Realize, 'I'm here in His place'

(new article tomorrow)

A classic old hymn pleads, "More about Jesus let me learn, More of His holy will discern; Spirit of God, my teacher be, Showing the things of Christ to me."

Bible scholar E.W. Bullinger (1837-1913) once reasoned that the greatest need of a Christian—one many aren’t aware they’re lacking in—is to know God in truth: who He really is, how He really thinks, what His real plans are, what He really wants in our relationship to Him, etc.

As Bullinger points out, “Christians who don’t (truly) know God’s Word can rely only on their imaginations and thoughts to tell them who God is. God is therefore based on their own tastes. How boring and useless is that!”

“Paul says in Galatians 2:20-21, 20] I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

[21] I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

“What he’s saying there is that, in the Lord Jesus Christ, you see the way God designed man to live . . . when you see that obedience of faith in God’s Word that led to the ultimate sacrifice at Calvary, trusting in the Father’s Word, you see the way He created mankind to live. It’s the way He created you and me to matriculate through life today. The challenges, the excitements, the excesses, the necessities of life as we experience them . . .

“The Lord Jesus Christ had that kind of faith in His Father that He would say, ‘Of my own self I can do nothing.’ That’s the choice He made. He said, ‘I value and cherish my Father’s plan so much, I couldn’t even imagine being separated from it.’ You know what that is? That’s ‘the faith of Christ.’

“He was not out here on a journey doing His own thing. He came to do the will of His Father and that’s what ‘the faith of Christ’ is. It’s HIS faith in the Word and the will of His Father, and that’s what Paul says our life as Believers is designed to be.

“That’s what it is to worship God in the Spirit. That’s what it is to have Christ as our life. These are not religious clichés even though sometimes we use them that way. Sometimes we get to trafficking in unfelt truth, but they weren’t for Jesus Christ and if they get that way with you, you need to sit down and look back at Him and see in Him who God designed you to be, because He’s the one living in you.

*****

“In John 14:10, Jesus says to Philip, [10] Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

“Philip doesn’t get it. He says to Christ, ‘We’ve been with you all this time and who you talking about?!’ You’ve had a bad day like that, haven’t you? You’ve looked up and said, ‘Lord, where in the world are you today?! Don’t you care?! Are you on a trip?! What’s going on?!’

“When you get that way, it’s because you’re not looking at Him. It’s because you’re looking at circumstances; self. It’s not because you’re trusting Him; it’s because you’re trusting your own resources. So don’t get too mad at Philip because you do this.

“Later in the same chapter, Jesus says to Judas, ‘He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me.’

“You see, He was so perfectly abandoned to the will of His Father that the Father dwelt in Him and SPOKE through Him. It was the Father’s wills, words and works. What Jesus Christ is doing is demonstrating the supreme, absolute value of the way He cherished His Father and He did it by putting His faith in the Father’s Word, so that the things He did in His life were what the Father gave Him to do.

“He’s in the Garden of Gethsemane praying and He says in John 17:18, ‘[17] Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
[18] As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

“How did Christ come into the world? By faith in the will and the word of His Father. And He said, ‘So send I them into the world.’ The men were sent with the same commission as the Son received from the Father. To go live exactly the way He lived. Can I say the same is true of you and me as it was with them. Paul says, ‘[20] Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.

“The realization to make is, ‘I’m here in His place, doing what He’d be doing if He was here. In fact, He is here in me, living His life out through me.’

“That’s why we’re called the Body of Christ. We’re the vehicle through whom He lives and works today. That’s why Paul says, ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’

*****

“We’re not talking about religion; we’re talking about a RELATIONSHIP with the God of heaven and earth, the Creator. The one who made you originally. The one whom your sins have alienated you from. Your self-will has taken you off in a different direction. Paul says, ‘I’m dead to that.’ How? ‘Through Christ. I died with Him. But I didn’t just die with Him; when He put away my sin, He gave me His life.’

“Paul says, ‘A spiritual transaction took place on a supernatural level inside of me, where I received His life and so that the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God. I have His life and it’s Him living in me.’

“The way He does that is when I live in my flesh the way He lived in HIS flesh! How did He live? ‘Without the Father I can do nothing. The works I do, the words I speak, are the ones the Father gave me,’ and I just put my faith in the Father and I’m living the life He gave me.

“So how does Christ live in me? He lives in my flesh the way He lived in His own flesh, 2,000 years ago and faith is just the issue of depending. Whatever you depend on is going to control you.

“The Lord Jesus Christ, my friend, is most magnified, most exalted, when we’re satisfied in life with Him and He’s enough. All the other stuff, even if we lose everything else, we’ve got Him and we’re still ahead.

“Paul said, ‘For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.’ To live is to know Christ and to die is gain because now I just get more intimacy with Him. I’ve heard that word defined ‘in-to-me-see.’ That’s really what it is.

“More and more there’s the ability to see into Him, and Him to see into me, the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. In your life, when He is preferred above everything else, that’s how He’s cherished and demonstrated to be the treasure.

“When we’re satisfied with Christ, when we’re prizing Him, cherishing Him, treasuring Him as a prize, and His gain is our heart’s delight above all else, that’s what Paul means in Philippians 3:9 when he says, ‘[9] And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
[10] That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

“You notice ‘and be found in him,’ how that’s a passive voice? I’ve come to love the passives. The essence of life is not DOING! The essence of the Christian life is BEING, not doing! It’s who you are, not what you do.

“It’s who God has made you in His Son, and when that becomes the focus of your life, and you learn to just relax and enjoy life in the identity God has given you in Christ, rather than trying to do things and look over your shoulders and see if God’s happy with you, you’ll find yourself doing plenty. But it won’t be to gain something from God; it’ll just be because that’s who you ARE and that’s who people who ARE this, that’s the way they live.

*****

“When I had cancer several years ago, someone sent me an email saying, ‘You’ll never know if Christ is all you need until he’s all that you have and when He’s all that you have, then and only then, do you discover that Jesus is really all that you need.’

“If you don’t count all that you can do ‘but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ’ . . .  if you’ve never come to that point in your life and you’re still trusting something of yourself, can I tell you that’s a dead-end road?

“Maybe you haven’t learned that yet, but when you do learn it, can I tell you it’s a dead-end road, and when you really do do what the Psalmist said (‘I came to the end of myself’) can I tell you there’s one standing there at the end of your rope who is the answer.

“You go bloody your nose to learn, ‘It ain’t me.’ Whatever it is you hope to rely upon, whatever it is you hope to cling to, whether it’s in yourself, if you’d be honest enough in your own self to know you can’t trust yourself . . .

“We put the bravado on, but in your heart of hearts you know yourself. We kick at the slats, we don’t like to believe that, but the grace of God is only available when all of our resources are gone. You’ll never do it until you come to the end of yourself.

“Compared to everything else, He is the one who really is the treasure of your life. God help us to let that be the reality. Instead of screaming and hollering that, ‘But I’m going to lose it all,’ just say, ‘You know what, I’m really FINDING the real source of life.’ Paul said, ‘For me, Christ is gain. I just want to be found in Him, not having my own righteousness.' That old song says, ‘Oh, how I love Jesus because He first loved me.’ ”