his Savior in an ever deepening relationship, and in the daily, moment by moment, experience of the power of His resurrection life.
We have been saved and called to live by God’s own life. The longer that concept remains strange or mysterious, or just some theological principle we hear about from a distance in a Bible study or sermon, the further we are from experiencing the reality of it. This gift of life; this wondrous thing God has placed within us, is ours by the merits and mercy of Jesus Christ, the life of Christ manifest through our mortal flesh, and each of us living that life to the fullest. There’s no other purpose for us, there’s no other goal that we could have that is closer to the heart of God, and there is no such thing as New Testament Christianity without that exchange of His life for ours.
Please do not see this article as just another Bible study for your consideration; it is an appeal, a challenge to prayer and vision. We can spend our lives playing the Christian game, (pretending we are living a life only Christ can live), or we can count the cost, embrace the cross of Jesus Christ, and move with deliberate intent into life as it is in Jesus. Perhaps only God will ultimately know what decision we’ve made, but I promise you, it’s a decision that has to be made if we are to find ourselves anywhere near the center of God’s will.
Can we live the Christian life? No. Can the Christian life be lived? Yes, but only by the power of the One Who lived it perfectly in Palestine 2000 years ago; after all, it’s His life that is to be lived!
Trinity Baptist Church
711 Fairview Dr. Moscow, Idaho 83843
208.882.2015
trinity@moscow.com
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