“For God wanted them to know that the riches, and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing His glory.” (Colossians 1:27 NLT)
When I was newly married I had very little money, so it wasn’t unusual for the gas tank in our car to run low. Suppose you saw me pushing my car along the side of the road and, out of the kindness of your heart, you stopped and asked me why I was pushing my car. After hearing my “out of gas” story, you took me to a station, purchased for me a 5-gallon container of fuel, and drove me back to my car.
A few hours later you were going back by the same area, and you noticed I was still trying to push my car to the gas station. So, you stop and discover – Yes, I’d put gas in my car, but I was still pushing it! THEN what would you think? That’s incredulous, right? Why would anyone in their right mind push a car that was fully capable of being driven?
Yet, that’s exactly what many professing believers in Jesus are trying to do with their lives. Upon confession and repentance, we are filled with spiritual “fuel” in the Person of the Holy Spirit, yet we’re still trying to live our lives irrespective of God’s Spirit “fueling” our lives. We’re still seeking to move our lives by “pushing ourselves” in the energy of the flesh.
I recently finished a devotional book by Major W. Ian Thomas entitled: “The Indwelling Life of Christ (All of Him in All of Me).” In it he writes: “The Christian life is nothing less than the life which He lived then… lived now by Him in you!” That’s the only life God will produce in us – HIMSELF!
To seek to live a life in the energy of the flesh after being filled, empowered, and enabled to live life in the energy of the Spirit is not only foolish, it’s blasphemous! How dare any of us ignore God’s presence in us while working feverishly to be like Jesus on our own. That’s religion, not a relationship with Jesus, and it will never work. That’s what hell is – working tirelessly to earn our own salvation.
Steven Lawson wrote: “The strongest evidence that you have been born again is the fruit of a changed life that only God can produce.” The fruit of the Spirit can be counterfeited and faked short-term but will never manifest itself long-term without the Spirit’s presence and power. Paul affirms this truth when he writes in Galatians 2:20a “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”
How is that possible? What does it look life? Paul continues in verse 20b-21:”So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law (pushing the car) could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.”
Following the “rules,” obeying the “law,” living our lives in the energy of the flesh, trying to be good enough to deserve God’s grace, are all ways we try to produce the life of God in our lives without the power and presence of God. It’s like asking a 3-month-old to do double back flips out of his highchair to clean up his own mess on the floor.
God wants to do in and through us essentially what He did in and through Jesus as He walked the pathways of this earth – to govern, rule, equip, enable, us to exhibit the character of Christ in everything we do, think, and speak. Why? So that Jesus is honored and glorified and people’s lives are transformed, not by their own efforts, but by His!
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 