Amazing Grace (12 page)

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“For to me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21a).

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I
that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh
I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself
up for me” (Galatians 2:20).

“When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then
shall ye also with him be manifested in glory” (Colossians 3:4).

We have seen how God’s purpose is to make Christ our
life. Now we will see why God makes Christ our life. The apostle Paul declared that
“Christ … is our life” and that “for me to live is Christ” (Colossians 3:4 and
Philippians 1:21a). Unfortunately, we must acknowledge today that we do not
know how to let Christ be our life. Instead, we fall and are weak, we glorify
ourselves and are critical of others, we are lacking in brotherly love, we are not
Christ-like, are unyielding and not lamb-like, we are full of unclean thoughts,
are unholy, and have many other sins unconquered. Christ has already died for
us and has become our life. But in our daily living we do not have the
experience of Christ living out His life in us. On the contrary, we are as
before, being no different than the people of the world. As we were prior to
our rebirth, so are we now. Regrettably, we have not advanced; and if we look
within, all our sins are still there.

Many Christians are like this. They do not know how to
let Christ be their life.
 
Strangely,
though they seek and pray to God, confess their sins and ask for His grace,
hoping to have a holy life and be able to be humble, gentle and loving; yet,
after many prayers their hardness remains the same and their temperaments have
not been transformed. In spite of continuous prayers God seems not to answer.
They wonder what more they should do before God. In view of all this, I would
like to advance our discussion a step further by addressing the key question: What
does Christ being our life mean and how can we experience it?

I have mentioned before that people who are only dissatisfied
may not gain
anything, that
those who also hunger and
thirst may obtain. Let us never confuse dissatisfaction with having a hungry
heart. Many may not in fact be satisfied with their lives, yet before God they
do not have a heart of seeking positively after Him. They have no dealing with
God and have not wrestled with Him. Therefore, the dissatisfied may not necessarily
be the hungry and thirsty ones. I would strongly affirm that though there may
be
dissatisfaction, that
will not necessarily result
in a person having a victorious life. Only those who are also hungry and thirsty
will possess such a life. So, commencing from tonight I wish to point out what
victorious life is.

Christ is, and is to be, our very life. The seeking ones
alone may experience this. Do not expect to casually pick up or establish a
victorious life in your experience. There is no such thing. You may indeed pick
up related things along the way, but victory is never something to be casually
obtained. Victory does not come by chance, for only the hungry and thirsty may possess
it. Even if during this conference only three or five people experience it, we
shall thank God.

Briefly stated, victorious life is Christ himself. In giving
us Christ God not only wishes us to live by Him but also to make Him our life.
He is in us believers to
live
for us
and not merely to be in us. Christ died for us on the cross, and today He is to
live for us from within. Christ within is not for Christ to give us strength
to overcome nor
to help us to overcome. Rather, it is needful
for us to step aside and let Christ within us be our victory.

May I repeat, Christ within is
not for Him
to give us strength to overcome nor
for Him to help us to overcome but
is for Him to conquer for us just as He had died on the cross for us. When
Christ died for us, we ourselves did not do anything. Likewise, when He lives
today for us, we have no need to exert any strength or effort of our own. Today
God has given us Christ to be our life by putting Him in us to live for us. Our
old man is already dead, so now it is Christ living for us inwardly. This is
complete substitution. If it were not substitution it would not be the gospel
of glad tidings: no cross, no victory.

Hence today I will not ask God to give me strength to be
patient; it will instead be Christ in me who endures for me. True, I am hard,
proud, critical, without love, and full of unclean thoughts. But I do not ask God
to help me to overcome these issues one by one; no, it is now the Lord Jesus within
me who himself becomes my purity, gentleness, and humility. It is a matter of complete
substitution. Unless we are clear on the fact of Christ’s substitution, there can
be no possibility of our being an overcomer. A person may in fact see his fault
before God, yet without his being an overcomer. He may even ask God to help him
to overcome, but he will never overcome, simply because God never helps people
to overcome, for He knows that we will fail. He therefore crucified our old man
and gave Christ to us as our life in order that He might live for us from
within and be our victory.

Yet many believers ask God to help them to overcome or to
give them strength to overcome. But the solution is not there, for we truly are
weak beyond any help, our victory being wholly dependent upon Christ living for
us from within us.
 
This, then, is the
gospel. Such is God’s way of salvation and this is victory.

During the last two years I have noticed two common symptoms
of weakness among many believers: these are short tempers and worry. Many have known
that losing their temper is sin, but they do not know worrying is also a sin.
Many cannot control their temper. Neither Bible reading nor prayer seems
helpful. After eight or ten years things have remained the same in their lives.
There is no solution to their plight. God knows we are helpless, so He gives us
a way through by taking us out and letting Christ in us be our life by living
and overcoming for us. Sadly, many do not know this and thus have no way of
victory.

Once I was preaching in England. A friend came to me and
told me that his home was close by. He asked me to visit his house. He had a
few boys, but his wife and
himself
were always
defeated and not overcoming. When one child cried, they felt uneasy. When a
second child also cried, they became angry. When a third child cried, they
could not control their tempers any longer. They tried hard to keep their
tempers in check, but they could not do so. The father had therefore insisted that
I must go to his home and counsel his wife and himself how they could overcome.

So I went that evening. His wife came up to me and said:
“Mr. Nee, you know what victory is. Both I and my husband wish to overcome, but
three children are too unmanageable for us. In other matters we can overcome
but our problem is with our children.
 
We
can endure in the church or with our friends, but with regard to our three
children we can do nothing.” When I heard this, I began to laugh, for I beheld two
more people who could be delivered by Christ. Some people are too ethical and
their temperaments too good and thus they can never know what victory is. Only
the helpless can the Lord save to the uttermost. This was why I was glad for
these two parents who I believed could be helped.

I asked the mother why she asked for patience in relation
to her difficult children. She replied that her temper was too
quick,
hence she had been asking God to give her patience in
order that she might be able to control her temper. I said to her: “You
yourself are helpless. You have been asking God to give
you
patience, but He has not yet given it to you. Is that correct?” She replied,
“Indeed, I have been asking for eight or nine years and God seems not to hear to
give me patience.” I said to her: “You ask God for patience, but He knows
patience is not what you need, so He does not give it to you. Actually, you
have no need of patience.” She instantly responded: “Mr. Nee, how can you say
this? I have never heard such truth. Do you mean to say that I do not need to
be patient?” I answered: “Right, for what you need is Christ. God has made it
possible for Christ to be in us as our life. He has been made to us wisdom and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption, as well as patience—just as
the Scriptures have told us (I Corinthians 1:30). All which God will give us is
in Christ. God gives Christ to you for Him to overcome instead of you.”

At that moment she realized that there was no
relationship between the way of victory and
herself
.
It was not a matter of
herself
being victorious but it
is Christ who overcomes. This is the secret of overcoming which we find in the
Bible. It is no longer I but Christ who now lives in me. It is more than living
by the power of Christ; it is basically Christ himself who lives in us. I do not
live, wrote Paul, it is wholly Christ who lives. Such is the victory for the
Christian. This was God’s original purpose which He had set for man in the Garden
of Eden. It is for Christ to live in man and for man. Christ to be our life has
always been God’s purpose.

Once I went to a brother’s house. His wife told me: “Mr.
Nee, I have failed these days. Everything in the house is fine except that these
little children of mine are too naughty. If I shut them in the house, they make
a terrible mess in the house. If I let them go outside, they fight with other
children. They cannot be quiet while in the house and they cause me worry while
they are outside. This causes me to cry. I really am at my wits’ end. Mr. Nee,
what can I do?” I began to laugh, for when man is helpless, God is able to
help. So I said to her: “Is victory to be yours or is it to be Christ’s?
If yours, then three or four children will be too many for you to
control your temper about.
If the victory is to be Christ’s, can these
children—no matter how many—cause Him to be helpless? Never! Today you are
defeated because you yourself have been trying to take care of this matter of
your temper. You acknowledge you have been impatient. Had you been allowing Christ
to live for you, you could surely have been patient.”

Let me inquire,
Do
you see that
you yourself are helpless, that you can only be defeated, that only Christ is
victorious? We in ourselves cannot, but He can. Our problem today lies in the
fact that though knowing we cannot, we nonetheless try by ourselves to take
care of the challenging situations we face and do not let Christ take care of
them for us. Too many believers are ignorant of the way of victory. They simply
ask for power. Yet if you have Christ, you have it all. Victory comes through
the substitution of Christ, not by man’s effort.

Let us please be clear that victory comes not by our
being changed; rather, it is Christ overcoming for us. This is because the victorious
life is not a matter of change but is one of exchange. It is not my defeat
turned to my victory. Yes, I am defeated, but God puts an end to my defeat by means
of the cross that instead places the conquering Christ in me. Originally I was
defeated, but now God places Christ in me. He substitutes “Christ” for “I,” and
then I am victorious. The secret of victory lies in the Biblical notion of “exchange.”
Many incorrectly expect to be changed but they remain in their old Adamic selves.
Only by Christ being our substitute can we be victorious.

Two years ago I was ministering God’s word in Chefoo. While
there I presented this subject of overcoming. I told the brethren that victory does
not lie in a “changed life” but in an “exchanged life.” Many believers only think
in terms of their lives being changed
;
 
God
, though, views us as so rotten that
there is no way for us to be changed. He knows that in us dwells every kind of
sin (cf. Romans 7:18a). Let us therefore not imagine that others can be bandits
and harlots but we ourselves never can be; on the contrary, we can commit all
kinds of sins. If today we have not committed them, it is only due to the mercy
of God in keeping us from having been tempted in such a manner. Today God makes
use of Jesus’ cross having put away our old man and then places Christ in us to
overcome for us. Thus, we experience a totally exchanged life, not a changed
one.

Some ten years ago I had a little money in my pocket. I
thought how good it would be if I had enough money to buy a watch. At that time
I had six dollars, so I used five dollars and eighty cents to buy a watch. That
watch was made in a famous watch factory. Now when I bought the watch, the
store gave me a guarantee good for two years for any repair. I brought it home.
The next morning I noticed that it ran two-and-a-half hours late. Supposedly
every watch was to run twenty-four hours per day, but this watch only ran
twenty-one hours and a half. So I took it back to the store and told them so.
They said they could repair it. After two days I regained possession of the
watch. One day later it ran an hour less. So I took it back to the store a
second time for repair. After that repair, I took it home again. The next day I
discovered the watch timing had not moved at all. So once more I returned it to
the store and told them what had happened this time. They again promised to
repair it.

After a week the store gave me the watch back supposedly
repaired. The next day, however, I discovered this time that it ran three hours
too fast! So when I went back to the store, I told them that ever since I had
purchased it twenty days ago, during fourteen of those days the watch had
remained in the store and only six days in my home. I therefore wondered aloud
to the storekeeper whether this watch was theirs or mine?!? I continued by
saying that since the store seemed unable to repair it, could they exchange my watch
for another one? But they replied that they had no such rule. The guarantee was
only for repairing within two years’ time.

Hence we can easily recognize from this incident with the
watch that to repair and to exchange are two different actions. To repair is to
change what has broken down into that which is good, whereas to exchange what
is bad or is flawed for what is totally new is an entirely different action.
Let us therefore clearly understand that exchange is God’s way of complete
salvation. Man continually thinks of asking God for power to improve himself or
make
himself
good. But like that watch of mine, fallen
man has been so corrupted that he is beyond repair and, again like the faulty
watch, the only way to be perfect is for flawed man to be exchanged for the
perfect Man—even Christ. God’s salvation therefore lies not in helping you to
overcome but in letting Christ overcome for you.

Have you understood what Galatians 2:20 means for you?
Basically it is no longer you who live: it means that you are not repairable
for living out your life: it is no longer you that lives but it is Christ who now
lives in you. This is nothing short of total substitution—even the substitution
of Christ who henceforth lives in you and for you. This Bible passage does not even
say that you overcome by depending on Christ or that you live because of Christ
or that you live by the power of Christ. It simply declares that it is no
longer you who live. Basically you have nothing to do with overcoming because it
is now Christ who lives instead of you.