LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Christ, Our Life
“When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:4).
We know we should have victory, so when we meet with a temptation we take great care, and we watch, and we pray. We feel it is our duty to fight against that thing, and to reject it, exerting our wills to the utmost. But that is not our victory. Christ is our victory.
We do not need willpower and determination to resist the tempter. We look to Him who is our life, “Lord, this is your affair; I count on you. The victory is yours, and you, not I, shall have the credit.” So often we gain a kind of victory, and everyone knows about it! We achieved it ourselves; but communion is broken and there is no peace.
Many of us live in constant fear of temptation. We know just how much we can stand, but alas, we have not discovered how much Christ can stand. I can stand temptation up to a point, but beyond that point, I am done for.
If two children cry, the mother can stand it, but if more than two cry together, under she goes. Yet it is not really a matter of whether two children cry, or three. It is all a question of whether I am getting the victory or Christ. If it is I, then I can stand two only. If Christ, it won't matter if twenty cry at once! To be carried through by Christ is to be left wondering afterwards how it happened!
This, too, is a matter that God delights to bring to us with a new dash of understanding. Suddenly one day we see that Christ is our life. That day everything is changed. There is a day when we see ourselves in Christ. After that, nothing can make us see ourselves outside of Him. It alters everything.
Then also there is a day when we see that Christ within us is our life. That too alters our whole outlook. They may be different days with an interval between, or both may come together. But we must have both; and when we do, then we begin to know Christ's fullness, and to marvel that we have been so stupid hitherto as to remain poor in God's storehouse. (Watchman Nee).