ARE YOU TRULY CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST AND FOLLOWING HIM? How do we obey God and do as His word tells us without lip service? We honor this scripture:
Galatians 2:20
I have been CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST and I NO LONGER LIVE, but CHRIST LIVES IN ME. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loves me and gave himself for me.
This scripture says you are to be DEAD TO YOURSELF and ALIVE IN HIM. So if you find yourself with excuses why you cannot do something that the word of God says because you have to take into consideration your flesh, and your own desires, then you are not CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST enough that it is he who lives in you! This is how you live for God and please him like Jesus did, you become dead to yourself like he did and live for God. And when you consider the following scripture:
JOHN 14:1-3
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You who believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
This is saying that THIS EARTH IS NOT OUR HOME, we’re strangers passing through it, and that Jesus has gone to prepare our home ahead of us, which will be with him. So we cannot plant deep roots here because we do not know when he will return for us, and we won’t be able to take anything from this world to take where we are going. So, why be so fixated on life here? And with that said, who are the people that God uses?
Though he desires to USE US ALL WHO HAVE CLAIM SALVATION, He can only use the ones who avail themselves to Him. The ones who are CRUCIFIED FOR REAL FOR
REAL IN CHRIST his son and do not let their flesh, their personal lives, or their own desires, stand in the way. The ones who SET THEMSELVES APART AS SANCTIFIED and though they live in the world they know they are NOT OF THE WORLD with roots too deeply planted in it so they can’t pull up stump when its time to leave, the ones who keep their lamps trimmed in anticipation that one day He is coming back at a time unbeknownst to them to whisk them quickly away as his bride from this earth.
REAL IN CHRIST his son and do not let their flesh, their personal lives, or their own desires, stand in the way. The ones who SET THEMSELVES APART AS SANCTIFIED and though they live in the world they know they are NOT OF THE WORLD with roots too deeply planted in it so they can’t pull up stump when its time to leave, the ones who keep their lamps trimmed in anticipation that one day He is coming back at a time unbeknownst to them to whisk them quickly away as his bride from this earth.God wants to use us all who say we are saved so badly, but He cannot. Because we have not died enough to ourselves and not willing to give much up to be used by Him. Yet we say we are followers of Christ, the one who modeled what living for God looks like to the point of his own death, which was like a bitter cup to him that he begged God to let pass from him. A death that we should all have died ourselves if Christ did not die for us. Now we do not know that we ‘owe’ him our lives here on this earth in exchange for an eternal life and an eternal home that he has gone to prepare for us.
Will God not reward us here when we sacrifice our lives for him? Heck yeah! You will never see the ‘righteous’ forsaken or their seed begging bread. We are each rewarded differently though it should never be about the reward but knowing that God takes care of his children. Consider how Queen Esther gave up her life as a Hebrew to go and do what God wanted her to do living as a Persian, and ended up with half of the Kingdom of Persia – 23 provinces – as a gift.
Please consider how it breaks God’s heart when we cannot sacrifice our lives for Him in exchange for a better life in glory. Remember, Jesus said “where your heart is, there will be your treasure” so if your heart is for this life, then you receive your reward here that will rot away and you can’t take into the grave with you, but if your heart is for heaven, that is where your eternal reward will be.
