Here is a devotional from My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers
My take on the issues are in italics.
Co-Resurrection -
The proof that I have been through crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a decided likeness to Him. The incoming of the Spirit of Jesus into me readjusts my personal life to God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him authority to impart the life of God to me, and my experimental life must be constructed on the basis of His life. I can have the resurrection life of Jesus now, and it will show itself in holiness.
I have been reading Chamber's Utmost for His Highest, as part of my devotional this year. There is some mind-blowing stuff in here. Some days I get absolutely nothing out of them, because I simply just do not understand what Oswald is trying to say. Some of this devotional is difficult reading, but I think that this is beautiful and challenging. We are so dependent upon Him! You see the beauty of Christianity is that God reached down to us, to save us, to heal us, forgive us. Without Him we cannot experience forgiveness, holiness, or grace. The resurrection, that we had nothing to do with, we get to claim and experience with Him. He saved us! How humbling it is to think about it as a co-resurrection!
The idea all through the apostle Paul's writings is that after the moral decision to be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus invades every bit of my human nature. It takes omnipotence to live the life of the Son of God in mortal flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be located as a Guest in a house, He invades everything. When once I decide that my "old man" (i.e., the heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, then the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything, my part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals. When I have made the moral decision about sin, it is easy to reckon actually that I am dead unto sin, because I find the life of Jesus there all the time. Just as there is only one stamp of humanity, so there is only one stamp of holiness, the holiness of Jesus, and it is His holiness that is gifted to me. God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new order spiritually.
This is so good and so true! This so awesome, yet again- challenging. The Old is Gone and the New has Come. We are alive to Christ and dead to Sin. We are new creations. We have redemption through Christ's blood. It is a fresh start! But it is through the Holy Spirit. And we must let go of our pride and remove stumbling blocks that get in the way of letting the Spirit take over. Not everyone is willing to let go of their self and their pride and simply let God take control. The Holy Spirit will work and it will invade...how sad it is when my lost friends know the truth and they close their heart off from the truth. They are not set free by it. they harden their hearts and they run from reality.
