Christ Lives in Me

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

The old me, the one that looked at others and compared myself to them, the one that felt pride at accomplishments because they signified that I was okay, the one that needed the affirming nod or compliment to comfirm my value, that person is dead. He died at the moment that I met Jesus Christ as I laid prostrate at the foot of the cross, crying because I who had nothing was being given everlasting life through the suffering and death of the son of God who was and is everything.

And yet, the old me tries to resurrect itself. It makes pitiful sounds and bleats in my ears that I should look around me, that I should see those who are more or less gifted, that I should realize my place, that I should strive to be worthy of a place at the foot of the throne.

I will never be worthy. Nothing I can do will ever satisfy the worthiness test. It is not that I can simply do something to satisfy a set of requirements, or that anyone else can. It is that I and the entire human race can never be worthy apart from Jesus Christ. Now that we as believers are alive in Christ he is worthy and we are able to stand on that.

As they say, the ground is level at the foot of the cross. As I crawled on my knees to the cross weeping for forgiveness I was not alone. Every brother and sister in Christ was there. And there we remain. The old has died, the new is come, and while we are raised to walk in newness of life but it is essential that we must forever be at the cross.

So, I no longer trust or consider the humanity from which I came. It is dead and “I no longer live.” In my new life I wholly trust by faith in Jesus Christ who lives in me, for he justified me by that faith and he leads me for his purpose.