Christ Lives in Me!
For neither is circumcision anything nor uncircumcision,
but a new creation is what matters (Galatians 6:15).
The Lord Was Not Real to Me
This verse became especially meaningful to me the summer after I graduated from high school. I’d been raised in a Christian family and had received the Lord as a junior high school student. But soon after that, I stopped pursuing the Lord. In my perception, to be a Christian meant following religious, Biblical laws and holding one’s self to a standard of behavior that I could never meet, no matter how hard I tried. During high school, I did not meet with other Christians, did not pray, and did not read the Bible. As far as I was concerned, the Lord was not real to me.
What Matters to the Lord
But after I graduated from high school, at my dad’s persistent urging, I agreed to attend a training for Christian college students on the book of Galatians. Through the speaking, I saw that Christ has replaced the law and is versus both religion and tradition. What a surprise this was to me! Galatians 6:15 reveals both what doesn’t matter to the Lord and what does matter to Him. What doesn’t matter is “circumcision,” which represents religious ordinances of the law. In the Lord’s eyes, our reading the Bible as a rulebook — and then struggling and striving to follow those “rules” out of our own effort — amounts to nothing. Rather, what matters to Him is that we become a new creation, a group of normal human beings who have received God into us and who are, day by day, having this wonderful Person worked into our souls until we become exactly the same as He is in life and nature, but not in His Godhead. It isn’t about trying to be loving, joyous, long-suffering, kind, good, or faithful. All He asks of us is that we experience and enjoy Him.
Learning to Enjoy Christ
I was so touched by this speaking that afterwards I consecrated the rest of my college years to the Lord, that He would live in me and that He would work more of Himself into me. As a college student, meeting with the church in Chicago, I learned to enjoy Him by praying over the word, by calling on His name, by spending time in His sweet presence, and by having fellowship with the other believers. This has been my testimony now for several years — Christ lives in me, He’s real, and He’s so enjoyable!
~ Isaiah