Many Christians have had the mindset they are supposed to try hard to give their lives to God. Unfortunately this misses the point of the gospel by putting the focus back on self-effort instead of faith. Your sacrificial efforts will never be acceptable. There was only one life that was worthy of (one) acceptable sacrifice to God and that was the life of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ. God found fault with us when we were in Adam. He was never interested in us giving our lives to Him but rather Him giving His life to us.
True or Faults: We Should Give Our Lives to God (14 Min, 9.6 MB)
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This was probably the hardest thing to digest when God revealed this to me. I was always raised that you had to give your life to Christ, rededicate your life, try harder, etc.
ReplyDeleteReading through the Bible, it continues to say we are not to put no confidence in the flesh, Christ IS our life, it is not that I live but it is Christ that lives in me. We died in Adam and raised as a new man in Christ.
Still to this day I hear "rededicate" Jesus says to deny yourself, and follow him. There is no re-dedication even in the Bible, where do we get these lies from? It is like we just keep making up news ones hahah.
enjoy this teaching, looking forward to share:)
Mike, this really is quite a big deal when people begin to realize that it's not about offering their life to God but about God giving His life to them. It's a wonderful revelation to understand that it's about His dedication to us, not our dedication to Him. Indeed, we died, and were raised as a new creation. Our response to this can truly be that we live lives of dedication and love for Him as we walk in the Spirit, but that's truly not what our lives are based upon.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, it wasn't our "dedication" to God that He was looking for in the first place, so why would He ever want us to re-dedicate our lives to Him, and to keep on doing it over and over again! :)
Howard, I believe the good news is that we've already died, and we can't keep dying. :) "I have been crucified with Christ..." "Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh..." Etc. There is one verse that I think has been translated in such a way as to give us the impression that we are to somehow die daily.
ReplyDelete1 Cor 15:31
I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.
Several versions word it that way, but some say something like, "I face death daily." This verse, taken along with the context, I think is really about how Paul faces persecution and peril daily.
With the context of the two surrounding verses, it reads:
1 Cor 15:30-32
30 And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? 31 I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. 32 If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!"
I don't think Paul is talking about a dying to the flesh daily, but rather is saying that he and his companions are facing very difficult circumstances because of the "beasts" at Ephesus. (Elsewhere he refers to these types of people as "dogs," "evil workers" and "the mutilation").
In Christ, we have died to the flesh forever. The flesh is no longer who we are. The flesh is still "there," in that we can walk under the influence of it. We're told to "walk by the Spirit" so that we don't fulfill the lusts of the flesh, but I believe that we can reckon ourselves as already dead to it, since we've been crucified with Christ.