Not About Us

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 ESV) Let’s kill the ego for a minute. Let’s see ourselves in light of what we truly are: dead on arrival. It’s not as pessimistic as you’re thinking. When Jesus arrived into the scene we call “our lives” we were dead. There was nothing left for most of us. There was no inkling of hope, nor any ray of sunshine. Yet, from that circumstance, we were saved from death by the death of our Christ. And in a stunning series of events, what unfolded was the death of ourselves but the raising of one greater who lives in us. This happened at the instance of our belief. That is the amazing miracle of life in all our stories that we forget and neglect. We have been crucified in our faith with Christ on a cross. God, the Father, turns around and raises Christ up from the dead and so we live a life. The life we live is not one that will end in death, but will end in more life. The strange thing about all of that is that even after we receive Christ as our savior and after we have new life in Christ, we continue with our lives with the end game being death. That is because we have this strange thought that our lives were redeemed by God to be about us; but our lives are not about us. The lives we live in faith are lives filled with none other than the Christ that was raised to life after suffering our deaths. It’s not about us. If life is not about us, then we must ask ourselves: how does a life not our own play out daily? The Apostle Paul says that a life not our own is lived out in faith of Christ. Thus implying that we stop asking ourselves what would Jesus do, and actually do what Jesus would do. Very simply, we believe that what we do is not motivated in selfishness or in our own ego (which also means we test to make sure that our actions are not motivated in selfishness and ego) and do those things that Christ lived to do in his own life here on Earth– that is to say, live to serve other people in out-flowing love. Therefore, if I’m not being clear, our lives must be filled by “the blind receiving sight, the lame walking, those with leprosy cleansed, the deaf hearing, the dead are raising, and the good news proclaimed to the poor” (Luke 7:22). When our lives stop becoming about us, this is what happens! This too, is our calling in life as we give ourselves fully over into faith that Christ saves our wretched souls. There is never any assurance that what we are doing are truly from Christ, but we go in faith that when we live a life that is not about us and lived through the intentions of Christ, Jesus, that we do in His name, His very will. That is the amazing grace that awaits us and our lives. It’s time for us to live faithfully in it– to be a life that gives others life in Jesus name. Join me in this endeavor to die to ourselves and live with Christ alive in me.