Dependence on Christ

Ron Block is a musician with Alison Krauss and Union Station. He writes the following helpful words about our dependence on Christ:

"That dependence is foundational to anything I’m writing. We’re the cup. God is the Wine. We’re the branch. Christ is the Vine. That’s dependence. Jesus Himself said, 'I can do nothing of Myself,' and also 'The Father in Me does the works.' That’s our pattern--dependence on God. And as we grow in the recognition that we aren’t meant to be 'Me4God' but rather 'Christ through me,' we are also growing in total dependence.

"[As commented earlier]: 'We battle through faith, trusting in Christ as our real inner identity, our strength, our power to overcome. We refuse flesh-effort and hypocrisy and faithe that it is already done in the Spirit. We believe God even if we encounter the Anakim--a giant that looks indestructible.' When we trust Christ’s love and power within us in this way, He lives through us; He is the one who battles and defeats; He is the indwelling Overcomer.

"So this is not a works-battle, trying to get control of ourselves and our sinning. It’s a total submission to God as the owner of the Land. My main point in . . . three [earlier] posts are that we have a totally new identity in Christ, and sin is 'not I, but sin' (Rom 7). And also, righteousness is 'Not I, but Christ' (Gal 2:20). Our essential dependence on Christ is never over; we never 'grow out of it' and become something in and of ourselves. But the fact remains that we are, here and now, a new creation, holy, accepted in the Beloved, not in some future event but in our co-death, co-burial, and co-resurrection in Christ.

"Now, what you’re [the writer of an on-line comment to Block] addressing is the outworking of that Fact. Christ is in us. That’s the unchangeable fact. By one sacrifice He has perfected us forever. We were once darkness, and now we are light in the Lord--we are to live, then, as children of light. Now we are to work this inner Salvation, which is Christ Himself, out into our daily walk by faith. We’re sanctified, set apart in Christ, as a one-time fact, and then we learn to walk in that Fact and have Christ flow through us more and more. That’s the progressive walk of sanctification, the progressive driving out of the Canaanites.

"Our duty in this progressive side of sanctification is yes, to be broken, contrite, humble. We’re to see ourselves as cups, vessels, and not 'BigShots4Jesus.' But that is not all. We are called to rely on Christ, and step out in that reliance. That is humility, to say, 'God has all the Facts, He’s the Father, He’s the Wine, and He’s the Source of all goodness. In myself I have no wisdom, I’m a cup, and I am not the source of goodness.' That’s humility.

"And you’re [again, the writer of the on-line comment to Block] totally correct that Jesus does not come to help. He comes to take control. And that means we submit. We 'offer our bodies as living sacrifices' and have Him live through us. He came that we might have life, and have it to the full. That Life is His life coming through us, rivers of living water flowing out through us to others from our inmost being (that’s where Christ dwells in us). All He wants is for us to place our total faith in His Life in us, and believe His Word that in Him we are holy, kings, priests, loved, accepted. We are God’s assets, not liabilities."