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“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
Christians are dead. There is no other way to look at it. The moment we accept Christ as our savior and give Him our lives, we have died. That is, our fleshly selves have died. Our earthly desires, pleasures, self focused plans, dreams, and hopes are all dead. Our freedom to live for ourselves, to pursue what makes us happy, to make our own decisions is dead. We are now slaves to Christ.
But how can a dead person live? That same verse that declares us dead, shows us our path to life: living by faith in the Son of God. Our new life begins in complete surrender, allowing Christ to rule and reign in our lives.
His decisions become our decisions. His desires are ours. His plans must be our plans. Of course, we are not possessed beings in the sense that this death to self is a daily choice. We die a daily death to our own flesh and choose to let Christ rule and reign. In doing so, we find the only kind of life worth living.
In death we find freedom: freedom from sin, freedom from destructive patterns, freedom from self sabotaging indulgences, and freedom from opinions that lead only to controversy and death.
At GCM we have a vision statement that declares dead people don’t have opinions. Our opinions are His opinions. We will seek first and represent His kingdom always.
We must embrace the Christian death, and set our hearts to living only for Christ. As we pursue His plans for our lives, we will not let our opinions get in the way. Whether these opinions are criticism towards other parts of the church, uncertainties about if and how we should move forward in faith, or selfish ambition, we make a conscious effort to die to these decisions, giving Christ full reign in our lives.
The church around the world lives and dies by their opinions, constantly finding themselves stuck in the traps of disagreement, criticism, or an intellectually thought out plan that is really just a mask for disobedience.
It is time for us to return to the truth of Galatians 2. We are dead. Dead people have no opinions that would prevent Christ’s rule and reign. We have only obedience to the One we have sworn to live for. In our death, we find freedom to overcome our human frailty and surrender ourselves wholeheartedly to Christ.
We must each carefully examine ourselves and every area that we still cling to our entitled opinions, throw them off with violent repentance, and join the call to come and die. For in death, we find life.
