We just had a wonderful holiday celebrating the most important act ever done for mankind, even though we cannot completely fathom what was done on that day. I won’t be going into details of what really happened during Easter but I quickly want to draw your attention to something; Before there was Easter Sunday, there was the Friday i.e. before Jesus was resurrected he had to be crucified. Do you know that is the exact same thing that happened when you got born again?
Galatians 2:20 – “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (NLT)
One statement that stood out for me there was ‘My old self has been crucified with Christ”, what does this mean? Many go through the motions of accepting and confessing Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, at that point they got a new spirit, which makes them just like Jesus in God’s sight and guarantees their salvation but that’s not all there is to being a follower of Christ, there is the part of crucifying your old self with Christ, even Jesus himself said whosoever would follow him should first deny himself (Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23), what does this mean?
Before accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior, you had a life that you lived, you played by your own rules and you did whatever you wanted to do. You had habits, behaviors, temperaments or attitudes. Now that you are a Christian, the only thing Jesus requires from you is to let Him be your Lord in every area. He wants to rule your habits, your temperaments, he wants to rule your behaviors, he wants to be Lord over your actions and every decision you make, to sum it up he wants to be Lord over your life. The act of you surrendering all of these to him is crucifying the flesh, old self or denying yourself.
This is not something you say or confess, it is an act. It is not forced, no one can force you to it, only you can and you don’t have to do it to please your pastor or anyone else, it is an agreement between you and your Lord. Your Christian walk (Christianity) is a relationship between you and God and no one else. What any other person thinks is irrelevant. When you get angry and about to burst out, stop and remember your old self who gets angry and bursts out has been crucified with Christ. When you are about to engage in that old habit (that you know is wrong), remember you have crucified your old self. When you are tempted to gossip about someone or say something wrong about someone, remember that your old self has been crucified. When you’re tempted to fall into temptation, remember you are dead to sin and alive to Christ.
The amazing thing is that we all have different areas when it comes to crucifying the flesh; we are all different and have different areas that need crucifixion. I know myself and know where I have to crucify the flesh, the same thing with everyone else, only you know, that’s why it is between you and your Lord.
After crucifixion comes resurrection, by crucifying the flesh, you are setting the stage for experiencing the resurrection power of God. Do you know the resurrection of Christ is the greatest manifestation of God’s power? (Ephesians 1:19-20). If you want to see the manifestation of the mighty power of God, crucify your flesh and watch him resurrect you and your life. We have not seen the extent to which God can manifest himself in a man’s life but this will only be made possible if the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) is totally put to death. Remember we have crucified our old selves with Christ and we have a new life in Him as our Lord.
It doesn’t have to be all at once; you can take it one at a time and work on it. Spend some moments to reflect on this.
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