Galatians 2:20

Galatians 2:15–21 (ESV): Justified by Faith

15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.  19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 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. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Abba,

“For through the law I died to the law, SO THAT I might live to God.”

Such a simple, concise statement.  Yet profound and rich! 

My life is not my own.  My goals are not my own.  My purpose is not my own.  My passions are not my own.  I was rescued, redeemed, saved TO LIVE FOR ANOTHER.  Sure, this is nothing new, but I wonder if I truly live with this reality in mind.  I wonder, do we?  Truth is, we claim too much control or authority over our lives.  We fail to ask what you want for our lives.  We fail to surrender to your gospel purposes for our lives.  We fail to ask what your will is when it comes to our jobs, our families, our retirement, our hobbies, our interests, etc.  We fail to live TO you every day.

The more I see the coming persecution, the more I wish it would rush in faster. Not because I want to suffer, because nothing in me wants that.  But rather, I yearn for the purity of your church.  I long for sold out followers of your name who are truly living FOR and TO you rather than merely making you an accessory to adorn their lives.  Persecution has a way of removing the dross and purging our lives of the extraneous.  It has a way of returning us to the things that truly matter.  And I think that is what the church needs; to be returned to the things that matter;  To living life TO you and FOR you.  EVERY decision, EVERY action, EVERY pursuit should be all about you and for you.  I wonder, how many of my own actions are still polluted by me?

How many of my decisions are made with me in mind and not you?  How many of my actions are directed at my will and purposes and never give thought to yours?  How many of my actions are never evaluated in light of my Savior’s sacrifice for me?  How many of my thoughts, passions, and deeds fail to stop and consider how they impact the one who died to redeem them?  How many, Abba?   How many, Jesus?  How many, Spirit? 

Am I truly living TO you?

Or is my life still filled with too much of me?

Abba, I want my life TO BE YOU.  I have seen and continue to see what happens when I make my life about me.  It is a mess.  Colossal.

And that is because I was never meant to live for myself.  I was ALWAYS meant to live for you, my maker, my creator, my God.  Sin made life about me. Sin MAKES life about me.  And it robs me/us of the great pleasure, delight, and purpose of living for you; of living for something profoundly greater than me!  Truth is, when we place ourselves….no….when I place myself at the center of my life, I think I am making some grand gesture , some magnanimous act that elevates my life to epic proportions.  In truth, I am reducing my life to minuscule proportions.  Rather than expanding my life and and participating in a something bigger and richer than myself; rather than engaging in a narrative that is beyond the limited scope of my life and living for my created purpose of an epic story beyond myself, making myself the center of my own story robs me of the glory and joy of being a part of something that is infinitely bigger than I can ever or ever will be.  I am limited.  I am created.  To live FOR you, Abba…..is to make myself about MORE than me; it is to immerse myself in a something so much greater than my small world.

Destroy the contentment I feel at being satisfied in the world of my own making.  Give me an immersive view of the life you want me to know IN YOU.  Tease my appetite for a narrative of eternal and majestic proportions.  May it consume me and overwrite the pathetic story that I try to write on my own, for myself.  Let every jot and tittle be written with You in mind, with Your story in focus, with Your purpose and will at the forefront of the narrative.

Let me revel in making YOU the main character of the story instead of insisting upon my being the hero.  Samwise Gamgee flashed in my mind as I wrote those words.  Sam was always content to be second, to be less.  He was content to make much of Frodo, to let him be the hero, to support him.  He was content to not be the center of attention.  How I need to be more like Sam.  How we need to be more like that.  The story, the narrative has never been about us, about me.  The epic storyline unfolding from creation till now has never been about the created things….it is about the creator.  And yet, in our arrogance and foolishness, we make it about us.  It is about YOU.   Creation and history is YOUR story.  We are merely part of that story and, incredibly, we are included in it….but it is NOT our story.  To make it OUR story is to hijack what was always another and make it about me.  And that is the ultimate in selfish arrogance. 

Abba, let me delight in living TO you, FOR you.

Rescue me from the foolishness of making it all about me. 

Enrapture my heart with your majesty and give me greater joy at the life and narrative of another whose worth is incomparable to my own.