Back to the Basics- It’s not I that Lives, but Christ in Me

April 21, 2023

This week we will do another installment of “Back to the Basics”. This is where we dial in on the fundamentals of the faith walk, we make it simple, and hone in on mastering the basics of the faith! When we have a strong foundation then we can build a prosperous life. The fundamental that we are going to talk about this week is the core idea of what it means to be a Christian. Upon receiving Jesus as your Lord and Savior, your spirit is reborn into eternity, and the Holy Spirit of Jesus comes to make His home in your heart. At that moment you have died and Jesus has come alive in you. Now it is no longer you that lives, but Christ in you lives through you. In essence we understand this. Off the cuff, we can say “yeah that makes sense, that’s true for me.” But the reality of actually living that out is a lot more than we truly think. So this week we will meditate on this core belief we as Christians have and must be walking out in our daily lives.

Galatians 2:20, AMPC, “I have been crucified with Christ [in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith in (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in) the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” The Word of God is intentional, it is not fantasy or simply metaphorical. It is real and it means what it says. When it tells us here that we have been crucified with Christ and shared His crucifixion, that means that in the spirit we have died with Christ and have been resurrected with Him and He now is in us. Our spirits are who we truly are- when we die our bodies decay and fall away but our spirits live forever. The goal of this great sacrifice was to reconnect us to our Creator God and redeem us back to the garden state before the fall. To do this our sin-nature self needs to be removed and we need to take on the original god-like nature we were created with back in Genesis 1. Because of Jesus, the shared crucifixion and resurrection that we receive through the salvation experience, this is now possible! Now we must walk in it.

As believers we must get our minds renewed to what our spirits already know. Our minds are what stand in the way of successfully living life the way God intended post-salvation. Because of this we have to intentionally reshape our thinking. We have to let our spirits lead and our minds follow. So if the Word says, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me,” how do we allow this to be a reality for us? We have to yield all of ourselves to whatever the Lord is asking us to do. His schedule must become our schedules, not the other way around. If we are in the store and He wants us to get out of our groove and go minister to someone there, we have to be willing to do it. That’s both sacrificing our schedules and time, as well as our pride and comfort zones. If He tells us to give financially, we must yield to it. If He tells us to lay hands on the sick and demand healing regardless if we feel like it, we must do it. If He leads us to change our whole life course and move away from everything we’ve known, we need to be so full of that revelation that it is not us but Christ that lives so we can walk confidently into that new path. We are now the hands, feet and mouth pieces of Jesus. We are now the Jesus that this current world sees. Each generation that comes to this earth sees who Jesus is through His people that He lives through. We carry Jesus to the world and to be able to do that we have to allow Him to live as preference in our lives.

Each day we have to put on the mindset of Christ living in us and not us. We have to start our days already ready to allow Jesus to tell us how we will take each step. This may seem to some like a super strange thing, but if we really look inward and let what Jesus did for us sink in, this ‘yieldedness’ is such a little thing in comparison. When we received Jesus’ gift of salvation we said yes to allowing Him to live through us. I believe this is a mark of maturity in believers. We don’t get points in heaven for how fast we can make it through the grocery store. We get an eternal reward for each soul saved, dead raised, demon cast out, healing ministered that we were a part of on this earth. We need to make it count.

My challenge this week is for you to look inward and see if you are living or if Christ is living. Ask Holy Spirit to show you how you can live out a “Galatians 2:20 life.” It is not I that lives, but Christ in me.

I like to close each teaching with an invitation to salvation for anyone that has not yet welcomed Jesus into their life. Maybe you’ve read this and felt a pull on your heart. Maybe you’re in a place where you just need a solution. If so, this was meant for you and if you’re ready for the “moreness” of God, then believe in your heart and say out loud the following prayer: “Jesus, I repent for my sins, please forgive me for living a life apart from You. I believe that you are the Son of God and that you died on the cross for my sins and were raised to life again. I confess you as Lord over my life. Take my life and do something with it. And I ask you to fill me with your Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ Name amen.”

It’s as simple as that. Welcome to the family! That is solely the most important decision you will ever make. If you prayed that prayer, please send us an email and let us know. We would love to help get you connected to a Life-filled church in your area and help you get started on your journey of “moreness” with God. Click the chat button at the bottom of each page and send us a message!