A Man with Faith (by Joseph Carter)

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Galatians 2:20. These words were written about 2,040 years ago by a man whose reputation preceded him among the Jewish culture. He knew more about what it meant to be a Jew and about his own Jewish heritage than most. Not only that but he was taking his religion, and his life that revolved around it, to the next level. In doing that he was finding the people who posed to be a real threat to his belief and persecuted them and approved them to be murdered. He did all of this for what he believed to be a right and just cause. He did it because that’s what he thought God wanted. He didn’t know Christ, didn’t want to know Christ, and wanted to kill those who believed in Him. Paul was this man. Take it that Paul was misguided in doing these things; he still had more zeal and a true yearning for doing the will of the Lord. One day he was traveling to a city to sign off on persecuting the Christians there, and then Jesus appeared to Paul, formally Saul, and said “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” and he said, “Who are You Lord?” and He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.” (Acts 9:4-6) Paul became blind after seeing Jesus and while going into the city of Damascus with his men, he met a disciple named Ananias whom the Lord spoke to telling him to go meet Saul so that he might regain his sight. After Paul regained his sight, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and then baptized. Paul once was misguided by the Jewish law, something he was told to believe in then made the choice to truly commit to it.

How many times does the American or worldly culture tell us Christians something to believe in, then we become misguided in what we believe, then we commit to what we were told about it. We realize what we’re doing is wrong then we turn back to God then something similar happens, then the cycle starts all over again. Something and the only thing that can keep us close to God and fighting the good fight is for God to move in you so that you’ll realize it’s no longer you who lives, but Christ lives in you; and the life you now live in is just the flesh and you live by faith in the Son of God, who loves you and gave Himself up you. I think the key phrase in Galatians 2:20 is ‘live by faith’. Our lives are often not lived by faith. They’re often lived by our own understanding on how to live and what we think is right. They’re often lived by our righteousness and what we gain from things. The same Jewish man that put the “die” in “die hard” also wrote that all the things that he gained from the Law or from what he thought was right he now counts them as loss or “rubbish” so he may gain Christ (Philippians 3). He also says that so he “may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,” Philippians 3:9. Paul put his faith in the righteousness of Christ instead of his own righteousness because he knows that the pure value of knowing Christ goes far beyond anything he gained through what he use to believe in. That is truly living by faith. John will explain more of this in an up coming blog, but ways to have that faith and to continue to have that faith is to:
1. read the word
2. reflect on what you’ve read
3. pray
4. share the gospel
I encourage you all to do these things and do them fervently so that you may gain more and more of Christ.