Prayer for Divine Guidance

Heavenly Father, I ask that your Holy Spirit bless and enlighten me as I read, reflect and rest in the boundless riches of salvation that Christ Jesus has won! Abba Father, draw me closer into the Divine Dance with You, Your Son, and Holy Spirit to continually transform my life here on earth to taste life with You in Heaven! Amen.

Reflection

You might call it a game-changer, a breakthrough, a quantum leap forward when people begin to grasp that the Christian life is not imitation of but participation in the life of Christ. Imagine what it could mean for you to flip the script on your spiritual journey from “I must live for Jesus” to “Jesus lives in me!” It marks a paradigm shift from seeing Christ outside of me, to seeing Christ actually inside me as my life, strength, joy, and peace. It changes everything: my identity, my struggles, and my hopes.

Hear the words of the apostle Paul like a trumpet call: 

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:19-20)

Paul captures in just a few lines the essence of what it means to be a Christian: oneness with Christ! The mystery of the believer’s oneness with Christ is a theme running throughout the writings of the apostles John and Paul. Consider just a few examples:

[Paul] Ephesians 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.”

[Paul] 2 Corinthians 5:17: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything is new.”

[John] John 14:20 “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”

[John] John 15:4 “Abide in me as I abide in you.”

Saul of Tarsus, now the apostle Paul, writes from his experience to illustrate the believer’s oneness with Christ, testifying, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live.” Paul is saying that our old way of being, the “I”, with all its sin, guilt, shame, and death, has been put to death with Christ on the cross. Something happened to us because of God’s decisive, definitive action on the cross. Because we are now in Christ, who is in the Father and in us, we are no longer defined by our past, but by Christ’s life in us.

Think for a moment how different your life would be if you really believed “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” Paul is saying that our past life has been replaced by Christ to become God’s “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15). Christ not only died for us and forgave us, but made Himself one with us to become our very life. The “I” that once lived independently, driven by self, is replaced by the life of Christ. Christ is not just our example, but our life: His death, resurrection and ascension are now our own (Romans 6:5-11; Ephesians 2:4-6). We can face any fear, doubt, or guilt knowing “it is Christ who lives in me.”

Notice how beautifully Paul personalizes the Gospel, seeing Christ’s death as for him individually: “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Paul knows that Christ not only loved and gave His life for the world, but that Christ loved and gave His life for Paul, personally.

Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, faced enormous pressures in leading this faith-based mission. There were the demands of beginning a ministry relying solely on God rather than the support of any church or institution. Added to that were the death in China of four of Taylor’s children, his personal health problems, and a deep sense of his own spiritual inadequacy. But life changed for Taylor on September 4, 1869, with what he called a “revelation” found in a letter from fellow missionary John McCarthy. The key in that letter was a phrase from the King James Bible’s translation of Galatians 2:20: “…the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God…”

Taylor pondered the words and then turned to his Greek New Testament to discover that the King James faithfully rendered Paul’s words, “I live by the faith of the Son of God…”. Taylor understood that with the Greek’s ‘subjective genitive’ Paul was placing the emphasis on the faith of Christ rather than ours. (see Richard Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11)

From that moment, living “by the faith of the Son of God” meant for Taylor entrusting every part of his life to One who loved him and gave His life for him. Taylor then memorized what he called the “one glorious sentence” that helped him when he wanted to strengthen his faith: “Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.” (A. J. Broomhall, Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century)

This is a real game changer, a quantum leap forward! You matter to God! Within the eternal Dance of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you were loved and the Son sent to give His life for you and draw you into the life of God. You can rest in Christ’s faith and faithfulness to you!