God Gold of the Day
“20 My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.21I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.”– Galatians 2:20-21
Hope everybody had a super cool Tuesday! Going right off of yesterday’s God Gold, this lesson of God being our ONLY source of power for us to live this life has been huge for me! Not because I’ve learned it and lived it because it’s been real daggum hard to humble myself enough to put me to the side long enough to receive this truth in the fullest. I pray this power source lesson sequel can be a big blessing to you and hey, if you’re in a power struggle between using what you got and stepping aside to live in what God has, I’m right there with ya! But it’s alright! God is teaching us, growing us and molding us to be better by doing less and trusting Him more!
It’s been a constant battle for me in this life following Christ, after years of playing sports and living in this world, my mindset is so wrapped around the “I just have to work harder to overcome, please God and be better. It’s on me and the work I put in.” It’s what we can so easily lean on since we’ve attacked life and our problems this way for so long and the world around us tells us these lies to attack life in this way. But it’s just not true at all. The past few days, I’ve realized more than ever that to come to God as the source of my power, I must first remember the Gospel. The truth about my desperate need for Him in all areas of life. Without need for God and His power in our lives, then we usually don’t ask for help right? Because we’ve got this under control, right??? NOOOO!!!!!
The Gospel speaks the life-giving and life-changing truth so clearly to us, the whole purpose for Jesus sacrificing Himself on the cross for us was the fact that we were so wrapped up in sin and death, there’s nothing we could do to change that no matter how hard we work. Jesus saved us and by faith, He gives us the opportunity to live as one with Him, living in His power, drawing our strength from Jesus Christ, the perfect and righteous Son of God!!! So what’s the point of trying so hard to be strong and courageous. to be better? With our faith and dependence set on Christ and Christ alone, He gives us everything we need to live strong and courageous lives!!!!
It’s this awesome view of the truth that in this relationship with Christ, “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
You see that? Your old self, the one that used to have to work and “do enough” to gain acceptance and worth in this world. your old self is dead dude. Seriously, coming to faith in Christ means you have died to your former life and ways of living and now you live with Christ in you!!! Yeah you heard that right!!! The I mentality, “I can do this, I just need to work harder, do more.” Christ loved you so much that He died for you because it’s the only way for us to ever experience life in the fullest and have access to God and His awesome power. We can try all we want but the “I” will never be enough! That’s the Good News, you’re not enough but you don’t have to be because Christ was perfect, Christ made the sacrifice died the death so we could die to our old life of slavery of weakness. Then Christ rose from the grave so we can rise into new life with Him, full and real LIFE!!! The “I” is washed away and now you live by faith in Christ who is one with you! How awesome is that?!?!?
I read verse 21 here and couldn’t help but think of this scene from Christmas vacation. Clark Griswold spends all day putting up Christmas lights, hitting every spot of the house, working like a wild man to make his house as beautiful and awesome as possible for his family to enjoy. He does all this work, everything is just perfect, then he goes to plug in the lights and what?!?! No power!!!
Watching Him run around clueless and so upset that after all that work he did it still wasn’t enough reminded me of me, or us really. We do all this work, dedicate ourselves to be better, to make our lights shine brighter than anything the world has ever seen so others can see God’s light shining through us. But just like Clark, we so often do all this work with no result. Just lights with no power.
In verse 21, it states clearly how completely wrong this legalistic, “do enough” mentality, leaning on the power we have zero of. It’s a waste of time. it’s like saying all this God did for us to send His Son to die on the cross for us, to give us new life, new strength and a new source of power is meaningless. The more we run off our power and trust in what we got, we are saying that the Gospel wasn’t enough, what Jesus did wasn’t enough. We forget so easily that without Christ, we have no power, we can do nothing. We can set the lights up all day but we can’t make them shine. Even though we are undeserving God made a way to have access to Him when there way no other way. He gives us complete access to His power to lean on and trust in because He knows we are lacking. If we could obey God, please Him by what we can do then what’s the point of Christ doing what He did? Zero.
So we can see that there is nothing, I mean NOTHING that we can do, but that’s okay. The Good News is even though we are undeserving of what Christ has done for us, although we are undeserving of having access to God’s power, He has given His Son up so that we can put our helpless striving behind and go directly to the source of the power. God’s awesome grace allows us to experience life in ways we could never do alone, it’s His power!!!
When Clark was out there freaking out because he couldn’t get the house to light up, have you been there? Feels like no matter how hard you try you just can’t get your lights to shine? Well preach the Gospel to yourself, stop striving and working, go straight to the source of your power, which is God and God alone!!! Then grab the extension chords of your life, the struggles, the problems you can’t seem to get past and go to the source. Bringing life’s hard times together with God as the source of your power, SHAZZAM!!!! LITTT!!!!!!! Preach the Gospel to yourself and go to the source!!!! Let’s light the world up guys!!! He’s given us plenty to do it!!!!!
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