Let the Lord Jesus Live Through You

Don Krow has written an article on the life that becomes ours when we let the Lord Jesus live through us. Here are some excerpts from that article which expose the fallacy of trying to live our own lives:

"If you struggle trying to live the Christian life, it may be because you thought that the Christian life was something that you were supposed to do and you didn't see that it is Christ from beginning to end. The way you live it is by faith.

"How did you receive Christ? By faith. How do you walk in Him? By faith. How do you overcome temptation? By faith in Him and His ability to overcome it. How do you live holy? By His ability to live holy in you. How do you produce love and joy and peace and long-suffering? Not by might, saying, 'I am going to try real hard to love that guy. I am going to try real hard to work up joy. I am going to try real hard to be peaceful.' No. It is a manifestation of Jesus' life.

"We have tried to imitate Him and produce His life. It is like a monkey trying to be a human being--he tries real hard. For us to try and be like Jesus is like a monkey trying to be like a human being. We can try real hard and may be funny; God may look at us and think that we are humorous, but then God says, 'Why not let the only one who is life be your life? Why don't you let Him be your righteousness? Why don't you let Him defeat sin? Why don't you let Him be your victory?'

"You see, victory is not something that you try for and struggle for--it is a gift. Victory is Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:57 says, 'Thanks be to God that giveth us the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ.' He is our victory. So when sin comes and the law comes to try and defeat you, what do you do? Do you say, 'No, I am not going to do this?' You should say, 'There is a law of the spirit that brings life to me. This law set me free from the law of sin.'

"So now, when the law of sin comes against me, I say, 'Jesus, you answer the door.' When temptation comes, immediately turn your attention to Jesus. You don't have the power to overcome this sin or conquer this temptation, but Jesus does. When you turn your attention immediately to Him, He is your victory. Jesus helps us overcome and conquer temptations, circumstances, high imaginations and anything else. We live His life by faith. He is our power source. The old man has been crucified. We are a brand new creation. We now have Christ, so henceforth we will never again serve sin.

"Sin dwells in the physical realm. Sin used to be our master. It used to usurp authority over us, but we have a new master now. We can turn to our new master. We are discharged from living in the military on earth. When sin gives us an order, we don't have to follow the order. We have a new master which is the strength and power of our life, He is our life.

"Romans 5:10 says, 'For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. (Reconciliation means to be brought into a friendly relationship. We have been brought into a friendly relationship) through Jesus' death . . . .' 'For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved. . .' How? By His death and by his resurrection life. The Amplified Bible says it like this: 'When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more now being reconciled, we shall be saved, that is daily delivered from sin's dominion by his resurrection life.'

"Do you understand what this says? His death paid for our sin. But it is His life within us that is the power to overcome temptation and the power of the devil. It is His life that allows us to conquer the circumstances that come against us. It is His resurrected life that resides within us by faith. He is our power source and through Him we have victory. His death paid the debt for our sin. What is the point of our sins being forgiven if we live this life defeated? We must also defeat sin daily, as it says in the Amplified Bible, 'Daily delivered from sin's dominion by his resurrection life.'

"The Christian life is not only hard to live, it is impossible to live. We can't live it on our own power. But there is one within us that can live it when we make Him our power source by faith, in every circumstance we may face in our life. In Him, is the ability to overcome sin's dominion daily. His resurrection life resides in us. We do this by faith.

"First we must surrender to Him. Christ can't live His life through us if we don't give Him our life. If you hold back, you'll never be victorious. It is only by total surrender that we obtain victory. He can't live through us if we won't give Him the reins. It has to be absolute surrender. Once we surrender, we just simply take His resurrected life that is within us and use His power to defeat the enemy. 1 John 3:9 says, 'For this purpose the Son of God was manifest that he might destroy the works of the devil.' Who is going to destroy it? Only Christ has the power to destroy the works of the devil. He resides within us. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. We never have to be defeated again. If you are defeated, it is because you have chosen to be defeated. If you sin, it is because you failed to look to Christ as your power source to defeat sin.

"The Bible doesn't teach sinless perfection, but it does teach that you have the power through Christ to actually defeat and conquer sin. It is not you doing it, it is Christ in you that [sic] defeats sin. We fail when we do not take the time to focus on Christ as our life.

"But first we must reach the point of total weakness before Christ can be our total strength. God's grace is sufficient for you, His strength is made perfect in your weakness. 'Therefore, I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.' It says the same thing in Romans 7, 'Oh wretched man that I am. I have come to the end of myself. Who shall deliver me?' (Rom. 7:24). Thank God it has been done through Christ (Rom. 7:25).

"You see, Christ can't be your strength until you come to absolute weakness. Until you admit that you can't do it on your own--you can't conquer sin, or defeat the power of the enemy, and say, 'Alright God, I am going to put my faith in Christ to be my total strength.' Only then will He be your strength and power.

"We don't have the ability to live the Christian life, it is our response to His ability that lets us live in victory. God did not come to help us live the Christian life, to strengthen our flesh. He came to get us out of the way so Christ could live through us and give us the victory. This is so no flesh can ever glory in His presence. No person will ever glory. It is Jesus who died for our sins. It is Him within us that [sic] conquered sin. It is Him from beginning to end.

"But the devil deceives Christians by saying Jesus did it in the beginning, but now it is our responsibility. We've got to go do this thing. That is what is preached to us from the pulpit, 'You've got to go do it.' When we try and do it ourselves, we end up as defeated Christians moaning and groaning and living by our emotions, living the Christian life up and down. The people most in need of counseling are the Christians. They are worse off than the world. It is because they try to live victoriously by their own effort.

"God will let you live by your effort until you hit a brick wall. He will let you get to the end of yourself and then, when you have gone to the end of yourself and say, 'Oh wretched man that I am,' that is, I am so miserable. I have no ability. I know what God wants, but I can't do it.' Then God rejoices! It is then that Christ can be your total resource.

"I am not talking about avoiding spiritual burnout, trying to patch someone up, so his flesh can go a little longer. No, I am saying, 'Burnout, buddy, burnout!' Until you get there, Christ can't be your life. Live the Christian life through a new power and resource, which is Christ. Live it by faith. As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, by faith.

"He is a Savior that delivers us from the power of sin. This is revealed in Romans 8:2, 'The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath set me free from the law of sin and death.' The spirit that brings Jesus' life to me hath set me free. Hath made me free from the law of sin and death. It doesn't work just sometimes, or once in a while, it says He hath done it. He is everything. We are complete in Him. The living Bible says, When you have Jesus you have everything that you need. He is everything. We are complete in Him. He is the completion. Now we just need to renew our mind with what He says in His Word He is. He is our life.

". . . An example of this is a tea bag. Imagine a cup of hot water and a tea bag. Set the tea bag up and say, 'Water, be like tea.' However, the water can't be like tea so you put the tea bag into the water and the strength of the tea goes into the water and then it is tea. But really, the tea is still in the tea bag. It is the same with us. It is the strength of Jesus and His life that goes into us. He is still God and we are still us, but it is His strength and life that comes up through us. Romans 6:16 says, 'Whomsoever you yield yourself to, his servants you become. . . .'

"When you tell a lie, you have to tell another lie to cover up the first lie and then you must tell another, to cover up that one. It is a chain reaction. Sin is the same way. We become a slave to sin. But it says if we yield ourselves to righteousness, we become its slave. It is not just taking Christ as our life in one circumstance, it is taking His life moment by moment in every circumstance. When we walk in this, before long it is like a mindset where we learn to let Him be our life and we take His life. All of a sudden we begin to see consistent victory. Usually we don't see it as much as other people around us see it. We start to learn that the just live by faith. Just trust in Him. Look to Him. Turn to Him. It is so simple. It is Jesus.

"I struggled for ten to fifteen years trying to find this truth. It was just Jesus. It is that simple. He is the victory. It is Him. You don't work for it, there is no earning it. The more that I see this truth, the more that I distinguish the law mentality which is all through the church. It is saturated through the church and the preaching. If you don't receive this revelation and are not grounded in it, you will fall back into condemnation. But if Christ is living your life, if He is your victory, you won't respond to your emotions. People that are not grounded in the truth will immediately respond to law. Immediately, they will respond to the consciousness of sin. And again it is back to their ability to do this and that, to quit this or not do that. Because they haven't learned yet that there can be something very consistent.

"It is living a life of faith as a brand new creation. Having a brand new identity, a brand new person, a brand new power source, which [sic] is Christ. God says, 'To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and (soul) peace' (Rom. 8:6). Our emotions can come under the control of the indwelling Christ, but it won't happen if we are carnally minded. We must turn to Christ who indwells in us. Our mind plays a big part in this.

"When we are rejected, we must say, 'No, I am accepted' (Eph. 1:6). When we are condemned, we must say, 'I am accepted. I am righteous' (2 Cor. 5:21). When we are offended or persecuted, we can rejoice. Paul says, 'I know what it is to be with and I know what it is to be without. I know what it is to abound and I know what it is to be without' (Phil. 4:12). Paul seemed to glory in his infirmities. He is not saying, 'Ha, ha, ha! It was a wonderful experience.' But he is saying, 'I am so in union with Christ that I am strengthened and infused with power and strength from Christ.'

"It was Christ's strength that brought him through all his tribulations, stonings, and sufferings. It was not because Paul was a strong-willed guy, or that he was just determined to get up and preach in some other city. He says that it was the glory of Christ that strengthened him. It was Christ that was infusing strength into him--keeping him going, pressing towards the mark. We can use that same strength to withstand rejection, persecution, sin, or the circumstances of life, whatever we face.

"Paul had to allow Christ to dwell in him, or how else could he reveal this mystery to live a victorious life? How could he write the book of Philippians while in jail? 'Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!' Paul was sitting there in jail. Most of us, if we were walking in the flesh would be moaning and groaning, 'Come and get me out of here. I am being treated so bad.' But there was not one iota of defeat in Paul. He said, 'What has happened to me has happened for the furtherance of the gospel. They chained me to the prison guards in Caesar's place and I witnessed to them and got them saved' (Phil. 4:22). All Paul could see was what Christ was accomplishing in and through him. That is a true revelation of Christ living within us."