I have been crucified with Christ, Galatians 2.20

The scripture quoted above is from the book of Galatians in the New Testament and was written by the apostle Paul.

Paul goes on to say that the fact that he has been crucified with Christ means that it was no longer him now living but rather Christ living in him(and through him) and the life (natural life in his body) that he now lived he lived by faith in the Son of God who loved him and gave Himself for him.

Were these the words of a madman, someone deluding themselves or are they the revelation of why Paul was such a powerful instrument in the hand of God, such a terror to the devil, and such a passionate follower of Christ?

I would suggest that the latter explanation is true.

To understand what this statement means let us consider the words of Jesus to His disciples recorded for us in Luke's gospel chapter 9 v s 23,24

"If any man desires to come after Me let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find. it."

Jesus spoke these words just after He had asked His disciples the searching question, "Who do men say that I am?" and after Peter had responded with the revelation given to him, "You are the Messiah the Christ of God."

Jesus then tells them that as the Messiah He is going to first have to suffer many things, be rejected of men and be killed in order to be raised again on the third day.

Of course, His disciples could not fully grasp the reality of this at this time, but then Jesus goes on to tell them that if anyone wants to be a disciple of His they too are going to have to die, die to themselves by denying themselves every day, taking up their cross daily and following Him.

We need to think about these words of Jesus Christ far more than we do, for Christ tells us that they apply not to some elite caste of saints but to anyone who truly desires to follow Him.

Think of how different this statement is from the thrust of much of the teaching being presented in the Western world Christianity of 'your best life now', which actively encourages believers to pursue their ambitions, goals or dreams and aspirations, all the while affirming them in their sense of how special they are in the eyes of God.

There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of self-denial going on, let alone taking up of their cross to follow Christ.

When we speak of denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following Him, we are in essence speaking of the death of self, that is of our self-life and the nature of self within.

Self is the old man, Adamic nature, the fallen nature which all of us are born with and which must be reckoned as crucified dead and buried every single day.

The well-known Welsh preacher, Martyn Lloyd Jones, saw this truth and preached it well.

In his book on the Sermon on the Mount, he writes, "The cross of Christ is the supreme illustration and the argument of the New Testament is this, that if we say that we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and believe that He died for our sins, it means that our greatest desire should be to die to self. That is the final purpose of His dying, not merely that we might be forgiven, or that we might be saved from hell. Rather it was that a new people might be formed, a new humanity, a new creation, and that a new kingdom be set up, consisting of people like Himself. He is the firstborn among many brethren, He is the pattern. We are to be conformed to the image of His Son."

The Church has generally speaking been pretty good at preaching a message of the cross and Christ's death on the cross as the place where our sins were borne, that we who believe might be forgiven and delivered from the wrath to come.

But where has the message of self-denial and taking up our cross daily to follow Christ upon a narrow path and difficult way gone?

Lloyd Jones was right in that if we understand the cross in anything other than a fairly superficial way, our greatest desire should be that we die to ourselves.

The Victorian minister and social reformer George Muller was a towering figure in the work he accomplished amongst British orphans and has inspired countless generations by the example of his unwavering faith in God.

Listen to the testimony of how George Muller realized this very truth.

"There was a day when I died, utterly died, died to George Muller and his opinions, preferences, tastes, and will; died to the world, its approval or censure; died to the approval or blame of even my brethren and friends; and since then I have studied only to show myself approved unto God."

For George Muller, there was a moment in time when the revelation of this truth that he had died together with Christ, and when his willingness to appropriate this then became a bedrock conviction, one which he would have sought to live out and walk out daily by the grace of God.

With others, it may be more gradual, but what matters is that we recognize the fact that two thousand years ago when Christ died, we died, I died, you died together with Him from the power of the unregenerate nature, in order that we may now walk in this new life.

Listen to what Lloyd Jones had to write about this:

"No man can die to himself except the man who can say, "I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me. In other words, our Lord says, you have to live like that, but you can do so only when you have received the Holy Spirit and there is a new life in you.

You have to become utterly different, you have to become entirely changed, you have to become a new being."

Only the power of His might, only the reality of His life in us, His inward working, only the work of His grace is changing us and can change us, but you and I must humble ourselves to continually look to Him and trust in Him to continue this inward work of transformation.

If we attempt to change ourselves then we will almost certainly fall into the trap of legalism and become like the Galatians, forsaking the grace of God for the pursuit of our religious works and rule-keeping.

The end of that path is going to be either pride and self-delusion or condemnation but it will not lead to inward change or real transformation.

We must come to the Lord daily and in essence say:

Lord, I cannot change myself but only You can. May there be this day less of me and more of you.

May You increase in me and may I decrease, and may You give me the grace today to deny myself, take up my cross, and follow You. May you energize and empower me today with Your great love, to love You with singleness of devotion, a love without fear, and love for You that is first above and before all others.

This is not a set prayer that I am suggesting but rather a principle, that in order to daily come to the Lord, denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following Him, we must learn to trust less and less in ourselves and humble ourselves before Him, looking to Him to help us and give us the increase of His life, the working of His almighty power and the abundance of His grace to save to the uttermost those who come to Him with a child-like trust that the cross is powerful enough, not only to forgive us of our sins but also to conform us to the image of his beloved Son.

When Paul declared in Galatians 2:20 that he had been crucified together with Christ, that it was now no longer he that lived but Christ living in him, this was more than a theological statement that he was expressing.

It was the path that he had chosen of daily saying no to himself and yes to Christ, of identifying with Christ's death upon the cross two thousand years ago, not simply to forgive him of all his sins, but to put to death that ancient rebel within, to slay that old man, so that the image of a new man, one formed to reveal Christ, would now shine forth to the confounding of all the religious Jews and pagan gentiles who witnessed this profound transformation in his life.

As we are witnessing an increasing darkness across the nations, what is going to be our most powerful witness as the Church of the living God, the body of Christ, in this world but not of it?

It certainly will not be more religious zeal or the treadmill of yet more church activity for activity's sake.

It will be when we as God's people begin to regain this ground which has been lost, to be able to say with real conviction and purpose, it is not I who now lives.

It is not my ambitions that matter, my dreams, my preferences or my will, neither is it my own desires that matter at all. In fact, I am expendable.

The only thing that counts, the thing I prize the most, is that the image and likeness of Jesus may be seen increasingly in my life and witness, that I become less and He becomes more.

It is that we may be able to say like Paul, 'it is now no longer I who live, but Christ Who is living in me'.