Tag: Christ in You

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Abounding Abundant Life

Life and Life More Abundantly

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 10:10

Eternal life is life and life more abundantly—it is being alive in the realm where God lives (John 10:10). Life is walking with God in unending communion, enjoying his unlimited blessing, experiencing his unconditional love, and receiving his undeserved grace. The eternal life that Christ offers is entire salvation of the whole person including conversion, new birth, heart transformation, and emotional healing.

Abundant life is overflowing fullness, the unsurpassed quality of the life of Christ active in us. Paul uses the terms “all” and “every” to describe the abounding grace that provides abundant life (2 Cor. 9:8). As we abide in Christ, his life increases more and more enabling us to overcome sin, live the Christian life, and enter in the conscious, constant presence of Christ. The abundant life is the normal Christian life described in the New Testament.

Abounding life is just the fullness of life in Christ, made possible by His death and resurrection, and made actual by the indwelling and infilling of the Holy Spirit.

For, “The Christ, who dying did a work for us, now lives to do a work in us.” However, many believers never experience the joy and fulfillment that can now be their possession in Christ.

There can be a relationship without fellowship: there can be life without health: there can be privilege without enjoyment. One may war and not win, may serve and yet not succeed, may try and yet not triumph; and the difference throughout is just the difference between possession of eternal life and the experience of abounding life . . . .

All quotes from Graham Scroggie, “Abounding Life,” Daily Thoughts From Keswick: A Year’s Daily Readings, ed., Herbert F. Stevenson (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1980), 135.

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Its Impossible!

The Christian Life Is Impossible

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Col. 2:6-7

A dear friend used to say, “We all are the failures we were meant to be.” In other words, our attempts at living the Christian life in own power were always meant to fail. God never intended for us to succeed by self-effort, self-motivation, and self-striving. We were never designed to live holy lives without trusting the Christ who died for us. In short, we cannot live the Christian life without Christ. Only by grace through faith is Christian growth achieved (Gal. 3:1-5).

When we attempt to live the Christian life in our power, we find it impossible. We grow frustrated. Our up again, down again experience of momentary victory and devastating failure proves exhausting. The cycles of perpetual self-confidence/pride and shame/guilt leave us wondering if we are really saved. Then, we realize that our sense of desperation and defeat is what God is waiting for; he wants us to come to the end of ourselves.

God is waiting for us to admit our struggle, repent of our self-sufficiency, and pray for divine help (2 Cor. 12:8-10). It sounds a bit cliche, but God desires for us to stop trying and to start trusting. He wants us to give up striving and struggling to allow Christ to do the impossible: give us liberty and victory over our on-going struggles with sin (2 Peter 1:3-4).

The Lord’s purpose and goal is to allow his Son, Jesus Christ, to live his life in and through us (1 John 4:9). The only person who ever successfully lived the Christian life was Christ himself. Therefore, we need to allow Christ to live his life in and through us for victory over sin, power over temptations, and anointing for ministry (Gal. 2:20).

“It is not difficult for man to live the Christian life,” somebody once said, it is a sheer impossibility!”

A sheer impossibility, that is, without CHRIST but for all that He says, you have all that He is, and that is all that it takes!

The Christian life can only be explained in terms of Jesus Christ, and if your life as a Christian can still be explained in terms of you your personality, your willpower, your gift, your talent, your money, your courage, your scholarship, your dedication, your sacrifice, or your anything then although you may have the Christian life, you are not yet living it!

Major Ian Thomas, The Saving Life of Christ/The Mystery of Godliness (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988).

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The Glorious Fact

The Glorious Fact: Christ as Divine Love Fills Your Soul

I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.

Eph. 3:15-19 (NLT)

My last few blog posts have focused on the theme of the Indwelling Christ; my favorite subject to teach and preach. The truth of Christ living in you is understood by illumination, grasped by faith, enjoyed by abiding, and experienced by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Christ manifesting in and through is intimacy with God, freedom over sin, and joy in tumultuous times. The Holy Spirit makes real in us all that Christ has done for us on the Cross. Thus, we can find strength in weakness, victory over temptations, and grace to respond like Jesus in every life situation. The Indwelling Christ is grace being in us the desire, ability and power to live the life of Christ.

Seek to grasp the glorious fact that you may have Christ as Divine love filling your soul. Just as the alabaster box was in the house, and its presence may not have been known, so Christ has been a long time with many of His disciples, and they have not known Him ; that is, they have been comparatively ignorant of His glorious fulness. But no sooner was the box broken, and the ointment shed abroad, than the odour filled the house (Luke 7:36-50).

So, when the love of God is poured forth by the Holy Ghost when the infinite treasures of Divine love stored up in Christ are disclosed, revealed in us, shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost their subduing, liberating, and transforming influences begin at once to be seen and felt. Their cleansing and purifying effect on our thoughts and desires are realized. We begin to learn then what our blessed Lord meant when He said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8).

Evan Hopkins, The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life (Philadelphia: Sunday School Times, 1952), 60.

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A Demand on You Is a Demand on Him

Christ Lives in You

To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Col. 1:27

Christ lives in hearts of believers by the power of the Holy Spirit. All that Christ is in the gospels, all that Christ is as the second person of the Trinity, and all that Christ is as Lord now lives in us. Since Christ lives in us, we are never alone. Since Christ lives in us, we have the power to live holy lives. Since Christ lives in us, we can respond (not react) to every life situation according to the will of God. Since Christ lives in us, we can daily experience Him intimately and powerfully. Therefore, we desire all of Him in all of us all the time.

And Jesus in all His sufficiency and completeness of power is our Alpha and Omega. There is no demand made upon your life which is not a demand upon the life of Christ in you; and if you claim, “I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,” (Gal. 2:20) then this wonderful, glorified Lord is the One who dwells within you by His Spirit. He is my Alpha and Omega. There is no demand upon my life which is not a demand on His life in me.

Stephen Olford, “The Unveiled Christ,” Daily Thoughts from Keswick: A Year’s Daily Readings, ed., Herbert F. Stevenson (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1980), 297.

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“It Is By His Life That We Live”

Christ is the Source of Our Life

“Christ, who is our life.”

Colossians 3:4 (ESV)

Paul’s marvellously rich expression indicates, that Christ is the source of our life. “You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). That same voice which brought Lazarus out of the tomb (John 11:43) raised us to newness of life.

Christ is now the substance of our spiritual life. It is by his life that we live; he is in us, the hope of glory, the spring of our actions, the central thought which moves every other thought.

Christ is the sustenance of our life. What can the Christian feed upon but Jesus’ flesh and blood? “This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die” (John 6:50). O wayworn pilgrims in this wilderness of sin, you never get a morsel to satisfy the hunger of your spirits, except ye find it in him!

Christ is the solace of our life. All our true joys come from him; and in times of trouble, his presence is our consolation. There is nothing worth living for but him; and his lovingkindness is better than life (Psalm 63:3)!

Christ is the object of our life. As speeds the ship towards the port, so hastes the believer towards the haven of his Savior’s bosom. As flies the arrow to its goal, so flies the Christian towards the perfecting of his fellowship with Christ Jesus. As the soldier fights for his captain, and is crowned in his captain’s victory, so the believer contends for Christ, and gets his triumph out of the triumphs of his Master.

“For him to live is Christ.” Christ is the exemplar of our life. Where there is the same life within, there will, there must be, to a great extent, the same developments without; and if we live in near fellowship with the Lord Jesus we shall grow like him. We shall set him before us as our Divine copy, and we shall seek to tread in his footsteps, until he shall become the crown of our life in glory.

Oh! how safe, how honoured, how happy is the Christian, since Christ is our life!

Charles H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1994), August 10, morning.