Morning Moments

The Danger of Living

During the latter days of Robert Louis Stevenson’s illness, a clergyman wrote expressing his willingness to come and talk with the noted novelist “as to one in danger of dying.” The beloved Britisher replied he would be delighted to receive the minister and to talk to him, “as to one in the danger of living.”
Jones, G. C. (1986). 1000 illustrations for preaching and teaching (213). Nashville, TN: Broadman Press.

Luke 9:24 (HCSB)
24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will save it.

The greatest danger of living is living for oneself! Jesus makes it perfectly clear in our text that to live one's life selfishly, according to the flesh, self-motivated, self-indulgent, self-anything will bring the greatest lose to life.

But how can we know for whom we are living? How can we know for sure that it is NOT I, but Christ living in me? Volumes are written about the "life" of a Christian. It is called many things by many different people, such as the "Crucified Life", "Resurrected Life", "Abundant Life", "Victorious Life", and on and on, but WHAT is it and how do I know that I have it?

IT begins when I abandon myself to Jesus Christ and agree with Father that He is LORD. When God enters my life spiritually, I then enter HIS life spiritually. We all understand that this is how one BECOMES a Christian. But all of the terms we use for the Christian life focus not upon BECOMING but upon BEING. That is the difference.

Can one become a doctor and not practice medicine? Of course! But at one's own lose. Can one become anything and not be what he or she has become? Yes, but usually at great lose. Can one become a Christian and not BE what he or she has become? Of course. It is why Paul wrote to the Colossians: "Having therefore RECEIVED Christ Jesus, the Lord, SO WALK YE IN HIM. That is being what you have become. It is not a matter of feeling but a matter of fact and faith.

The FACT is that I am dead and my life is hid with Christ IN God. If I truly believe that fact, the faith enables me to live in accordance with that fact. And if I died with Christ, and I DID according to Scripture, THEN I am ALIVE with Christ and it thus becomes a matter of "reckoning" what is so to be so. How we KNOW we have been saved is how we KNOW we are living the resurrected, abundant, crucified, or whatever you wish to call it LIFE. That's how you KNOW! It is more than a choice; it is a compulsion to please Father in all things.

If you are struggling today, received this amazing truth and move from the wilderness into Canaan, where there are still battles, but they are the Lord's. There are still needs, but He supplies them. There are still challenges, but He controls them, and guides us, as more than conquerors through Him who loves us, into victory. THAT is the VICTORIOUS CHRISTIAN LIFE - TAKE IT, IT IS YOURS!

BLESSINGS!