Not I

Most of us want Christ to help us live our life. Paul says something far more searching: the old life is over, and Another is living in its place. Not I. Those are the two hardest words in the Christian vocabulary.

We like to be improved. We do not like to be crucified. Improvement leaves me on the throne, a better me, a more religious me, but still me. Crucifixion takes the throne away. Holiness begins at the moment I quit trying to make the self-life respectable and agree with God that it must die.

But do not stop reading at the cross. Nevertheless I live. The man who is crucified with Christ is not grim or lifeless. He is more alive than he ever was, because the life now flowing through him is the life of the risen Son of God. The death is real, and so is the resurrection.

And see how Paul ends: who loved me, and gave himself for me. The whole matter rests there. I do not die to self by gritting my teeth. I die to self because I have seen how much He loved me. Love that gave everything earns everything in return.