Reference: Galatians 2:20
Do you know exactly what it means to liveby faith my friend? You probably know what it means to live, but are you sureyou know what it means to live by faith? Every person who is alive is livingtheir life, which simply means that they exist from day to day until they die.When a person dies this simply means that they cease to live.
A person stays alive and exists as long astheir body is healthy enough to stay alive, but if a person contacts a sicknessor some disease it's very possible that the sickness may cause them to die. Nowwe know that everybody who breathes and their hearts are still continuing tobeat, then that individual is alive and is what we know as living. It does nottake faith to live, but it does take faith to live a certain kind of life. Weknow of course that it doesn't take faith to live a sinful and natural life,but it most certainly takes faith to live the Christ life.
Everybody who was born from the womb oftheir mother will automatically live a life of sin. Of course we know thatChrist was born of a woman and did not live in and commit sin, but all otherswere born in sin and partook of its fruit. Now the word of God tells us thatthe just shall live by faith. To live by faith means that we live a differentkind of life apart from our old sinful natural life. Just because there aremany people living in the world today and many of them confessing to be bornagain christians, this in no wise proves that they are living by the faith ofChrist. They are of course living, but just to exist and live certainly is notdone by faith. We exist and live through and by the nutrients that the foodcontains. If we fail to properly feed our natural bodies then we willeventually die and cease to exist. When the Bible refers to our living by faiththis of course means and refers to a christian life apart from a life of sin.
To live a christian life can only be doneby and through the means of the faith of Christ. It is utterly impossible tolive the life that the Bible reveals without possessing the faith of the LordJesus Christ. There are many thousands of people in the world today confessingto be born again children of God, but if the truth were known I could almostsay that hardly any is living the life that the word of God reveals.
Now when I say the word of God I mean andrefer to the gospel of Christ. The life that the gospel reveals is a life ofrighteousness. Paul tells us in Romans 1:16-17 that he is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it isthe power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first,and also to the Greek. Paul goes on to say in verse seventeen that within thegospel is revealed the righteousness of God from faith to faith, and the justshall live by this faith.
Now this faith is of course the faith ofthe Lord Jesus as Paul mentions in our text of Galatians2:20. If a person will read and studythe gospel and find out what the righteousness of God is that is revealed inthe gospel, then we can easily see why we must live this life by the faith ofChrist. To live by the faith of Christ simply means that we must possess Christwithin us and allow him to live the life for us. Christ came to this earthhundreds of years ago and proved that man can live in accord with God. Christlived and manifested this life and this is why we must also live by his faith.Christ is the only person that can live a life without sin. No man apart fromChrist can live the life revealed in the gospel. Reading the scriptures thatdeals with the life that Christ lived, we can see that he lived without sin andthere was no guile found in his mouth. We can live this same life also byfollowing in his footsteps like we are told to do in I Peter 2:21. To follow inthe footsteps of Christ means to obey his word revealed in the gospel.
The common belief by the averageconfessing christian today on the subject of what it means to live by faith isjust to accept Christ as your own personal Lord and Saviour and then try livingthe best life you can. This is not what it means to live by the faith ofChrist. People today are trying to live for God, but the Bible reveals that wemust let Christ live for us. There is a great difference between trying to livefor God and allowing Christ to live for you.
To let Christ do the living for you, as wemust do, can only be done by submitting ourselves to his revealed word and obeyit. To yield yourself to Christ is done by ceasing to live a life the best youknow how and just begin to desire the word of God more than anything else. Youmust have a determination to know nothing but Christ and him crucified as Paulsaid in I Corinthians 2:2.
To know nothing but Christ can only bedone by your repentance from sin and begin to call upon God to save you and hewill then begin leading you into all truth that will set you free. To repentmeans to change your mind about the way you are living and begin to desire thethings of God. Jesus said to repent and believe the gospel. If people wouldsimply do this they would then realize what the strait and narrow way is thatJesus speaks about in his word.
Most people today who confess to be achristian will take membership in some church and begin to be taught of thatchurch's doctrine. Every organization that I know of says and teaches that allone has to do is to accept Christ as Lord and Saviour and become a member ofthe church and then be active in trying to get others to receive Christ astheir Saviour. They say nothing about the life of Christ and how he must be theone to live their life for them. About all you hear the average church memberconfess today is their sins that they commit. Now does this sound like the LordJesus is Lord of their lives and that it's him living their lives for them?
The Bible reveals that every spirit thatdoes not confess that Christ "is come" in the flesh, then thatspirit is not of God, but is rather that spirit of anti-christ. What thisscripture simply means is that the true child of God will confess to the factthat Christ is the one living in and being manifested through them.
How can Christ be the life of a personthat's always confessing their sins they commit everyday? If Christ is come inyour flesh then it will be the same Jesus that lived a sinless life like he didbefore or else it's not Christ. You either possess the Spirit of Christ or thespirit of anti-christ. The anti-christ spirit cannot and will not confess thatChrist is come in the flesh, which is proven by the confession they hold to onthe subject of the sin question.
Paul makes it very plain that Christ isthe one living his life for him in the flesh, and we are no different that heis. All that many people can understand about Christ being in a person is themiracles that he is supposed to do. Manifesting great miracles is not whathaving life and that more abundant is all about. Christ said he came to give uslife and that more abundant, but very few people can understand what he meantby this statement.
The life that Christ will give is a lifeof abundant peace and contentment. I also believe that miracles can be presentthrough the life of those who are truly born again of the Spirit of God, butthis is not what salvation is all about in itself. If you are living by thefaith of Christ then you are experiencing a life that far surpasses the naturallife. Jesus said in the world you will have tribulations, but in him you willhave peace. Do you have this peace friend?