“The Christian life is simple. The Christian life is impossible. The Christian life is Christ living His life in you.” – Dann Spader.

This simple saying is of immeasurable importance to our understanding of the life our God has in mind for us. The life to which He calls every true disciple is not lived by us. It is lived by the life of Christ in us, by His Spirit of life and truth living in us in place of our own living. The simplicity is exactly this – the only path of true Christian living is Christ living His life in you and in me.

We do not live the life of our God, for only He can do that. And He will do so in us if we invite Him to do so and surrender all our living up to Him

If we try to live “the Christian life” apart from from the surrendering of all our living to Him and His life lived in us in place of ours, we will find it utterly impossible. We were warned about that. The scriptures are quite clear that our new life in Christ is indeed His resurrection life lived in us in place of our own living.

Luke 9:23-25 “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.  For what does it profit them if they gain the whole world but lose or forfeit themselves?“

Romans 8:1-9 “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.  For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.  To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.  For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed, it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.“

1 Corinthians 6:16-17 Do you not know that your bodies are parts of Christ? Shall I then take away the parts of Christ and make them parts of a prostitute? Far from it! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.” But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.”

2 Corinthians 3:4-6 “Such is the confidence we have toward God through Christ. Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

The “Christian Life” as it is called is based upon the word, “Christian,” meaning like Christ or “little Christ.” In the strict sense of the word it is inaccurate – if we are true disciples we are not like Christ or even “little Christs.” We are our heavenly Father’s children who are sons and daughters because we are inhabited and enlivened by the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ. As Paul stated, “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 up for me” (Galatians 2:19-20).

Not copies, not replications, not “knock-offs” of Jesus, but the actual dwelling places of the Son of God on earth. In this sense, we are His incarnation on earth, the clothing of flesh in which the Christ of God makes Himself visible and known among people. We are His Spirit’s temple on earth, and no other temple structure made by humans will suffice for His dwelling.

While there is not urgent need to change words around, there is a dramatic need for us to change our thinking. On earth it is in us where the life of Christ is now found, and where by His life His Kingdom is made visible. What we call the “Christian Life” is more accurately referred to as the “Christ Life.” That life is Christ Jesus living His life in and through us every moment of every day. That life is the “Christ in you, the hope of glory” life (Colossians 1:27).

This is the simple life of partaking of the divine life (2 Peter 1:4), the impossible life made possible by our redemption, sanctification, and indwelling by the life and Spirit of Christ. In the Kingdom of God, that’s really livin’!