Christ In and As YOU!

By Fred Pruitt

(from 2002)

I did want to spend just a moment on what you said about your life and witness. If you don’t mind my saying so, you seem to do what we all do, until we see this which I think is a little further down the road. And that is that we tend to focus on ourselves, how we are, how we seem, how we look, how we feel, to gauge and evaluate our “witness,” or the effectiveness of Christ in our lives. So we say self-depreciating things, because we want to be honest before the Lord, and always seem to have this sense of never quite measuring up.

I have found the key to overcoming that negative self-viewpoint, honest though it may seem, is to take the focus off myself and put it where it belongs, on Christ. Let me tell you what I mean, because the natural knee-jerk reaction of most people to that statement would be thoughts like: “Oh, I’ve got to get closer to Jesus, I’ve got to …., I should ….., I should not ….” etc etc ….

Janis & I are in a similar situation to you, in that Janis is full-bore involved with the local music scene here in Louisville, much more than we were in Macon. And the people who populate that “scene” are probably much like the theater crowd you know, in habit and lifestyle. Jan’s band plays in taverns and bars, not churches. Most “Christians” would not consider that a “Christian environment” and many even question Jan’s “spirituality” because she chooses to do that.

We figure, however, that wherever we go is a “Christian environment” because the One who creates ALL things, we carry with us. We learned long ago not to focus on the clay pot that we are, how we seem to be to ourselves, and instead to trust in faith that HE IS the Treasure that shines out of our earthen vessels, and that His Life shines out of us by us simply relaxing in being & accepting ourselves as we are, trusting Him to fulfill His own life in us, as well as expressing His own Life as ourselves, as Janis & as me. It’s His job to make that happen, not ours, and good news!, because it is IMPOSSIBLE for us to create or become Christ ourselves, HE must do it. “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” (Ps 127:1)

The New Birth is growing up into — what?? — HIM!!!! (Eph 4:15) …. in other words, I lose the false sense of myself as being separate and independent of God, having to make it happen, having to “change myself” to conform to what I believe to be God’s way, because I see the total impossibility of my “performing” anything, “doing” anything, “being” anything, “becoming” anything, on my own. I was never created to be something in myself. The full meaning of the New Covenant is God in man, Christ in you, which means TWO are ONE …. you & Christ are One, and that means that He is your Real True inner self. (Gal 2:20)(1 Cor 6:17)

Well, that’s well and good, we say, if Christ is my Real True Inner Self, but there’s still this “outer me” who is messing up all the time and far from the perfection of Christ, what about that?

The key here, for me, is to plunge myself in faith into God’s reality, Galatians 2:20, I live, wait, it isn’t me, but Him living, and wait, I’m now living a “life in the flesh” but that’s no longer “just me” but He living His own quality of Divine Life through my human life. My human life in this world is HE living and expressing himself through and as my seemingly “imperfect” humanity. “Treasure in an earthen vessel” so that “the excellency of the power may be of God, not of us.” What does that mean? It means to me that the “Treasure” which we are, is a hidden treasure, and the eyes who are meant to see it will.

God will accomplish His own works in us, we only walk in simple faith that He is doing so. We can’t come up with the right stuff on our own. He must do it! And the only way into that relaxed resting in Him is how — the same way (the only way) we enter into anything — by faith — or, in other words, by simply receiving what is there (not “mental belief”). That’s all faith is — “I’ll take that” …. God says, “The truth about you is I live in You and I am your very life” (2 Cor 6:16), and our response is Abraham’s response, “And Abraham believed in the Lord” …. (in other words, Ok, I’ll take that as my own) ….

Who, then, is responsible to “make” the Life happen? Christ is — but He’s living as you. Therefore, when you see me, OOOO, big bold statement here, YOU SEE HIM! Do I say that because I’ve reached a state of human perfection? No, I say that because in taking God’s truth to be my own by simple agreement in faith (“OK, Lord, if you say that about me, then even though I can’t see it or feel it, I’ll say with you that it’s so”) — and in that simple agreement in faith He is found to be the Doer, the Live-er, the Power, the Wisdom, the Love, the Joy, from the inner depths of my being. We join with Abraham who “called things which be not as though they are,” and like Abraham, just start walking. Wherever we walk is our Promised Land, our Land of Bounty, flowing with milk & honey, and is our “possession” in that in Christ Jesus, who is the heart and center and “government” of our lives (Isaiah 9:6), He makes all things new. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things ar e passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God.” (2 Cor 5:17,18).

“Making all things new” doesn’t necessarily mean that outer circumstances or even my human expression changes. It means primarily that an inner shift in my consciousness has occurred, and that whereas formerly I saw all things in relation to just myself, and my ability, my progress, my spirituality or apparent lack of it, and the shift in consciousness is to quit looking at the “flesh” and instead to walk in the Spirit, which means that “all things have become new” within me, in my inner outlook, and I see that in what appears to be my human weakness, my apparently “imperfect” human expression, He manifests Himself, by His own power and strength. “My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

So, if I may be bold one more time, quit bemoaning your imperfection, and instead take God’s viewpoint of yourself, which is that He sees His Son in us and says of us, as His adopted Sons in whom His Only Begotten Son lives, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” We may not be pleased with ourselves, but OUR FATHER IS! He accepts us! “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” (Eph 1:6) So, therefore, let us boldly accept ourselves, in faith, trusting not in what we see in the temporal, but in what we KNOW in the eternal. And we see that we have died in Him, and risen again in HIS newness of Life.

You are Christ living and expressing Himself in His precious “you” form. “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and you shall find rest unto your souls.” Rest from your own works, and you find God does His quite nicely, and He does them through and as you.

Well, I think I’m repeating myself. God bless.

Love,
Fred