Replaced With Christ

This morning, I saw someone post the devotional I wrote a few years ago about my little chicken, Audrey. 

The devotional went viral the first time I posted it, and each year around this time of year, I usually start seeing it passed around on Facebook and it always has a different name attached to it. And each time I see it, I’m tempted to raise my hand up and say, “I wrote that.” And the Lord always reminds me, “It is not your writing people respond to, it is My Spirit within it.” And my flesh groans as it is pierced by His reminder. My ego grimaces under the keen thrust of His truth. And then a little more of “self” dies, and a little more of Christ takes its place. 

The truth is, any true work for the Lord, is by the Lord. The moment we consciously try to take credit for it, He allows us to receive credit, and in that moment, His Spirit departs from that work. And then we are left with credit for a dead work. Oswald Chambers said, “The true character of the loveliness that tells for God is always unconscious…So often we mar God’s designed influence through us by our self-conscious effort to be consistent and useful.” 

Chambers said there must be “the relinquishing of my claim to my right to myself in every phase.” We don’t crucify ourselves, but the crucifixion of our flesh is something we choose— “Whoever does not carry his cross cannot…” The first step is to assent to crucifixion by our own free will, just like Jesus did— “I lay it down of my own accord…” The next step is to agree with God that, “As for God, His way is perfect”— Jesus didn’t go to the cross indignant, but “for the joy set before Him He endured the cross.” Then the next step is to consciously reject what we want and accept what God wants instead— “…yet not my will, but Yours be done.” And then we die a little. Or maybe we die a lot. 

Either way, we die, so that Christ can live in us. 

(Matt 6:5,6) And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. Truly I tell you, they already have their full reward. But when you pray, go into your inner room, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

(Gal. 2:20; 6:14) I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me…But as for me, may I never boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

(Is 48:10,11) Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; For how can My name be profaned? And I will not give My glory to another.