You Cannot Live in Two Worlds at the Same Time

The point: There’s no need to be frustrated in your Christian life. There is a way forward. 

Many Christians are frustrated that they aren’t moving forward in their Christian maturity. The answer can be found in the following verse.

“Not I, but Christ." (Galatians 2:20)

Any true spiritual progress that lasts must be based upon our taking sides with God against our old life. Why is this the case? 

“Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." (Romans 8:7)

"Enmity" knows no reconciliation; crucifixion is the only alternative!

The life of Christ is the holiness of Christ. 
The reason we so often fail in the pursuit of holiness is that the old life, the flesh, in its own strength seeks for holiness as a beautiful garment to wear and enter heaven with. It is the daily death to self out of which the life of Christ rises up. -A.W.T.

This victory can only be obtained by faith in the word of God. 
By faith we daily “crucify’ and deny the power of our of natural self and reckon ourselves alive to God. We trust the life of Christ in us to produce the growth. Daily we consciously deny ourselves and trust God to work in us. 

A tragic mistake made by thousands
In receiving Christ we receive the divine-human life, a life that is death to the life of fallen nature, which finds its fruit in sin and self. The tragic mistake of thousands of believers is in trying to live in two worlds at the same time in nature and in God, in self and in Christ, in the flesh and in the Spirit, by faith and in independence, by abiding and by effort. To have life is not enough: the life of the Lord Jesus demands the death of the flesh, if that life is to be fully developed and become fruitful in us. Here is the crux of the whole matter.

“That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable unto His death." (Philippians 3:10)

Our Growth comes from our constant trust in Him and not ourselves.

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Feedback: Have you experienced frustration described here in your Christian life? Has this post helped clarify the way forward for you?

Adapted from Miles Stanford’s 1-30 Spiritual Balance.

Life's Purpose

By Miles J. Stanford

For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. (Colossians 2:9).

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19).

Christian growth is the becoming real in ourselves, of what is already true of us in the Lord Jesus.

'I am the vine, ye are the branches, He says. But the vine furnishes the branches, not only with the principle of life, but with the type of life. No pressure or molding from without is needed to shape them to the pattern of the parent stock. Every minutest peculiarity of form, and color, and taste, and fragrance is determined by the root, and developed from it. A true believer, therefore, will ask no better thing of the Lord than that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in his body (2 Corinthians 4:11).

"For such a manifestation will, by a necessary principle, be the unfolding within him of every needed element of joy and sorrow, of suffering and triumph." A.J. Gordon

"Straining, driving effort does not accomplish the work God gives a man to do; we must partake of Christ so fully that He more than fills the life. It will then be not overwork but overflow.

So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority. (Colossians 2:10).