Christ Jesus alone.  The Life of Christ lived in us by the Spirit of Christ.  Finding hope is in Christ alone.  Joy as well, and peace.

In these we will find our living and our being.  In Christ Jesus alone, and in all He would do in us. Nothing else will bring us life as our God intends it for us.

We have all become so caught up in the things, the issues, and the systems of the world.  Entanglements all of them, and we were warned about them in the scriptures.  We have been through eight months of ups and downs related to the pandemic. Now we are looking at the quite-real possibility of sustained violence and disruption coming upon us at a time when the pandemic is surging to levels unseen prior to this. For many, the focus is on these events, their impact upon us and our loved ones.

Therefore, with so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run the race set before us with endurance, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith…. (Hebrews 12:1-2).  “I have come that they might have life, and might have it to the fullest.” (Jesus Christ, John 10:10).

Christ Jesus alone.  The Life of Christ lived in us by the Spirit of Christ.  Finding hope is in Christ alone.  Joy as well, and peace.

We need to become focused upon the pursuit of our God, on complete surrender to Him to the point of abandonment of all of our self-direction and self-fulfillment.  We cannot ever find the fulfillment for which we seek in anything we derive from our self-life.  Never.  It is not present or available within us or by our own working.  The self-life is a roadblock to the abundant life, a stumbling block to the work of our God in us.

Watchman Nee said this: “God will not give me humility, or patience, or holiness, or love as separate investments of His grace.  He has given only one gift to meet our need, His Son Christ Jesus.”  The sum of the Christian experience is not my life improved bit by bit.  It is the life of Christ alone lived in me, in place of my own.  

We cannot piecemeal or cobble together the Christian life over time, fitting it into our own living.  We were saved for union with our God, the abiding life of Christ lived in us in place of our own lives.  Thus the words of Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me, and the life that I now live I live by faith in the Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”   And likewise, the words of Jesus: “The one who finds his life will lose it, but the one who loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Christ Jesus alone.  The Life of Christ lived in us by the Spirit of Christ.  Finding hope is in Christ alone.  Joy as well, and peace.