"iDie"

By Zach Wood

Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

 

 

This past Sunday, our pastor started a new sermon series called "iLife" and the first sermon was titled "iDie".  What is amazing to me is that I have just started reading Galatians for my devotional time in the past few days and I was on this chapter this weekend when I heard this sermon.  How fitting!  The sermon series we are going through is about intentional living.  It is so important to be intentional about the life we live in Christ.  As God's Word was ministered to me through this sermon, I thought about how so much of my life has not been lived intentionally.  So much of my life has been lived the way I want to live.  I follow so much of my fleshly desires and find it extremely hard to follow what Christ has called me to do. 

 

I know many of you are probably nodding your head in agreement to what I am explaining here.  What I truly love about this passage is how Paul explains that we who are in Christ have taken on Him and have died to the old self we used to live.  The past is the past.  The past no longer should have mastery over us.  It is Christ Jesus who lives in us.  We should be living and breathing the life of Christ every moment of every day.  Now, that is tough!  Downright tough at times.  It is hard, and part of being human, to put away our selfish desires and focus on the things Christ wants us to think about.  We have to be intentional about this life we are called to live. 

 

How easy do you think it would be for a student to enter high school, college or graduate school and expect good grades by doing almost nothing?  The student would not learn a whole lot by exerting little to no effort.  The student has to make the effort to study and apply information to tests and to life.  Otherwise, the school time has done nothing to help.  The same is true for our life in Christ.  We cannot come to Christ and expect to just live an easy life and do nothing about our continued growth.  We must make the effort to live for Christ and read His Word daily.  Not only that, but we must discipline ourselves to focus on the needs of those around us.  Living intentional for Christ requires us to die to self and give attention to the needs of others. 

 

I truly feel like I am doing nothing here but preaching to myself.  I have failed miserably in this aspect of my walk with Christ so often.  Every day, I continue to struggle with dying to my old ways and living for Christ.  It is hard!  Christ did not call us to live an easy life for Him.  Living for Him is full of great sacrifice and commitment.  It is truly the best life we can ever be called to live.  In order to live fully in Christ, we must be very aware of things we are doing and make the effort to ask Christ to help us in the weak points of our lives.  I encourage each of you and myself to take this week and ask God to show what areas need change for our walk to improve with Him.  If we do not die to ourselves and be intentional about our walk with Christ, we grow stagnant and stagger our growth process. 

 

Let us be intentional about dying to self and living for Christ!