Consider the source

I’ve been sleepy and without ambition since seeing my heart specialist. At first, I thought those symptoms were due to a-fib and heart failure. I was anxious and trying to protect myself by napping and doing very little. However, I realized this morning that a new pill is causing the problem.

Since then, even though the sluggishness remains, knowing my heart is not causing it changed my attitude. I can live and move and do things with pill-produced symptoms. They are not a sign that I’m in heart failure, just an annoyance that is temporary.

For me, this is a metaphor. When I became a Christian, life changed. Some of my subjective emotions and experiences were confusing, mostly because I didn’t know their origin. Why was I feeling this way or that? Where did these new desires come from and what about the old ones?

God answered those questions through His Word and through a wonderful book called “Born Crucified” by L. E. Maxwell. It describes the work of the Cross in the life of Christians. I’ve read this book several times and today am especially thankful for it after reading Tozer’s remarks about those who fail to understand the full value of what the Cross means in their lives. Tozer begins with this passage where Paul lists his religious credentials then dismisses them as garbage. The last of them is his ability to keep the law of God which he calls “righteousness under the law” and says he was “blameless.” But he considered all of that as having no value:

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:6–10).

While the Cross is a fact of history and an act of God that changed history, it is also subjective and a very real part of being a follower of Jesus Christ. Like that pill, my new life was filled with new desires and old symptoms. I soon realized the importance of identifying what was going on and where all my thoughts and ideas were coming from.

The gist of Maxwell’s book is summed up in one verse:

“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.” (Galatians 2:20)

When I was born into the family of God by grace through faith, I was also crucified with Christ. The new life He gave me is His life, and I live it by faith. Not perfectly. Often not visibly or outwardly. Nevertheless, without the Cross I would still be bound in sin and totally living by my own strength, useless to God and without His peace and joy.

Because that old life is sluggish and unwilling to do anything for God, I’m to ignore it, considering the truth that it has been crucified. The new life is ready to serve, alert and passionate about Jesus Christ. God showed me that I can choose which ‘symptom’ is going to rule my day. If I base my choice on what God says is true about me — that I am crucified with Christ, dead to the old life and by faith sharing in the new life of Jesus Christ — that old life (like that pill) will still try to pull me into lethargy, but now that I know where that negativity is coming from, I can more easily ignore it.

^^^^^^^^^^

Jesus, this is helpful. It may not make sense to others, yet You are able to encourage all of us to consider ourselves as what You say we are, rather than what logic, emotions and other human faculties tell us we are. I’m glad that the Cross makes it possible to live by faith, not by sight or by feelings, trusting You to deal with the old stuff as You teach us how to live with the new.