August 18, Live proven
One who is proven is . . . nothing of self!
I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
Galatians 2:20
A life that is proven does not come by something good within self. The one proven in Christian faith (I Peter 1:7, “the proven genuineness of your faith”), results from by being consumed more with Christ every day.
The one proven proclaims with his or her life, “all of Him and none of me.” This is indeed the reality of one whose faith is proven genuine.
Paul described from his own reality a life consumed with Jesus:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
With this real-life testimony as our example, every true Christian becomes one with Jesus Christ. The beginning of our Christian life can be defined in part by having died to our old life. Yet, the ultimate focus of Christianity is not dying but living. The Christian life is one of complete conformity to the life of Jesus: dying with Christ, being in Christ, and living for Christ.
Dying with Christ represents a death to sin, to selfishness, and a life consumed with pleasing self. Dying with Christ sincerely expresses that we agree with His death as we cease to live for self. When Jesus said, “it is finished” (John 19:30), He was announcing that God’s plan for the redemption of mankind’s sin had been completed. God’s answer to sin’s punishment and penalty was to lay upon His Son the sins of the world. Jesus willingly accepted the death we deserved, and only through His sacrifice are we made right with God. “Dying with Christ” is our agreement with the beautiful sacrifice of Jesus as we take up our own cross (Luke 9:23), symbolically expressing our death to self every day. “Taking up our cross” is a symbolic but very practical death, as we resolve that sin and self no longer serve as our true identity. In this way, we have died with Christ.
Being in Christ references our new identity and our lives as a new creation. Although living in the world, we are living in the greater reality of being in perfect union with Jesus Christ. Our identity is based solely on Jesus. Colossians 3:3 proclaims,
“For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
“For we were baptized by one Spirit”, Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “whether Jew or Greek, slave or free.” (I Corinthians 12:13) This truth teaches that our true spiritual identity comes as a result of God’s work through the Holy Spirit that places us “in Christ.” And this reality defines us more than our ethnicity or social status. Our identity is defined solely by Jesus.
Living for Christ expresses the resolve that Jesus is not only Savior, but Lord. And living under His Lordship, we surrender to His Word, His Way, and His will. By following His Word (the truth of the Scriptures) we learn to walk in His way (in obedience to Him), and this places us in the center of His will for our lives (His purposes for us). Living under the Lordship of Jesus is the only genuine expression of having died with Christ and being in Christ.
So, today, resolve that Jesus Christ is your whole identity. If your faith is genuinely in Jesus, you have died with Him, you are in Him, and by your new identity you are living for Him. In this way the genuineness of the Christian faith is proven. There is nothing of self. There is only Jesus. Today, live proven.
Blessings.
READ
Read Galatians 2:15-21 and rejoice that Christ lives in you.
