The Lord Jesus Christ wants to live His life in you and me. This is every Believer’s birthright, to learn obedience that our lives may demonstrate the power of the resurrection life of the Son of God. As we submit to the leadings of our Guide, the Holy Spirit of God, the life of the Indwelling Christ manifests in us in the nine-fold grace of the fruits of the Spirit. The vine does not inspect it’s own fruit, but the vineyard owner surely does! When we received Jesus at our salvation, the Divine Gardener planted His incorruptible seed in the garden of our hearts. The divine fruit we bear is shared with others.
John 1:12 “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” This resurrection power is available for every area of our lives. We have to prove God’s “keeping” power daily. If I try “to be like” Jesus, it will not work. I will become a failed counterfeit. God does not want to dress-up my flesh. He does not want to improve me, He wants to remove me, that He might live His life through me. The apostle Paul said, 1 Corinthians 15:31 “…I die daily.” How? In humility I submit to the Holy Spirit’s leadings, giving up the right to myself, choosing God’s will instead of mine, preferring others before myself. The measure that I die to self and get out of the way, is the measure that the life of the Son of God will manifest through me in His resurrection power.
This well known verse is often quoted, but do we really believe it? We have to prove God in it in the trial of our faith. Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” It states, “we know,” but often the case is that our “knowing” needs an awakening by God! We are given the gift of faith, we have to choose to exercise it in the midst of the trial and prove God. When we are in a mess, we usually have an agenda of our own. God has another plan, He calls it purpose! I need to get with the Plan, the divine one. In the foreknowledge of God, He chose us and predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son. This can only be by the power of His life lived through me. At salvation we are regenerated – “re-gened,” through the shed blood of Jesus. The life is in the Blood. The holy D.N.A. of Jesus Christ is contained in the Incorruptible Seed and we are being re-gened, regenerated by divine power, to live our lives for God’s purposes and glory.
It is not how we start, what messes we make, but how we finish. My only hope is divine replacement by Jesus Christ, hidden in Him. “You are dead, your life is hidden with Christ in God.” There is no safer place than to be hidden in Christ, for then my flesh can no longer be seen to operate, but the manifold grace of God, in all His beauty flows from a vessel made fit for divine purpose, to bring glory to the Father.
It is no longer I that lives, but Christ that lives in me!
