I must avoid the popular and shallow form of Christianity that appears so prominently today. There is a kind of triumphant living trumpeted everywhere in which Jesus is simply the instigator or inciter of a flow of positive thoughts and ideas that bring me personal and material success.
That kind of Christianity says I am a bundle of both negative and positive attitudes. Simply encourage the positive and discourage the negative, and lo, I am a victorious person. The problem is, however, that kind of victory is simply the victory of the natural man. There is nothing redemptive, remedial, or sanctifying about it.
Before a Christian can talk about victory, he must talk about dying. As J. Gregory Mantle says, the first place the natural man has got to go is to the cross. If I want Jesus at all, I have to find Him “outside the camp”; and if I want to know His victory, I have to bear “His reproach” (Hebrews 13:13). Once I get to the cross and experience the crucifixion of the natural man’s selfish greeds, desires, and attitudes, then I am in a position to rise with Christ “in newness of life” (Romans 6:4) and allow His new life to become the positive thing that my natural self could never be. That is more than positive thinking; it is positive living.
Jesus Christ did not die on the cross to make me a confident supersalesman, but a normal mass of clay reflecting His power, glory, and personality. That does not mean I lose my identity; rather, I confirm it. The life of Christ flowing through my personality becomes a unique miracle in God’s Kingdom; I am authenticated by Christ. Thus, Jesus Christ is not only my Savior; He is the Establisher and Definer of my true self. Then it becomes sublimely and personally true that “in him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28, KJV).
“And raised us up With Him. and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6–7).
Daily with the King 