CHRIST IN ME.

DAILY DEVOTION.

DAY EIGHT.

GALATIANS 2:20.   For 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.
Paul makes the statement, "For I have been crucified with Christ", so what does he mean by this? it is important that we understand this. We know that Jesus went to the cross and was crucified on our behalf to pay the price for our sins, as Paul says at the end of that verse, "Who loved me and gave Himself for me." Paul recognises in the earlier verses that we can not be justified through the law, it is only through faith in Christ that we can be made righteous. Paul is saying that his sin was was nailed to the cross in Christ. We see in Romans 6;6 he said; "Knowing this, that our old man was crucified in Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin." Our old nature was nailed to the cross with Christ, so that sin would no longer have power over us. It is important that we realise this because Paul goes on to say in Galatians 2:20 that it is no longer he who lives, but that it is Christ living in him. We now have Christ living is us through the Holy Spirit, and it is important that we live out of His life and not out of the flesh. Paul goes on to say that the life that he now lives in his flesh body, he lives  by faith in Jesus. Now, yes, Paul had put his faith in Christ, put he is going further with this. He is confirming his earlier statement about Christ being in him and because Christ is in him, he is also in Christ. What he is saying is that it is by faith that he is in Christ and because he is in Christ he now lives his life in Him. It is important that we understand this, because if we don't we will try to live out of our own lives, trying to please God in our own strength. That simply does not work. Paul actually goes on in the next chapter of Galatians to correct the Galatians for this very thing, they were trying to be made perfect by obeying the law, people had come in and told them that they had to still keep the law. We can never be made right with God through our own efforts, in actual fact the moment we stop walking in the Spirit and walk in the flesh we actually come back under the law, Galatians 5:18 says that if we are led by the Spirit then we are no longer under the law. The other aspect of this is the fact that we are made the righteousness of God in Christ and we are meant to walk in that, so it is important that we know the old man or the old sin nature is now dead, crucified with Christ, because if it isn't then we will have no victory over sin, we can only deal with temptation in our lives when we know that our old man is dead and that it no longer has any power over us. We can now reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to the life of Christ in us. So when temptation comes knocking on the door of our lives we can simply say no, take authority over the thought, remind ourselves that we are the righteousness of God in Christ and that we live and walk in His Spirit. As Paul said in Galatians 5:24-25 Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. And as Paul said in Galatians 5:16 If we walk in the Spirit we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. So praise God, we can all say, like Paul, that we have been crucified with Christ, the old man is gone, we have Christ living on the inside through the power of His Spirit and that we are in Him and that we can live our lives through the life of His Spirit and that we can walk in victory. Sin no longer has dominion over us, we are set free from it.