No Longer I Series

Christ’s living in me is not the same as He living for me. It doesn’t mean being combined, conjoined or condensed into one with Christ. It means Christ is the commander, the captain, the chief, the commissioner of your life. He does not want to be your clerk, coordinator, or custodian; He wants to the chairman, the czar, the CEO, no other candidate, cast or competition is tolerated. From now on, you live not for your gratification and gain, but for His glory and in His grace.

He does not require you to suffer in His place, but to stand by His side; not for you to bear His cross, but to bear your cross; not to be humiliated, but to be humble. God does not want to be in the remote corner or in the inner circle; He wants to be the center piece. He requires not your chastisement or condemnation, but He does require your confession and commitment to Him. He wants to be your heart’s resident, not renter; a house mate and not a house guest; the boss and not the boarder.

You are Inspired by Christ

The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis reached a turning point at 48 when a tabloid published a photo of her and listed her weight as 161 pounds. She said, “I was like, ‘How dare you -- I’m not 161 pounds!’ I was indignant. I got home and I went on a scale and I was 161 pounds. I was in denial about it. So I started a really healthy way of eating, just avoiding things that I had been shoving in my mouth. Over the course of a year, I dropped about 20 pounds.”

Curtis says, “Getting older means paring yourself down to an essential version of yourself.” When she turned 50, Curtis said, “I feel way better now than I did when I was 20. I’m stronger, I’m smarter in every way, I’m so much less crazy than I was then. I’ve let my hair go gray. I wear only black and white. Every year I buy three or four black dresses that I just keep in rotation. I own one pair of blue jeans. I’ve given away all my jewelry, because I don’t wear it…I’ve had the experience of going into people’s homes after they’ve died, and I’m amazed at the number of things people amass and never look at again.”

http://www.aarp.org/research/press-center/presscurrentnews/vavavaboomer_hollywood_icon_jamie_lee_curtis_goes.html

What is the essential version of Christian living?

Textually, the verse does not say “live by (dia) faith,” but “live in (en) faith.” This preposition is not parallel to the Abrahamic covenant or the Reformation phrase: “the just will live by/out (ek) faith” (Rom 1:17, Gal 3:11, Heb 10:38). Further, we are not told to live “through” (dia) faith. The immediate preposition before and after the word “body” in Greek is the same, similar to “Christ lives ‘in’ me.” Altogether there are three “in” in verse 20. “Live in faith” is contrasted with verse 16 in the same chapter: justified by faith in Christ (Gal 2:16, Gal 3:24). One is the past, the other is the future. The Galatians were divided into two camps: the legalistic group justified by observing the law, and the libertarian group by faith in Jesus Christ (Gal 2:16), but Paula adds a third category – to live by faith, not merely justified by faith.