Jesus died that I may be truly alive - part 2

Devotions during Lent
Jesus died that I may be truly alive - part 2

Galatians 2: 20 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.

All of us want to be alive. More than that, we want to know that we are really living and enjoying the complete joy of those who truly live. Here in Galatians 2:20 we find the secret of how to really live. We find here that only by being dead can we become truly alive.

Christians everywhere struggle with the challenge to be alive with Jesus. The struggle comes from having a sincere desire to belong to Jesus, yet realizing that we are, in our own strength, powerless to live for him. The good news is that God does not only know this need and struggle, but also provided for our struggle. He made a plan, and according to Gal 2: 20 the plan is that true life only comes out of death.

If I have been “crucified with Christ”, my old self with all its limitations has been put to death. This helps our understanding of who we really are, now that we are in Christ. It releases us from the struggle to live the Christian life in our own strength.

The solution is not to be found in the renovation of the old self. You can clean up the old self, change it, and in every way seek to improve it, but it remains the old self! We need to become a new person. The way God has chosen to deal with the old person, is not to improve it, but to remove it. This is what it means to be “crucified with Christ.” We have been set free from the old self and Satan no longer has any right to claim us as his own. We received a new identity, because we are crucified with Christ, and a new person rose with Jesus from the grave when we received him as our Saviour.

It is like a glove. A glove cannot do anything by itself. It needs a hand to fill it. When the glove has a hand inside, it is able to do all sorts of things. We are like that glove. What we need is the Lord to fill us with his presence, and therefore with his power. Jesus fills us with his presence through the Holy Spirit that gives us the faith through which we accept Jesus and the power through we live for the Lord.

The first step is to receive Jesus in faith. The second step is to live in and for Jesus through faith in him.

And the good news is that, as God’s children, we have Christ living within us through his Spirit. The old person, who deserves only judgment, has died – has been crucified with Christ. I am now a new person, in Christ.

(In part 3, next week, we ask the practical question – if this is so – why do I still sin?)