When we read through the Gospels, we see how Jesus lived His life. We’re often told, and believe, that Jesus is our ultimate example for how to live our own lives and how to please God. While it’s true that Jesus shows us what it’s like to truly be human, we have approached this life from the wrong angle.
For the most part, modern-day Christians are still trying to live by the Old Covenant. We’re obsessed with formulas and methods and it shows by the mass production of “self help” and “how to” resources that are out today. Remember the W.W.J.D. (What Would Jesus Do) bracelets? Jesus brought with Him a New Covenant, a new way of living that was far better than the old. He didn’t bring us a new set of rules, He brought divine life to place inside of us.
Do you realize that Jesus didn’t follow a bunch of rules in order to please God? Check out a few things that He said about His life, power and relationship to God the Father:
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. – John 5:19
I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. – John 5:30
These are just a few examples of what I’m getting at. Jesus, the Son of God, basically says that He can do nothing unless the Father does it through Him. He is fully relying on an indwelling Lord to live. He is living by another life, a life outside of His own. Jesus is our Lord and He is also our ultimate example for life. He’s not our example in that we should memorize everything He did and try to copy it. That is living by the Old Covenant of rules and regulations. Jesus shows us how to live by the power of another life outside of our own. If you have some time today read Jesus’ prayer in John 17. There He prays that we would be one with Him as He is one with the Father. Essentially, Jesus is to us what the Father is to Him.
To put it another way, we are still eating from the wrong tree. Remember that the tree that Adam and Eve ate from contained the knowledge of both good and evil. We know what is good and what is right. We even want to do what is right but we can’t because we don’t have the power to accomplish that. Does that sound familiar? Read what Paul says about this very thing in Romans 7:
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. – Romans 7:19
Paul has the knowledge of what is right but he just can’t accomplish it because nothing good dwells inside of him. Nothing good dwells inside any of us in ourselves. But if we are eating from the Tree of Life (Jesus is the reality of the Tree of Life) we can rely fully on Christ in us to live and please God.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20
It’s no longer we who live, but Christ lives in us. This is a fact, just as our death in Christ is a historical fact. It’s not up to you and me to “try our best” to please God and live as good Christians. It’s not enough. In this case, knowledge is not power. We have the knowledge but we need the life. Jesus himself had to live by a life other than His own, what makes us think that we can do what Jesus couldn’t do on His own? All things are through Him, by Him and for Him. He is able to accomplish all that He desires through us. But it’s Him, not us.
This has been becoming more real to me again. For a while I seemed to drift away from relying on the life of Christ in me once my reading and studying increased. The reading and studying is excellent but let us remember that it is only Christ in us that can please God.
This is really good. I can’t hear this enough amidst all of the other stuff you always hear in christendom. Thanks!
I agree, Dan. This needs to become more real to me as well. Thanks!
This might be what you’re getting at. It seems to me a lot of preachers are saying to imitate the life of Christ. Read what’s in the Bible and do it what it says. It seems to me that there’s more to it than just being a mimic. If Christ truly lives in us, we should be more than someone who mimics Him. How does one determine if their life is truly a representation of Christ’s life or an imitated version?
I think Watchman Nee said it best in The Normal Christian Life: “I can’t please God, so I’m not going to try anymore.” Only Christ can please God. Our life shows the measure of Christ that’s truly in us. I think maybe the first step is learning to “sit” in Christ.
Quincy, I commend Austin-Sparks to you. Most of his works are online @ http://www.austin-sparks.net/index.html His Christ-is-all orientation is contageous and life-giving.
Jim
Thanks Jim! I actually have quite a few of his books and have frequented that site. I just recently finished reading The Stewardship of the Mystery, incredible. His and Watchman Nee’s writings have been a huge influence on me over the last couple of years.
What does this come down to practically in your understanding? What does it mean to fully rely on an indwelling Lord to live? How do we live by another life? It seems that making up our mind to let Christ live isn’t enough. Won’t this plunge us back into Romans 7:18? “To will is present, but to work out the good is not.” This also can easily fall into an old covenant experience cloaked with better language.
Any thoughts?
To be honest, I’m still learning what this really means practically. It’s really a revolutionary concept. I think the first step though is understanding our place in Christ. Paul uses past-tense wording when he talks about our death in Christ and present-tense terminology in regards to our new life in Him. It’s a historical fact that when Christ died, we died also. We were also then raised to new life in Him.
Watchman Nee’s The Normal Christian Life really helped me to understand our place in Christ. In it he states that “I cannot please God, so I am going to stop trying.”
We can’t do it. Only He can. I think it’s really a process. As we live day by day choosing to lay down our lives, our wants and our desires in order to allow Christ to live through us.