Colossians 1:27 To them God willed to make known what are the riches of his glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
In today's reading Blackaby uses the verse from Colossians to remind believers that the Christian life is much more than doing Christian stuff. He writes, "it (discipleship) is learning to give Jesus Christ total access to your life so He will live His life through you."
Through you, not just in you. I had to stop and think this about this a while. They a light started to creep in around the edges of my ol' brain. If all I do is think of Christ as living in me, then my focus becomes internal. However, if I regard Christ as living through me, Christian living takes on a whole other dimension.
Many times I have heard the statement made of parents who are pushing their child to succeed at an unreasonable level, that the parent is "living his/her life through the child". The parent is unable to be the beauty queen or stellar quarterback, so the parent gets his/her fulfillment through the child's success.
In the human sense, living one's life through a child is negative and frowned upon. But for believers, it should be the model for Christian living. For 33 years, as Jesus, God walked on the earth. He modeled love, compassion, righteous anger, purposeful living and obedience to the Heavenly Father (the list could go on). Since His ascension to heaven after his crucifixion, He has not been that physical model for all that is good and right. Therefore, He must "live his life through us". We must be the Jesuses on earth. We must be the models of love, compassion, righteous anger, purposeful living and obedience to the Heavenly Father (the list should go on).
"That's impossible!" you say. Quite right, mon frere. If we try to be Christ's earthly conduit on our own power, we will fail miserably. I can attest to that time and time again. It is only by recognizing and embracing the Christ in us can we be a worthy Christ model. He lives IN me so He can work THROUGH me. My biggest challenge is to allow my relationship with God to eclipse in importance my activities for God.
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