Friday, January 10, 2014

Only By Death


"If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell."
Matthew 5:29-30
 

God does not want you to sacrifice your body one piece at a time. What He is after is the alignment of your will to His 100% of the time.

They way we use our eyes and our hands is a public demonstration of just how out of alignment we are. This becomes so obvious to us that we grow deeply offended at our own state and we get frustrated enough to even consider cutting off that part of us which offends us and God.

What Jesus is pointing us toward with this shocking illustration is not a part by part process for human reform.  He is saying that nothing less than public, permanent death can end the battle of our will and God’s will. To live His will we must be willing to see our will publicly die and His will publicly live.

Fortunately for us this death of the human will already took place and all we have to do each day is believe we have already died and are now living God’s will in Jesus.

Paul put it like this in Galatians 2:20:

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

The Christian life is not a piece by piece, part by part human sacrifice.

It is a once and for all death and ressurrection in Christ. Can you see this?

Your death with Christ on Calvary should be as clear as it would be to you to look down and see where one of your hands was cut off because it offended you and God. If Jesus’ death is not that clear to you, look again to the Cross and see not just His public death but yours.

Now seeing yourself dead to sin and alive to God, live the will of God in union with Christ who lives in you day by day.


 
Bud McCord
Abide International

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