Response to Chambers "My Utmost" "November 3"

I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. — Galatians 2:20

These words mean the breaking of my independence with my own hand and surrendering to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. No one can do this for me, I must do it myself.

This is untrue. I cannot do anything apart from Jesus Christ (cf John 15:5)

How then are we transformed, how the is the "breaking of my independence" effected?

By the Holy Spirit working in us, which we make happen by our faith in Him, which is itself a gift of God for us (Ephesians 2:8-10)

We are called to believe on Him, we are called to rest in His grace. He works in us, and we work it out not by our own efforts, but in being led by the Holy Spirit.

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3:18) We look on ourselves, in effect, as Jesus Christ indwells every believer. As we look on Him, depending on His word, behold we are transformed more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ, holy, blameless, and always led by the Holy Spirit:

"But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." (James 1:25)

Living by grace is a "work for mankind", in that we are so prone in our fallen nature toward striving and working; yet from Adam and Eve to the present day, a life of reaching out for what we think we need as opposed to depending his "every good and perfect gift" has engendered nothing but strife and discouragement, whether in the pursuit of pleasure and flight from pain, or in the quest for righteousness through self-effort.