April 6

“To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” —COLOSSIANS 1:27

The key to the Christian life is that Jesus Christ is alive. He didn’t just leave us His teachings and then ask us to adopt His philosophy and ethics and live by it. No, He did something much, much greater. He gave us Himself.

When I discovered this truth several years after becoming a Christian, I had known the language of it. I knew that Jesus had died for my sins and believed with all my heart that He had been raised from the dead. I even believed the language about Jesus coming into our hearts, but I did not know the reality of it. I thought it was only a metaphoric statement.

The reality is that it is true. Christ is alive in His people. Paul tells us in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” One of the best days in my own Christian life was when I acknowledged to God – I cannot live the Christian life. That’s the day I began to discover that it is no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me. I realized it was the life of Jesus that would live in me a life that is totally impossible to me alone.

Some have called it “an exchanged life”. It is the indwelling of Jesus Christ made real and rewarding by the Holy Spirit, in exchange for the surrender of our own broken lives. It is our sin for His righteousness, our weaknesses for His strength, our failure for His victory, our folly for His wisdom and our selfishness for His love and patience. And this, says Paul, is our hope of glory - “Christ in us”. ‘Glory’ is the moral character of God, and our only hope of attaining it to some degree is by the indwelling Spirit of Christ living and working in us. We cannot do it on our own.

Every day we need to live out of a disposition that says, “Thank you, Jesus. I can’t live the Christian life today. But I thank you that You can and that You are alive in me.” And what a glorious transformation of resting in His sufficiency that is!

PRAYER: Dear Lord Jesus, what a precious, life changing gift You are! Thank You for coming to live in me and doing for me what I have tried so hard to do myself in living the Christian life.

TO REFLECT UPON: Do I live every day of my life dependent upon Christ? Is He my strength and my life?