Day 19

“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?”

—2 CORINTHIANS 13:5-6

As we introduced yesterday, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the grounds on which we know Him to be alive today, living in and working through His people.

 I have sometimes talked to people whose big need is to understand that Jesus Christ IS actually and really alive today. They are trying to live by His teaching and finding it a constant uphill struggle. They are trying to follow His example, trying to find out what He might do in their situation and then try their best to do it themselves. They discover there is nothing more frustrating than trying to live the Christian life for Christ, rather than living in a relationship of dependence on Him, whereby Christ, Himself, is the source of their desire to do what is right, and the strength in which to do it.

When I first became a Christian, I knew Jesus had been raised from the dead, and I knew the language about Jesus coming into my heart, but I thought it was just a metaphor, a poetic image, and had not realized that it is actually true. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, ‘Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you – unless, of course, you fail the test?’ (2 Corinthians 13:5-6).

As we look with a 21st century perspective back on those early years of the church, it seems incredible to think these men and women ‘turned the world upside down’ (see Acts 17:5 KJV) without, in most cases, a decent education, without any natural influence, without any money behind them, without literature, without an organization, and without a publicity machine! But they did!

One of our problems today may well be that we have learned to depend on things other than the Living Christ. The success of the early church was founded on the fact that Jesus Christ lived in them by His Spirit, and was at work through them.

When Paul came back from his missionary journeys, he gave missionary reports on several occasions and his report was always much the same, as in Acts 14:27 – “On arriving there, they gathered the church together and they reported all that God had done through them ...” They did not come back and report all that we have done for God – they reported what God had done through them. That takes the pressure off us and puts it where it belongs, on Christ Himself.

PRAYER: Dear Lord, It is so liberating to know that it isn’t by my own efforts, strength or strategies I am to live the Christian life, but by your indwelling Spirit. Thank You, Lord, for being everything I need and may I live everyday in complete dependence upon You.

TO REFLECT UPON: How has resting in the sufficiency of Jesus altered my way of life?