Transcript:

Hello, it’s Jessica here and I just wanted to take a few minutes to share something that has made a huge difference in my relationship with God over the last few years and something that I feel like I’ve learned and grown deeper in my understanding of this over time and still continuing to learn it more and more. And it’s something just really exciting and beautiful to me that I see in Scripture and that I see as living the Christian life and I just wanted to share that here.

Prioritizing

I used to live, and many people live in a way that we would list priorities and put God first, maybe family second, work third, friends fourth, and we have this list of priorities where we put God as number one — and we always want to keep God as number one and then we kind of list everything: second, third, fourth, fifth, and so on. And sometimes, I would do a really good job of keeping God number one. That might look like: I would spend time with God in the morning, read the Bible, journal, go to church, be in fellowship and whatnot. Sometimes He would kind of fall into number two or number three, and things would kind of slip down the list and then I would have to kind of do a regroup after realizing after a few days or a few weeks, and be like: “okay, I need to put God back on number one“. And I would kind of reevaluate and see what happened, what went wrong? Why did He kind of slip down the list? Why am I being distracted by different things? or what’s going on? Why is He not number one in my life? It was kind of this cycle of going back and forth and putting Him up there and then sometimes He would slip back down and then putting Him back again and Him slipping back down. Sometimes, it felt a little bit like a roller coaster, up and down and and it wasn’t always very consistent. And over time, by being in the Word, reading different books and just from other mature Christians and seeing their life and talk about the Word and their relationships with the Lord. I realized that I wasn’t viewing my relationship with God in the way that the Word tells me it should be. The Word does not say that my relationship with God is separate from everything else in my life, rather the word of God tells me the opposite that my relationship with God is everything in my life. It’s not just a part of my life, but it’s everything. To help explain this better. I want to share some of my favorite Scriptures in regards to this idea where Scripture clearly states this relationship to God in our lives. It’s all throughout the New Testament, these three are some of my favorites.

The first one is Colossians 3:1-4:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

So here in Colossians, we see that we have died and our life is hidden with Christ in God. Christ who is our
life will appear then we also will appear with Him in glory.

Galatians 2:20

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.

So here it says that it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.

Romans 6:5-8

For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.

So we have died with Christ, we will also live with Him. You see a Scripture says that Christ is not just a bullet point on our priority list, but rather He is our life. We are hidden in Him. He lives in us. We live with Him. And better yet, not just that He lives in us but that we have died. Our flesh has died and we now live in the spirit, in Christ. He is literally the spiritual air we breathe. He is everything. Matt Chandler put it one way, He says that, “Jesus is not number one on our priority list, but rather He is the paper on which we write our list.” And that for me was very life changing in regards to my relationship with the Lord. That He was not just a number on my list, but He was the paper on which I write my list. So everything I do, how I live is completely saturated in Christ and in His life and who He is.

Live in the House

The book “Abide in Christ”¹ gives an example of how when you’re sleeping in a house, you are not consciously thinking about the house that you’re in. You’re not thinking about the details of the house or in order to be in the house, it’s not like you absolutely have to be thinking: “I’m in this house, I’m in this house”. When you’re asleep you’re dreaming, but yet you’re still in that house and you’re still protected by that house. And many times we think that we have to consciously be thinking about Christ all day, everyday, so that we are putting Him first, and we feel like we have to be thinking about Him in every little thing we do, “What would God want me to do here? What would God want me to do there?” and all of that is good, but we don’t have to have a conscious effort all the time to be thinking about Him in those things because He is in those things. We are living in Him, He is living in us. When we live this way it really changes everything because we are saying, “Christ, I live in you and through you. Everything I do is in you. You are not separate from anything in my day.” This was very freeing for me because then I no longer feel like I’m competing with things on the priority list. It suddenly frees me to live in Christ and have Him first in absolutely everything in my life. But it also reveals my sin more clearly. Because when I sin and allow my flesh to rule I can see that more clearly and it does not coincide with Christ’s life in me and it needs to leave right away. This is truly how to live the Christian life. We have to live knowing that our flesh has died and that now we live in the Spirit, in Christ. Every single moment of your day is in Him. Every single thing you do is for His glory. The Spirit is alive in you. And as you live the normal Christian life and read the Word, commune with other believers, live in the light and confess anything of sin in your life quickly, you are feeding the Spirit and allowing Christ to live more and more in you and you’re denying the flesh and helping it die more and more and more…

So some questions to think about: are you living in Christ? Is He literally the air that you breathe? Or is He just a part of your day? Is He in all that you do? Or is He just a number on your list? Thanks for listening and may you have Christ in every single moment of your life for the rest of your life.

[1]: Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray