A portion of St. Patrick’s Lorica:
Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
How wonderful. . . what tremendous values to come into when Jesus Christ is such a focus, when He is all. It reminds of Colossians 3, “Christ is all, and in all,” and Ephesians 4, “. . . that He might fill all things,” and Colossians 1, “. . . that in everything He might be preeminent.”
There is an absoluteness, an utterness, about Him that calls for an abandonment of all that we are and have in ourselves in this world. How unique and apart from what we are is the Lord Jesus. . . and what promise we have in Christ that we can be like Him.
And yet, how often is there a holding back and a holding on to what we are. . . how much living in the flesh in the pursuit of Christ? How easy to get comfortable and fall back into the flesh. . . to walk with the Lord, lose sight of Him and go on anyway, on our own, apart from Him. How often we miss the way when Christ is not all.
The call of God to His people in this world is to be a spiritual people, to be alive in Christ and to leave behind the things of the flesh. There is a living according to the flesh and a living according to the Spirit. How utterly apart these are and how often God’s people try to do both. There is death at the heart of things when we live according to the flesh. . . how things do fall within when living according to the flesh. How much is there a stop to growth and going on in the Lord when living in the flesh.
Romans 14 says, “. . . whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” There is possible a living in Christ in this world, a living on the resources in Christ received in faith. Sin is not just the wicked things that are done. . . it’s living from our own resources apart from Christ, looking to oneself to make it thru things, trying to get thru this world to God on our own, thinking that we are sufficient in ourselves. . . it’s the wicked thing we are in ourselves.
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet will he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.” (John 11) It is possible in this world to believe in Christ and not live in Him... it is possible to have received from the Lord and not live according to Him. . . to believe in Him and yet be unfaithful. What frustration, what failure, to know the Lord and to sin, to not live from faith. . . what a sense of death hangs over things. Thanks be to God for His mercy and forgiveness when we sin and for His grace that cleanses us and makes a way forward in Christ. And yet there is the promise of Jesus of living and believing in Him, of being faithful, and never knowing that sense of death that touches us when we sin and live apart from Him. Abundant life in Christ is possible in this life now.
How blind to try to follow Christ in the flesh when the call of Jesus is the utter renunciation of ourselves, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” (Luke 9) In following the Lord in this world, there is a way forward in the utter renunciation of what we are in ourselves apart from Christ. . . to learn the lesson that the Apostle Paul did, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” (Romans 7). There is life and growth in abandoning whatever hope or strength or resource we see in ourselves and fleeing to Christ. How much life in the Lord Jesus is found in turning from ourselves and abiding in Christ alone! How much peace and hope in Christ when we remain faithful to the Lord. May Christ be all to us and in us. . . may His Spirit lead and guide us into greater and greater measure of Christ as we follow.
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