Crucified with Christ

"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

Christianity has become overcomplicated, doused in politics or deemed an ancient concept or an emotional crutch. Christianity is not a political issue, but rather has been used as a scapegoat for much political unrest. Neither is it outdated or a solution for emotional upset. Personally I find it difficult to support those claims because I have experienced the love and provision of a living God. You will find it is beneficial to move away from the idea of being a "religious" person because this is a very limiting concept. To know Jesus is to really know Him. To search His character, to spend time with Him, to allow Him to really lead the way, to really live as though you have been crucified with Christ. To consider oneself as a "religious person" would be a complete disservice to God and to the influence He has within my life. To be "religious" just doesn't cut it. God wants more for you so you should want more for yourself. He wants to know you.

In essence, you are loved more than you realise by a God who subjected His only Son to a damaged and corrupt world that has fallen so far from what God first intended, with the knowledge that we as a human race would reject Him, over and over again, in order to create a way for us to reunite ourselves with our Creator. Without Jesus dying on the cross there is no mediation between us and God. No method of reconciliation, no forgiveness, no grace, no mercy, no eternal life. Without Jesus, life would be very different: bleak, confusing, purposeless, lacking in love and hope for the future. We are so very blessed that we have a creator who looked at the world and thought it needed one of each of us. We are so very blessed that we have a God who wants to have a relationship with us, who wants us to choose Him, who wants to give us the freedom to do that. We need to live that out. To recognise ourselves as crucified with Christ and with Christ now living through us.

I've been really challenged lately with such a foundational concept as this; before you were conceived by your parents, you were conceived in the mind of God. I mean..Wow?! I hadn't even realised that I had been overlooking the fact that I AM SEEN. My mind is blown even writing this. In my head, God has been looking at His children as a collective, seeing certain people as individuals, but definitely not me (this is wrong, but is somehow the illusion I have been operating under). But this pivotal concept to a relationship with Jesus has completely opened my eyes again. I am seen. And so are you. He sees you and is calling you deeper with him, to surrender yourself and to really experience it no longer being "I that live, but Christ who lives in me."

So far I feel I have rambled (big surprise there) but honestly I sat down to sit with God to hear what He wanted to say to me and that quickly turned into this blog post. God has been working on a few things in me lately and I never credit that within myself. So yes, I feel like what I have said here and will continue to say is what God has wanted me to share, so I hope it blesses someone. The primary reason I felt inspired to write today stemmed from the line in a song "You're teaching us to trust." To be honest that opened a whole can of worms, so let's get into it.

Life is hard. (Big newsflash) It is. But something that has been on my heart is that as Christians, we know that we aren't promised that all sorrows will melt away and we'll be blessed with the happiest of days forevermore. That would be nice, but we're explicitly told "in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world." So we know that things aren't meant to always be rosy, but yet for some reason (me included) we seem to act sometimes like they are meant to be? We conduct ourselves as if we're surprised when there's storms. We're disappointed when bad things happen. We're angry when God doesn't give us what we want. This is a wake up call for me. I need to stop conducting myself as though I am forever meant to live within my comfort zone.

For those of you who drive, you will know that there is nothing worse that backseat drivers (shout out to my dad - kidding, sort of!). To elaborate, it's those people who aren't in fact driving, but from their "well intended" comments you would think that they were. Telling you what lane to be in, when to turn, saying you're too close to the car in front, too fast, too slow...whatever it is, it's annoying and you are likely to be tempted to yell at them to get out and walk, but we're learning grace over here so we're not going to do that(!). Let me bring this back around. As Christians, we have a terrible habit of giving our YES to Jesus, allowing Him to firmly take the wheel, but then continuing to chip away little comments from the backseat. "Oh but I want to take this road; this opportunity is good for me; I know this relationship isn't God-based, but they're a nice person; this is the job I want so if you could just make it happen that would be great." It really doesn't work like that and the sooner we realise that, the sooner we will stop resisting the changes God wants to make in our lives for the better. You can't give Jesus your YES and still be trying to dictate and work it all out yourself. This isn't living in the belief that you have been crucified with Christ. It's not an opportunity to bargain with God. It's not "Christ now lives in me, alongside me and my worldly desires". I am dead to myself and alive in Christ (How unreal!!!) Giving your YES to Him means that we are trusting He knows best. He will never, ever let you down or take anything away to give you less. He doesn't remove blessings, he removes the barriers to the blessings to make room for the real GOLD. God wants to bless you, so we need to live crucified with Christ, move out of our own way and let Him!

Galatians 2:20 tells me "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." Firstly, WOW. Secondly (once the weight of that verse has settled in), what does that look like? Do you day-by-day think to yourself "Yes, I can see Christ living in me" or are you just plodding on? I know which one I'd like to be, but I also know the one that is probably more common. I do not appreciate my relationship with Jesus half as much as I should. I felt extremely guilty typing that, but it's the truth. I've learnt how to just get through the day. I've been conditioned to try and work things out on my own. But that isn't living, certainly not living the way God intended. But by God's grace I am learning everyday what it means to no longer be alive, but to have Christ living in me.

"I have been crucified with Christ" - The old me is gone. The worldly, selfishly motivated me is dead. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" - This is another challenge I have faced this week: It isn't about me. It isn't about what my goals are, what I want from this life or what I can do on my own. It's about Christ who lives in me. "Who loved me and gave himself for me". He hung on a cross and thought of me. He thought of you. As individuals. He sees us as people. As separate beings. And for each one, He has a plan. Carefully carved out "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future". Don't you want that? I lose sight so easily of the goodness of God and I'm praying daily that I don't anymore. When I return my thoughts to the foundations of my belief system, I find myself returning home. I know who I am. I know whose I am. All fear melts away. Why would I be afraid with my Creator on my side with the purest intentions and plans only to benefit me?

Part of Christ living within us and that giving death to our old selves involves allowing the sanctification process to happen. John 3:30 "He must increase, I must decrease." More of Jesus, less of me. It's so good to want that and to pray that it would happen. But I know myself what I have been guilty of in the past is denying God His way so that He would increase and I would decrease, simply because I acted like a princess and didn't like what was happening to me.

Imagine I placed some playdough in front of you. The yellow playdough was already in the shape of a crown and I asked you to make the pink playdough look the exact same way. So logically, you'd pick it up and start to mould it to the right shape. You'd study the yellow playdough, you'd get very close so that you could capture the detail within the pink playdough and create an exact likeness. You change the pink playdough.

As christians we are negligent of the fact that for us to become more Christlike, more like the King of Kings, things have to change. We are born into this world as sinful people. That isn't Jesus at all. So in order for us to become more like Him, we must be moulded, adapted and changed. A massive part of that is accepting that struggles will be part of the process. We need to get rid of this idea that we're entitled to something, because we're entitled to nothing. It's through God's love and grace that we even exist. We are deserving of nothing, but through God's worthiness and desire to love, He makes us worthy. He wants to bless us but we have to allow him to mould and change us in whatever way necessary for us to become more like Him. I am so guilty of going through difficult times and questioning God. Why this? Why me? Why now? When plain and simply, because Charis it'll make you more Christlike, it'll bring you closer to God, it will create space for blessings and it's happening now because this is part of the perfect plan for your life. I know that is so much easier said that put into action, but the more we embrace the struggle, the more we clear the way to receive God's blessings. There's another lesson in this playdough analogy; we need to get close to God to really know what He's like and to know what we are striving for. In the good times and the bad times, there is real blessings to be found at the feet of Jesus, so we must keep pushing forward, "looking onto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith". Get close to Him. Like any relationship, the closer you are with someone, the more you know about them. God is the exact same in this sense.

We don't have to enjoy the struggle, but understanding that it is part of sanctifying us to become more Christlike will allow us to stop resisting God's plan. Whatever happens in your life is an opportunity to die to yourself and live for Jesus. We know storms are ahead but we don't have to fear them when we know who is in control and the purpose the storms have in moulding us. A relationship with Jesus is a journey, an exploration of His character, a commitment to surrender yourself to Him daily. It's all about tuning yourself to His voice and to wait expectantly each day for Him to speak. It's a choice to recognise and embrace that when you gave your life to Jesus, you died to yourself and now live that Christ may increase and you may decrease. We have to get over the self-absorbed perspective that this life is about us, our goals, our dreams (me included). It's so easy to become so focused on what we want and where we're going, and it's good to strive for things and the things God places on your heart as your purpose while you are on this Earth, but don't let it overshadow the ultimate purpose in life - to live crucified with Christ.

All my love,

Charis x