...that
is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but
has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is
the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in
you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:26-27
It
is this dynamic, Christ in you, which secures our salvation. If Christianity
were nothing more than a man deciding to worship Jesus and doing his best to
imitate Him, there indeed would be little hope.
But if Christianity is Jesus coming into an available human body and
acting like Himself, then there is abundant hope.
In
the one, all is based on human strength.
In the other, all is based on the dynamic of the indwelling Christ. If my salvation depended on my ability to be
like Christ, I could be lost again and again.
But if my salvation depends on Jesus, then I cannot be lost. Thus my salvation is secured not by my imitation of Christ but by my participation in Christ. He, Himself, living in me, is the security of
my salvation. I need no other.
Not
only is our salvation secured, but our service is certified. It bears the mark of God on it. I greatly fear
that when the final accounting is done, much of the work that we have sought to
do for God will not stand. It has been done in the flesh, with fleshly motives,
and toward fleshly goals. The Judgment
Seat of Christ will reveal exactly this.
Jesus
said, "The Father
that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:10). If Jesus depended on the Father in Him to do
the works, how much more should we depend upon Him in us to do the works
here? If Jesus freely admitted, "The Son can do nothing of
Himself," should we feel
hesitant in making the same admission?
Man
working for God is one thing. God
working in man is quite another. What we have in our world is a system of
religion that, in the main, encourages folks to work for God. This kind of work is bothersome, fruitless,
and frustrating. I have known many
people who were bored to death of church work. But when we face the glorious
fact that "it is God who worketh in you,"
a new day dawns!
We
are not in the world to bear witness to Christ through our own strength. Christ is in us in the world to bear witness
of Himself. The Christian life is not
the doing of things to please God, but the yielding of our bodies to God so
that He can through the indwelling Christ do things for Himself. No work, done in the flesh, bears the mark of
divine certification. If Christ in us does
the work, that work will stand when the stars have fallen.
The
dynamic of this fact of Christ indwelling is found not only in salvation
secured, service certified, but in conquest complete. In this great key,
(Christ in me) there is victory. For
whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has
overcome the world--our faith. (1 John 5:4) Victory is not something I win, but Someone I
receive into my life. CHRIST IN ME. The
Hope of Glory Nobody can be like
Jesus like Jesus can. He is in me. All of Him is in me. All of Him in me is available to me and
through me to a lost world. That makes
Christianity exciting. This makes it
Christ-in-you-ity and Christ-in-me-ity
Scripture to Claim:
Who is the one who
overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John
5:5)
