Everything

 "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." Galatians 2:20

I belong to a segment of the Body that holds this Scripture to be a central tenet of its theology. Indeed, I believe every part of the professing church does as well. How many of us really live it out? How many of us have really died out to our self-centered lives so that we now live fully for Him? I'd like to share three quotes that will hopefully shed light in each of our hearts today.

"Living sacrifices have to be willing to die." Chris Tiegreen....Romans 12 commands us to present ourselves as a living sacrifice to Christ. That means we live on the altar of sacrifice and we are His. Totally and completely His. Many can quote this verse freely. Too few of us can live freely in it. Why? Because we don't really want to "die" to our own desires and ambitions. We don't want to die to desire to control our own lives and surrender to His control. Many have come to His altar with the intention of surrender, but far too often, we quickly step off of it. We're not really ready to die. We love our ways too much for that. Therefore we can never live out Galatians 2:20.

"There is only one way to deny yourself. It's to give yourself away." Jesus called all those who would follow Him to deny themselves and take up their crosses and follow Him. In the ancient world, crucifixion not only killed you, you were completely powerless throughout the ordeal. All control was in the hands of the powers that had sentenced you to such a death. When Christ calls us to take up our cross, we cease setting the agenda of our own lives. We cease to lay any claim upon our own lives. All that we are is given over to Him. We have given ourselves away to Him, which is the ultimate denial of ourselves. Again, we know these Scriptures. Only too well. The cross He calls us to is not that smooth, beautifully crafted one we see in most churches. It is rugged, and it is blood soaked, with His blood and ours. If you've heard His call to take up your cross, to deny yourself, have you? 

"There's nothing they can take from us when everything we have and are already belongs to Christ." Our flesh will protect itself against anything that threatens it....especially Christ and His cross. We don't want to "lose" what we feel is ours by right. We don't want to surrender our possessions, our desires and dreams, our ambitions, and our will to anyone, even Christ the King. We fear losing these. The only way to overcome and defeat that fear is to surrender to Him. To give ourselves willingly to Him. When that happens, we begin to experience what Paul meant when he said that he no longer lived, but Christ lived fully in and through Him. Paul said that when he surrendered to Christ, the world's interests (control) in him died, and his interest (longings for it) died as well. 

So what's keeping us from living out what these men and what Paul himself spoke of? Someone said that we want just enough Jesus to get us to heaven, but not enough Jesus to change us on earth. This is truth, and this is the reason we run from the cross and the self-denial and death to our wills and the living out of His. Great numbers within the professing church are found in this group. Are you? He calls us to the cross. Do we run from it, or to it?

Blessings,
Pastor O