The Gift of Starting Over

I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live…

Galatians 2:20

Here is a precious jewel, a truth that could only be taught after the ascension of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Christ spoke of taking up one’s cross and following after Him, but only after the coming of the Spirit could there be the second part of this — to live a new life in Christ. This radical obedience, an extreme way of life, is not just for the “Super Christian,” not just for missionaries or pastors, but for every believer.

Often we see this demonstrated in missionary service, as people have traveled to foreign lands, often into war zones or into areas rife with life-threatening diseases for the sake of Christ. Baker James Cauthen wrote these words describing missionary dedication:

A missionary should be a Christian characterized by radical obedience — so radical that it may make him at times seem strange to other people. Some people asked us when we went to China as missionaries, as war was coming: “Take your children across the world? Leave a church, a ministry, an educational career and cross the world as missionaries?” But radical obedience only asks, “What does my Lord want me to do?” It asks not, “What is going to happen to me if I do it?” or, “What will the world say?” but, “What does my Lord want?” When you keep his word, it becomes your rule of action.[i]

This is, however, the only Christian commitment that the New Testament talks about. If we are followers of Christ, then we are to have the same attitude — to be crucified with Christ and then to live through Him.

The deep knowledge of this experience is impossible to describe entirely. But we can make at least some surface observations — the rest must be learned by experience. Paul did not say that he was going to mount his own crucifixion and live by it. He did not make himself into a martyr, and boast in this achievement — even though later he died for his faith. His death was experienced through identification with the death of Christ. He saw that when Christ died there was brought to humanity a great gift, the gift of starting over, the gift of being free from an old life and the gift of a new life in Christ.

This identification with Christ’s death has an emotional aspect, but it is not only or even mostly death through sympathy. I have seen people meditate on the sufferings of Christ, particularly Catholics, though not only them, who are vicariously moved with sympathy. Some even join in processionals inflicting pain on their own bodies. But this is not what Paul was speaking about.

He meant an end to the self-life is achieved through the death of Christ. It was achieved by Christ for all. It becomes ours when we believe in Christ and see that in His death our old life died also. “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin — because anyone who has died has been freed from sin” (Rom. 6:6–7).

This is the end of both our failures and our achievements, and Paul wrote about both, even the religious achievements of his former life as a Pharisee — “I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ” (Phil. 3:8). And we now live a new life, not boasting in ourselves, not even boasting in our dedication, but a life filled with Christ.

One of the most important lessons I ever learned, and its memory is still very meaningful to me, was along these lines. I was a teenager who became too proud of some recognition I had received in church. A dear friend confronted me, pointing out that my attitude was wrong. She pulled me aside and with another close friend we separated ourselves to pray. By the Spirit I realized that I had wanted people to notice me and not to notice Christ, and that these two values could not co-exist! I am to die to Him and let Him live in me — and if He is living in me then others will see Him more than me. God’s Spirit convicted me that evening and brought me to a new understanding of life and service.

I have often had to mentally pull myself back into that room where three of us prayed and it has remained one of the most precious moments of grace in my life. I cannot thank my friends enough, for in this thought is the genius of the Christian faith. Through Christ we can become what we would not become any other way, but the first part of this is to cease to be what we are in the flesh. We are to die to sin and self, reckoned so by the death of Christ, and then in Him and through Him rise to live for Him.

Prayer:

Lord, thank You for the gift of starting over. Thank You that we may die to our sin and our self-achievements and live daily in the reality of Your life. Amen.

[i] Baker James Cauthen, Beyond Call, p. 40.