◄ Life-giving Crucifixion ►

  Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty with which Christ hath made us free" (Gal. 5:1).

First, the believer understands that he has a right to be free in the Lord Jesus because of the finished work of the Cross; then he sees that same work of the Cross as his means to be free.

"When we truly hate ourselves, we are prepared to rejoice in the blessed fact that we have been crucified with the Lord Jesus - that sin in the flesh was condemned (not forgiven) when He died unto sin, that our whole history as in the flesh closed before the Father in His Son's death - and that this is our title to be free. I have now a righteous title to have done with myself because I have died unto sin in the Lord Jesus' death.

"To prepare me for this I learn the necessity for death in my own experience, but the death of the Lord Jesus is my title to be free. It is by the appropriation of His death that I reach liberty and newness of life; that death has severed me from all that I was as in fallen Adam. I have been crucified with Christ.' I am free from myself, and free to have the One who is my Christian life before me." -C.A.C.

"The Lord Jesus will make it His business to keep us alive and fruitful, if we will make it our business to rely upon Him. There must be no carnal straining, no natural effort; we do not have to keep ourselves alive. Every fear to go down into daily death, ever clinging to that which belongs to us, every grasp on our own personal position or ministry, will only hinder the manifestation of His life. It is to be life out of death. Even when our trust in Him brings us into the most helpless and impossible situations, we may rest assured that all will be well, for He is indeed the God of resurrection." -H.F.

"For ye died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3).