For I through the law am dead to the law,
that I might live unto God. I am crucified
with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I,
but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now
I live by the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me, and gave Himself for me.
Galatians 2:19-20
Paul is not saying to us that the law has been abolished, no, for if you are crucified with Jesus Christ the law has nothing any longer to you, it is that you are now dead to the law. This cannot be true for anyone if Jesus Christ is not living in you. The law can guide and should be your guide for in it contains what God has revealed for all people to live by and by doing so will have the blessings of God. None of this of the living of Jesus Christ in you can have any affect towards you if Jesus Christ had not died on the cross. By the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, His ascension into heaven and sitting at the right hand of God makes it possible for Him to live in you. But, and this is most important, if you do not have faith in Him, in His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension then His death, His life cannot live in you. Therefore as I have been writing: it is important that the Jesus you say you have faith in is the New Testament Jesus and not some Jesus morphed out of a person' belief that is not founded in the truth as to who Jesus is as the New Testament reveals. Mormons will say that Jesus is the Redeemer, the creator, the Savior, and talk about faith in Him, but their Jesus is not the Jesus as revealed in the New Testament. Jehovah Witnesses have a Jesus they call Savior, Creator, Son of God, and say that He sits at the right hand of God, yet their Jesus is not the Jesus of the New Testament. In both of those cases they have devised and morphed a Jesus to fit their theological beliefs and not the truth as to who is this Jesus. Think: Who the New Testament says that Jesus Christ is and why our faith should be in Him as revealed plainly to us so that we are putting our faith in the true Jesus and not some figment of someone' mind.
Faith, what is it and how can we have faith? The Bible says that faith comes by hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17), and Paul writes that it is free, a gift from God, not because you are so worthy, that you are doing so many good and godly thing, you cannot earn faith, you can receive faith as the Holy Spirit is calling you to this faith and as you read, a form of hearing, and hearing audibly the word of God the Holy Spirit will make this faith effectual in you so that you come to know that you are a miserable sinner and in need of redemption and that Jesus Christ is the Redeemer you need. Our faith is not in experiences, although there is an joy in you when you come to allow Jesus Christ to live in you, but what a poor faith if it is in experiences. Jesus Christ experienced death for you and you cannot experience His death as He experienced death for by His crucifixion and He bore the sin of the world. You cannot bear the sin of the world. Only Jesus can present us faultless be the throne of God. You cannot present yourself faultless before the throne of God. Only Jesus can present you to God unutterably pure, absolutely rectified and justified. Do not think that your sacrifice is something that you should brag about, it is that we do sacrifice for God but that sacrifice comes out of our faith in Jesus Christ so that we no longer live for ourselves but for Jesus Christ. Our salvation is from hell, from Gehenna and we want to think that we are making sacrifices?
Our faith must be in Jesus Christ continually, not a lot now and some in another time, not some wishy-washy faith, not in a prayer meeting, as good as that might be, not in a book, as good as many writers write even if it is about Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Christ Who is God Incarnate, and just the thought of this, that God would save a poor miserable sinner should strike us as dead at His feet. Our faith must be in the One to whom it springs, the One from whom our experiences spring. It is our absolute abandoned devotion to Jesus Christ that is being told to us that as Authentic Christians we must have, nothing less. We cannot experience what Jesus Christ experience, nor can we hold Him within the compass of our hearts, but, and this is the crux: our faith must be built in strong emphatic confidence in Him. Too many have put their faith alongside their faith in Jesus in a man, in a book, in a doctrine of a particular denomination.
Too many church-goers believe in all sorts of experiential acts that are supposed to be Christian. Some will fall prey to ascetism, and all will fall short of this one thing: Only Jesus, Jesus only, that is what an Authentic Christian has not only as their mantle, but is the driving force as they live this life with the life of Jesus in them. If a person is misusing Scripture to fit their doctrine, their belief outside of Scripture, are they not misusing the wealth that God is willing and has given? As C.S. Lewis in his book Miracles, chapter 16, p.266, writes: "Who will trust us with the true wealth if we cannot be trusted even with the wealth that perishes?" We must not only attend to financial wealth, but family wealth, and the truth of Scripture a wealth that cannot be measured. We must learn to manage what God has given us, and He has given us more than we ever could earn, eternal life, in fact life itself, and has given us the privilege to tell others of the truth as to who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for them and that what He has done can be given to them. What a God that would save us and use us in His work of bringing the truth to others.
How can anyone who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer doubt or fear? Our identification ought to be an absolute song of praise of perfectly irrepressible, and triumphant belief.
Call on Me, and I will answer thee,
and shew thee great and mighty things,
which thou knowest not.
Jeremiah 33:3
Is your Jesus the true Jesus ?
Richard L. Crumb
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