The other side of "say so" is "do so."    When that pang of humanity hits, whether it be your shame, your fear, disillusionment, your big or small questions, He is INVITING you to CHOOSE LIFE.  (And He IS "the way, the truth, and THE LIFE.") It's His life that is made available to us!  Daily it happens:  you sense a need, you must grasp onto something, and that's ok!  Do not let the enemy convince you that it's bad to be in need.  We ARE human and we NEED God! Living this life makes us aware, and as a child, we have a Father who meets us in our need.

So, what do you do when you are at the point of exposure?

DIE. (For I am crucified with Christ and I no longer live... Gal. 2:20a)

On the other side of the cross, (meaning after we receive Christ as our Savior) we aren't just forgiven but we are raised to new life.  That means that we reckon our old self, our way of life apart from Christ, dead.  When the need to protect, hide, cling to anything other than Christ, arises, we must crucify that need in order to experience THE need-meeter. In sharing his story, Steve McVey says "I tried everything I could think of to experience victory, but all to no avail.  I didn't know that it was by my dying, not doing, that victory was possible."  Trying to live the Christian life through your old sinful patterns is like carrying 2 ton weights around while attempting to win a race. 

MISCONCEPTION:

The more I do, the more I try, the more I beat myself up or train myself to be 'better' the "more better" I become and the closer I get to Christ.

Let me say no, no, NO! Galatians 3:3 says Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

There is Good News here! Romans 8:3:  For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Please don't hear this as a "good kid/bad kid" issue- hear this as a my resources or His resources issue.  Which is better?!  We can't.  He can.  He CAN- IN US- when we walk according to the Spirit, the life of Christ in us!  In Colossians 1:27 Paul says, "To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles (Gentiles = us) are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Nothing compares to this type of riches. (Galatians 2:20...Christ lives in me...)

TRUTH:

The more I reckon my own strength insufficient and RECEIVE the sufficiency of Christ's strength, HE becomes my LIFE:  The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me... (Gal. 2:20b) When we receive eternal life, whose life do we receive? CHRIST'S LIFE!  This is not ignoring or putting to death the unique ways that He has made us as people, but allowing Him to work in and through those qualities and illuminate them in a way that only He can do.  True freedom lies in living in intimate fellowship with Christ who imparts to us all things we need for life and godliness.  The specific "hows, whys and whens" come as we walk moment by moment with Him.

2 Peter 1:3-5: His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

Read the entire chapter here.

May grace (God's favor) and peace (which is perfect well-being, 

all necessary good, all spiritual prosperity, and freedom from fears 

and agitating passions and moral conflicts) be multiplied to you 

in [the full, personal, precise, and correct] knowledge 

of God and of Jesus our Lord.

2 Peter 1:2 AMP

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