The following is a devotional, written by Oswald Chambers, that I found particularly inspiring and wanted to share with you today. May these words that he wrote challenge and encourage as you take a moment to ponder them.
“I have been crucified with Christ…”
Galatians 2:20
“The inescapable spiritual need each of us has is the need to sign the death certificate of our sin nature. I must take my emotional opinions and intellectual beliefs and be willing to turn them into a moral verdict against the nature of sin; that is, against any claim I have to my right to myself. Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ…” He did not say, “I have made a determination to intimate Jesus Christ,” or, “I will really make an effort to follow Him” -but- “I have been identified with Him in His death.” Once I reach this moral decision and act on it, all that Christ accomplished for me on the Cross is accomplished in me. My unrestrained commitment of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the opportunity to grant to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.
“…it is no longer I who live…” My individuality remains, but my primary motivation for living and the nature that rules me are radically changed. I have the same human body, but the old satanic right to myself has been destroyed.
“…and the life which I now live in the flesh,” not the life which I long to live or even pray that I live, but the life I now live in my mortal flesh-the life which others can see, “I live by faith in the Son of God…” This faith was not Paul’s own faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith the Son of God has given him (see Ephesians 2:8). It is no longer a faith in faith, but a faith that transcends all imaginable limits-a faith that comes only from the Son of God.”
Find More Encouragement
- Hope Lives Here
- The Determination to Serve | Oswald Chambers
- This Momentary Affliction
- Bible Verses About Love
- Rest for the Weary | Billy Graham