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THE PENTATEUCH

GENESIS ---EXODUS--- LEVITICUS 1.1-7.38 --- 8.1-11.47 --- 12.1-16.34--- 17.1-27.34--- NUMBERS 1-10--- 11-19--- 20-36--- DEUTERONOMY 1.1-4.44 --- 4.45-11.32 --- 12.1-29.1--- 29.2-34.12 --- THE BOOK OF JOSHUA --- THE BOOK OF JUDGES --- PSALMS 1-17--- ECCLESIASTES --- ISAIAH 1-5 --- 6-12 --- 13-23 --- 24-27 --- 28-35 --- 36-39 --- 40-48 --- 49-55--- 56-66--- EZEKIEL --- DANIEL 1-7 ---DANIEL 8-12 ---

NAHUM--- HABAKKUK---ZEPHANIAH ---ZECHARIAH --- THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW ---THE GOSPEL OF MARK--- THE GOSPEL OF LUKE --- THE GOSPEL OF JOHN --- THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES --- 1 CORINTHIANS 1-7 --- 8-16 --- 2 CORINTHIANS 1-7 --- 8-13 -- -GALATIANS --- EPHESIANS --- COLOSSIANS --- 1 THESSALONIANS --- 2 THESSALONIANS --- 1 TIMOTHY --- 2 TIMOTHY --- TITUS --- HEBREWS 1-6 --- 7-10 --- 11-13 --- JAMES --- JOHN'S LETTERS --- REVELATION

--- THE GOSPELS

Chapter 2 Christ Lives In Me (Galatians 2.20).

In 1899 the person in charge of the United States patent office looked over his files and from his position of authority declared confidently, ‘all that ever could be invented has been invented’. And who had more reason to know? Yet it was one of the greatest gaffes in history. He had not the slightest idea of the powers in nature that the future would release. He was totally wrong.

Today many Christians think in the same way about Jesus Christ. They think that because they have believed on Him and found forgiveness that is all there is to know. The result is that they miss out on what He really came for and fail to tap into the greatest power in history. They are totally wrong.

When Jesus said, ‘He who comes to Me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst (John 6.35), He did not just mean that they would go to Heaven. He meant that they would find a new source of life which would change their very existence, so that by partaking of Him their whole lives would be transformed. ‘I am the bread of life,’ He declared, ‘he who eats Me (comes to Me in faith) the same will live by me’ (John 6.57 with 35).’ Elsewhere He put it in this way, ‘I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly’ (John 10.10). So to become a Christian and to thus ‘partake of Christ’ (Hebrews 3.14) is to receive abundant life. That is what Paul had seen when he wrote, ‘to me to live is Christ’ (Philippians 1.21).

Then why is this life not revealed through so many of us? Why is there not more evidence of Christ living in the world today? The answer is simple. We have locked Him away within us and thrown away the key. We have made a contract with Him which we have broken. Contrary to what He taught we want Him for ourselves, but not to be available to others, not to live through us. No, we want His benefits without yielding anything. Yet that is the very opposite of all that Christ came to be.

Imagine a man who buys a guard dog because of persistent harassment by unruly youngsters and then locks it in the garage. He may threaten the youngsters all he likes, and they will but laugh at him. But let him once release the dog and all his troubles would be over. So it is with us. We have Jesus Christ safely locked away in our hearts while our sins constantly harass us, and then we complain because our lives are jaded, and because we fail so often. But let us just release Him and our lives would be transformed. For He has come to give us life, and that is what He will do. And He never fails in any way.

However, that raises another question, and that is as to whether we do really want to release Him. It may seem ‘a good idea at the time’ but do we really want to live a Christ-like life? We must think about this carefully. For the problem is that once we allow Christ to live through our lives we can never be the same again. Here there is no room for compromise. Either we allow Him free reign through our lives or we lock Him away. He will not share us with our other self, the ‘old man’ that is in us. Rather once we yield the key to Christ it is we who must be safely locked up and ‘put away’ (Ephesians 4.22; Colossians 3.9), and indeed put to death altogether. For Jesus Christ will not share His throne with another.

Paul had seen this. That is why he declared, ‘I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live. Yet it is not I who live, but Christ Who lives in me. And the life which I now live in my body I live by faith in the Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself for me’.

For Paul had come to recognise how unsatisfactory his own life was. He had discovered after great attempts to ‘be good’ that he was not good at all. And it was then that he had discovered the cross of Jesus. And as he looked at the One Who had been crucified for him, he recognised that Christ had died for him. That He had died in his place. That in Him, he Paul had been crucified. And thus he knew that in God’s eyes the whole burden of his sin was gone, for now in Christ he had paid the penalty for it. He had been crucified with Christ.

But Paul did not stop there. When he came to Christ and believed in Him he knew that Christ had entered his life. That Christ was living within him. And he took the further step of allowing Christ to live through him. He knew that God loved him. He knew that God would want the very best for him. And so he gladly handed over the key to Christ and said, ‘from now on you are in charge of my life. Live out through me as You will and I will simply go along with you. I died in You, and now You must live through me’. And that is what happened, and it made Paul one of the most effective men in history. There are not many men whose letters are of more than passing interest. But his are continually read every day even today in countries around the world.

And that is what Jesus Christ calls on us to do. Each morning we should renew afresh what our situation is. In coming to Christ we have declared ourselves to be worthy only of death. Thus we must look to Him each day and say, ‘Lord Jesus Christ I have died with you. I am no longer fit to live. I therefore count myself as dead, and will no longer live for myself. I hand over the keys of my life once more. Live out your life through me.’ Then we must voluntarily cease to live our own lives and let Christ live through us. And as we release the reins into His hands, that is what He will do. It will be no longer we who go into the world, but Jesus Christ living through us. He will be able to do what He wants through our bodies. And the wonderful thing is that then we will realise our own full potential.