0023. Christ–The Product of My Life

Christ–The Product of My Life

"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Php_1:21).

Beyond all doubt our key verse includes the thought that, for me to live is to produce Christ. The Holy Spirit transfigures the believer "from glory to glory", until he is the very image of the Master. Every phase of the perfect character of Christ is brought in and developed in the life of the believer, by the Holy Spirit. If we are to produce Christ, we must have, resident within us, the character of Christ.

Let me give you a few passages of Scripture well worth noting.

1. "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost". We are not trying to imitate God in His love, we have His love placed within us. When this love is produced, Christ is produced–for it is the love of God which is shed abroad.

2. "That My joy might remain in you". It is not striving to attain a joy similar to His. Christ places His joy within us. Thus when this joy is made real within us, Christ is the product of our life.

3. "My peace I give unto you". When we sit down and consider the perfect peace of the spotless Christ, we know well enough that children of the flesh can never produce such a peace. But Christ says He will give us His peace. Thus, in us, Christ is living out His own blessed attributes, and He becomes the product of our lives.

The ideal Christian’s life is not imitating Christ, but producing Christ. If we are to walk as He walked, He must walk in us. If we are to work out; He must work in.

2Co_5:20, says: "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead", etc. If then we are His ambassadors, if we are in Christ’s stead, how all-important it is then that we truly represent Him. Yet, in order to represent Him, we must have Christ in us. It is not for bringing our humanity up to the standard of His Deity, but it is Christ bringing the power and the holiness of His Deity and making that resident by the Holy Ghost within us.

This is just what we mean when we say that Christ is the product of our life. He Himself said, "I will take up My abode in you." If therefore He dwells in the believer, what we must do is to so yield ourselves to Him that He will find an outflow through our words and deeds.

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR