The Living Christ Within Me

The ending of Galatians 2, with some thoughts:

"As far as the Law is concerned I may consider that I died on the cross with Christ. And my present life is not that of the old 'I,' but the living Christ within me. The bodily life I now live, I live believing in the Son of God, who loved me and sacrificed himself for me." 

Good gracious! THIS is the glory our lives can be! Take his statements in steps: 1) We are dead to the Law; there is no damnable, damning evidence of sin even available to condemn us anymore. He “did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it,” and, in fulfilling it, He put to death its demands upon us. 

2) The “old I” is gone. The sinful, self-aware, self-obsessed old self lives no longer – and what has replaced it? 

3) “The living Christ within me.” What?! The God of the universe, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, the Savior of the world has chosen to take up residence…in me?! YES! He’s ALIVE and He’s LIVING IN YOU! Oh, that we would learn to submit our minds and spirits and personalities to allowing Him to supersede our minds and spirits and personalities! He knows how to walk out His Way – He’s already done it! – oh, won’t we let Him do it all over again? 

4) So what’s left for us to do? To simply “live believing in the Son of God.” This is the essence of what Jesus meant when he answered the crowd in John 6: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” 

And so, to sum up thoughts 1-4 in one contiguous run-on sentence: To Believe in Jesus is to walk in a Union that creates the “new I,” causing us to be dead to the Law and sin! 

"Consequently I refuse to stultify the grace of God by reverting to the Law. For if righteousness were possible under the Law then Christ died for nothing!" 

Paul raises the whole thing to this level to show that it is not a question of right/wrong, good/bad; it is a question of life/death and, even more importantly, of Union/Disunion.

Oh, may we live today out of THE REALITY available to us IN CHRIST rather than submitting our day, and our week, to the passing stresses, fears and exigencies of our circumstances. O Church, He's ALIVE and He's LIVING IN YOU!