By Mavis duCille
Scripture reading: Galatians 2:20
We learned in school that living things breathe, living things grow, living things feed. So, if you are not feeding, if you are not breathing, if you are not growing, you are not alive. We are supposed to be further along this year from where we were last year. It is good, as we move on, to take an inventory every once in a while of where you are in the LORD.
There are just a couple of words that I would like to share with you. I have been thinking about Paul’s life, and some things that he said. He was one of the law, he came up under the law. It always amuses me how he uses the law to bring us into Christ. A few verses that have been speaking to me much are in Romans 7:19-20. From verse 18, he says, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing…” He explains verse 18 in verse 19, “For when I do good, evil is present with me.” He explains what that means in verse 20, “Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” He was making a separation there, between the things that he would do and where they originate, and the things that he would not do and how he would attain to them.
He says, in verse 22, “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23 But I see another law in my members,” WORKING IN MY MEMBERS, “warring against the law of my mind…” Are you familiar with that war? So, we understand that when we are to do good and we can’t do it, when we do the wrong thing, the question that I want to ask you is, why? In his mind, Paul wants to do one thing, but there is another law bringing him into captivity to the law of sin which is in his members. So, in the Word we find that what the Lord has laid down for us is “here a little, there a little…” (Isaiah 28:10), and right through the Word, we can put the “here a little” together with the “there a little” and come up fully with what the Lord intends for us.
So, Paul came to the conclusion that with his mind he serves the Lord – the law of God, but in his flesh, the law of sin and death. So, because we have that war going on in our being, we have to have the Word riveted in us and we have to have an abundance of the spirit of grace working in us.
But in Galatians 2:20 he said something very interesting. “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.” It is a conclusion to which he came. He said, nevertheless. He made no more excuses for the things that he would do and he did not, and the things that he did and he should not. So many times we hear people make excuses, “I am human,” or, “It is in my family.” He realized that from the earlier scripture, but he knew he was in trouble if he did not get rid of the flesh and the carnal life and rise to the life to which we are called in Jesus.
You see, overcoming is the greatest part of our walk in the Lord. If we are not overcoming, we are dying. And the experiences that we have through overcoming, and the victories, come through testing. “When we are tried, we shall come forth as pure gold” (Job 23:10).
So, as we look back at the things that used to bother us, cast us down, make us feel as losers – as we give way to the Spirit of Christ rising in us, day after day, we can say, “We are crucified… Nevertheless, the life I now live, I live by the grace of God.” Amen.
(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, October 2007, pg. 3-4)
Thought for today: Overcoming is the greatest part of our walk in the Lord. If we are not overcoming, we are dying.
Sonlight Devotional 