"I am crucified with Christ"
The days of Lent commenced with Ash Wednesday and are remembered by the churches throughout the world as the passion of Christ for 40 days. Ash signifies that a thing, animate or inanimate, which had existed in a particular shape, does no longer exist because it was burnt and reduced to a shapeless powder. Our own will must die on the Cross, burn on its altar in the fire of God and become like ash. Does your life bear His Cross?
You may claim to have been saved by the blood of Jesus. You may today boast of your wonderful testimony of how you were saved. After accepting Christ as your Savior, has your own will died on the Cross?
Can you say with Paul, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Gal.2: 20)?
Your Christian life has no meaning at all so long as you do not identify yourself with the crucified Christ. Are you still doing your own will? Claiming to be a born-again and Spirit-filled person, do you still live like an unconverted person? Has your flesh of living in the pleasures of sin been crucified?
These days, we covet the power of God without attaining the spiritual experience of being crucified with Christ. We covet material prosperity without experiencing the glory of His Cross. When Jesus was offered the glory of all the kingdoms of the world by the devil, He chose the glory of His Cross.
- Job Anbalagan