I have been crucified
with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me… —Galatians
2:20
These words mean the
breaking and collapse of my independence brought about by my own hands, and the
surrendering of my life to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. No one can do this
for me, I must do it myself. God may bring me up to this point three hundred
and sixty-five times a year, but He cannot push me through it. It means
breaking the hard outer layer of my individual independence from God, and the
liberating of myself and my nature into oneness with Him; not following my own
ideas, but choosing absolute loyalty to Jesus. Once I am at that point, there
is no possibility of misunderstanding. Very few of us know anything about
loyalty to Christ or understand what He meant when He said, “…for My sake”
(Matthew 5:11). That is what makes a strong saint.
Has that breaking of
my independence come? All the rest is religious fraud. The one point to decide
is— will I give up? Will I surrender to Jesus Christ, placing no conditions
whatsoever as to how the brokenness will come? I must be broken from my own
understanding of myself. When I reach that point, immediately the reality of
the supernatural identification with Jesus Christ takes place. And the witness
of the Spirit of God is unmistakable— “I have been crucified with Christ….”
The passion of
Christianity comes from deliberately signing away my own rights and becoming a
bondservant of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I will not begin to be a saint.
One student a year who
hears God’s call would be sufficient for God to have called the Bible Training
College into existence. This college has no value as an organization, not even
academically. Its sole value for existence is for God to help Himself to lives.
Will we allow Him to help Himself to us, or are we more concerned with our own
ideas of what we are going to be?
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