To live “to and for yourself” is to “walk after the flesh”!
To live “to and for Christ” is to “walk after the Spirit”!
These are the two principles of human behavior. It is not just a matter of degree, it is a matter of kind; to be dominated by the “flesh” is to be dominated by the devil; and to be dominated by the Spirit is to be dominated by God.
Two men doing identically the same thing may at the same time, by their identical act, be demonstrating two different principles of behavior, which are diametrically opposed to each other.
What is the principle that governs your behavior?
I am not asking you the nature of your behavior; I am asking you the principle from which it springs!
Remember sin is defined in the Bible as independence: “whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23), an attitude of “lawlessness” (I John 3:4); what then does repentance involve? It involves stepping out of independence back into dependence – and the measure of your repentance will be the measure of your dependence!
Christian living is not a method or technique; it is an entirely different, revolutionary principle of life. It is the principle of an exchanged life” not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20).
This is all part of our Gospel – it is not the Gospel plus! We must not get our terminology wrong. To divorce the behavior of the Christian from the Gospel is entirely false and is not true to the Word of God, yet all too often such is the characteristic of gospel preaching.
I would like to explore with you what is the true spiritual content of our Gospel not just heaven one day, but Christ right now! Christ in you, on the grounds of redemption this is the Gospel! To preach anything less than this must inevitably produce “Evan-jellyfish” folk with no spiritual vertebrae, whose faith docs not “behave!”
Do you remember what James says in his epistle? “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead” (chapter 2:26). The “spirit” there means breath, and a body without breath is dead. Stop breathing and folk will bury you! In other words, a living body breathes, and a living faith breathes, and a living faith breaths with divine action. A living faith breathes with the activity of Jesus Christ. That is why the Lord Jesus, in John 6:29, said, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.”
That is the work of God. It is your living faith in the adequacy of the One who is in you, which releases His divine action through you. It is the kind of activity that the Bible calls “good works,” as opposed to “dead works.”
“Good works” are those works that have their origin in Jesus Christ – - whose activity is released through your body, presented to Him as a living sacrifice by a faith that expresses total dependence, as opposed to the Adamic independence (Romans 12: 1,2).
It is only the life of the Lord Jesus — His activity, clothed with you and displayed through you, that ultimately will find the approval of God.
