God Without Religion_ Can It Really Be This Simple_ - Andrew Farley [73]
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20)
Paul says he no longer lives, but then he says he does now live, by faith. So which is it? Does he live or doesn’t he? Well, both. The old Paul (Saul of Tarsus) no longer lives, and it’s now Christ living in him. But it’s also the new Paul living in dependency on Christ.
It’s a union, a mystery. And it is beautiful!
How close is your Jesus?
The Great One
Wayne Gretzky, often called “the Great One,” is regarded by most as the best hockey player of all time. When Gretzky retired, he held forty regular season records, fifteen playoff records, and six All-Star records. In all, Gretzky was awarded nine trophies as most valuable player, ten trophies for most points in a season, five trophies for sportsmanship, and two trophies as playoff MVP. After retiring in 1999, Gretzky was almost immediately inducted into the Hall of Fame.
What made Wayne Gretzky so great? He seemed to have a sixth sense of where everyone was on the ice and where the puck was at all times. He could weave around players like they weren’t even there. He’d anticipate their moves, dodge their checks, and skate around them before they even realized it. Gretzky possessed an instinctive understanding of the game and the limits of his fellow players. And the Great One had a way all his own.
Now imagine that by some strange turn of events, you’re invited to play in an NHL playoff game. Even stranger, prior to the game you find yourself inhabited by the spirit of the Great One. Yeah, the spirit of Wayne Gretzky literally indwells you. As you step out on the ice for that game, you have a choice: to play hockey like you’ve always played (or not played!) or depend on Gretzky to play the game through you by faith. So what will you do? You can skate to the best of your ability or allow Gretzky to motivate and animate your every move so you end up skating in a way you’ve never known.
It’s the same for those of us indwelt by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. We were never intended to live this life in our own resources or by our own methods. The entire reason we are given Jesus himself, rather than a ticket to heaven, is so that he can motivate us and animate us, living his life in and through us—a life we could never live apart from him.
And his divine life in us sure makes “the game” a lot more fun.
33
I took a religion course my senior year of university. At the time, I was in the midst of recovering from my own ruthless religion. So I approached the course with a desperate dependence on Christ to protect my mind from error. My goal was to complete the course unscathed.
For our final paper, the professor assigned one New Testament topic to each of us. I received “God the Father.” At twenty-one years old, I was absolutely petrified of writing and presenting a paper on God. So I went home and immediately began preparing.
For weeks I researched what the New Testament had to say about God the Father. I found myself clinging to every verse I could find. I was also dumping any preconceived notions I had been holding on to. When it finally came time to write my paper, I was so afraid of going wrong that I literally put a Scripture verse in parentheses after each sentence. I didn’t dare say a thing that wasn’t virtually a direct quote from the Bible. I wanted to meticulously document every ounce of what I wrote.
But the night before I presented my paper, I got cold feet about all those references after every sentence. I was afraid it’d look a bit hokey and insecure. So I pulled the verses out and placed them at the very end of the paper as endnotes.
The next day, I stood up and read my paper on “God the Father.” Now, remember that every sentence was a summary of Scripture that I’d found somewhere in