“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” NAS Galatians 2:20
Like I mentioned in the last blog, thanks to Adam’s decision to sin against God we are born with a human nature infected by the power of sin. Evidence of our corrupt human nature is seen early on in our life when we learned to scream for our mother’s attention. We are completely self-centered critters. Many years ago I heard veteran missionary, Helen Roseveare, teach on the crossed-out ‘I’ life, and her illustration has stuck with me. She held up a cardboard letter ‘I’ as she spoke about the depths of our human selfishness, and then she spoke of the believer’s co-crucifixion with Christ. As she spoke of the cross, she took another piece of cardstock and laid it across the letter ‘I’ creating the symbol of the cross. She emphasized how our death with Christ on the cross killed our old man and that as we were raised with Him to newness of life, we were given a new man (or nature) that set us free from ourselves. One of my most frequent prayers is, “Lord, deliver me from me.” The reality is that He has already done so; therefore, my prayer should be, “Lord, thank You for delivering me from me and now living Your life through me!”