Grace in Galatians (Part 194) – For Me To Live Is Christ, And To Die Is Gain
Today, we continue our focus on THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, as we learn to maintain our posture of faith after God has revealed His plans for our future.
As part of this series, I am teaching a verse-by-verse exposition of the book of Galatians.
Key scriptures for this year:
2 Peter 3:18 GNT“But continue to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be glory now and forever.”
Luke 10:20 Mirror“It’s time for you to rediscover who you are from Heaven’s perspective.”
1 John 3:10 Mirror“There is a very visible and vast difference between living one’s life from your God identity or from a fallen man’s mindset.”
Proverbs 25:2 NKJV“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.”
Jeremiah 29:13 NIV“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
Scripture we will study today:
Galatians 6:14 NIV“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
Galatians 6:14 TPT“May I never boast in anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, for through him I have died, and the world has died to me.”
Supporting scriptures:
Philippians 1:21 AMPC“For me to live is Christ [His life in me], and to die is gain [the gain of the glory of eternity].”
Romans 8:6 AMPC“Now the mind of the flesh [which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit] is death [death that comprises all the miseries arising from sin, both here and hereafter]. But the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is life and [soul] peace [both now and forever].”
Romans 12:1 TPT“Beloved friends, what should be our proper response to God’s marvelous mercies? I encourage you to surrender yourselves to God to be his sacred, living sacrifices. And live in holiness, experiencing all that delights his heart. For this becomes your genuine expression of worship.”
Romans 8:18 TPT“I am convinced that any suffering we endure is less than nothing compared to the magnitude of glory that is about to be unveiled within us.”
1 Peter 5:6 TPT“If you bow low in God’s awesome presence, he will eventually exalt you as you leave the timing in his hands.”
Galatians 2:20 AMPC“I have been crucified with Christ [in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith in (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in) the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 TPT“He died for everyone so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf.”
Romans 5:8 TPT“But Christ proved God’s passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly!”
Setting the Stage:
Yesterday, we looked at Galatians 6:14, and we walked through the mutual crucifixion at the heart of this verse. The world has been crucified to you, and you have been crucified to the world. Two crucifixions at the same cross. There are levels of revelation in this verse, so we could not cover it all in one day. We’re going to go back to it again today. The mutual crucifixion is not just a one-time event. It rewrites the way you live. It rewrites the way you die. It rewrites what total surrender looks like. And it rewrites the foundation your whole life is built on. Let’s get into it.
So, what does this mean for you today? A few things.
1. For Me To Live Is Christ, And To Die Is Gain.
Picture the Apostle Paul writing this letter from a prison cell. He has Roman chains on his wrists. He could be executed at any moment. And he keeps writing about boasting in the cross. Why is he so unbothered? Because the cross changed everything about how Paul viewed BOTH LIFE AND DEATH. In Philippians 1:21, he wrote, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” For Paul, both ends of the spectrum belong to Christ. If they let me live, I serve the Lord. If they kill me, I go to glory. If they make me suffer, I’ll receive a bigger crown when I get there. Paul had a posture nobody could break.
How this applies to you:
— You cannot beat a man who has already died to himself. If the Holy Spirit convinces you that you have done all the dying you are going to do, then death has no power over you anymore. Not only that, but you will be delivered from the power of fear as well. The Apostle Paul was in a prison cell, and he was not afraid of death, so he was certainly not afraid of anything man could do to him.
— Philippians 1:21 AMPC says, “For me to live is Christ [His life in me], and to die is gain [the gain of the glory of eternity].” Read the parenthetical. “His life in me.” Paul was not chasing some abstract version of Christianity. Christ Himself was alive INSIDE of Paul. And once Christ is inside of you, living is service and dying is graduation. Either outcome is a win.
— The cross took the world’s leverage off both ends of your life. When you fully embrace the gospel of grace and the power of the cross, living and dying take on a new meaning. The world cannot cause you to dim your light in living, nor can it cause you to be afraid of dying.
— I want you to imagine Rome trying to threaten Paul. “We will lock you up.” Paul says, “That’s fine, I will preach to the guards.” “We will beat you.” Paul says, “That’s fine, I have been beaten before.” “We will kill you.” Paul says, “Now you are doing me a favor, because I get to go home.” What do you do with a man like that? You cannot bribe him. You cannot scare him. You cannot threaten him. He is unstoppable.
— Romans 8:18 TPT says, “I am convinced that any suffering we endure is less than nothing compared to the magnitude of glory that is about to be unveiled within us.” Read that. Less than nothing. Whatever the world hands you, the glory on the other side overshadows it. And Paul knew it.
— Here is the real power. I believe in what the Apostle Paul was saying: The world cannot take from you what you have already laid down. Once you’re dead to the world, then it can’t scare you, it can’t tempt you, and it can’t stop you.
— I will close this point with this. The cross rewrote Paul’s calculus. Living was not about what Paul could get out of life. It was about what Christ could do through his life. And dying was not a loss. It was the doorway to eternity with the One he had given his life to. When you settle this question, the enemy loses every tool he had against you. And you walk through this world with a freedom most believers never experience! Being born again is one thing, but being dead to this world is another. Once you’re not susceptible to the temptations of the trappings of this world, you’re truly open to do whatever the Lord leads you to do, however he leads you to do it. Then here’s the amazing part: once you’re dead to the things of this world, the Lord says, “Okay, now I will bless you richly so that you do get to go to heaven, but you also get to enjoy the ride.”
2. God Has Never Required Any Less Than ALL Of You.
Here is the truth nobody likes to hear. God has never required any less than ALL of us. Not 90%. Not 95%. All. The Judaizers wanted to give God a portion. They wanted to keep their credentials, their identity, their performance, and just add a little Jesus to the side. Paul exposed it as a counterfeit gospel. And the same trap is alive in the modern church. A lot of believers are born again, but they have not actually surrendered to Jesus. They are saved, but they are still negotiating with God. Romans 8:6 AMPC says, “Now the mind of the flesh… is death… But the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is life and [soul] peace.” Carnal Christianity is exhausting because it is killing you. The cross was never a part-time arrangement.
How this applies to you:
— Romans 12:1 TPT says, “I encourage you to surrender yourselves to God to be his sacred, living sacrifices. And live in holiness, experiencing all that delights his heart. For this becomes your genuine expression of worship.” Read those words. A LIVING sacrifice. A dead man walking. Total surrender is the highest form of worship a believer can offer.
— A half-surrendered life is the most exhausting life there is because you spend your days vacillating between the Holy Spirit and your desires, God’s grace and your power, being free and being bound to the things in the ways of this world.
— I want you to picture a believer who is born again but still has parts of his life off-limits to God. He sings the songs on Sunday but locks his agenda by Monday. He gives God Sunday morning but holds Saturday night for himself. He prays for guidance, but only when the situation is comfortable. That is a carnal Christian. And the Bible says that mindset is DEATH.
— You cannot give God a percentage of your heart and call it surrender.
— There were seasons in my life when God exposed to me that I had areas that were off limits to Him. At one point, it was my career ambition. At another point, it was my finances. Several times, it was the way I felt about a person. And every time, the Holy Spirit would lead me back to that area and say, “I want that one too.” Either Jesus is Lord of all, or he is not Lord at all.
— The cross gave EVERYTHING for you. Why would it ask for less than EVERYTHING from you? Total surrender does not subtract from you. It adds to you. Because the moment you stop holding back, the Holy Spirit stops being limited in your life. And what God will do through a fully surrendered believer is more than what He could ever do through a half-surrendered one. Lay it all down. Watch what He does!
3. After You Lay It All Down, God Hands It Back With His Hand On It.
Here is where this message gets really good. The mutual crucifixion is not the end of the story. It is the doorway. When you finally lay everything down and tell God, “I do not need any of this. I just want You,” something amazing happens. God hands it back. Not all of it. Not in the same way. But He sends you back into the world with His hand on it instead of your grip on it. Joseph laid down his dignity and ran all of Egypt. Daniel laid down his life and lived in the palace. David laid down his throne ambitions in the cave and ended up as the King of the kingdom. Paul laid down his Pharisee credentials and became the apostle to the Gentiles. Surrender is the doorway, but it is not the destination. God sends fully surrendered people back into the world to RUN it in the area of their grace.
How this applies to you:
— 1 Peter 5:6 TPT says, “If you bow low in God’s awesome presence, he will eventually exalt you as you leave the timing in his hands.” Read the language. He will eventually exalt you. Bowing low is the prerequisite. Exaltation is the promise. God promotes people He can trust with the platform.
— While the world cannot have you, God does want to use you in the world.
— Some of you have been afraid to fully surrender because you think it means giving up your dreams, your career, your influence, your money, your platform. Listen. That is not what surrender means. Surrender means you take your hands off it long enough for God to put His hands on it. And when His hands are on it, what He can do with the same thing is bigger than anything you could have done with it on your own.
— The thing you finally release is the thing God can finally use.
— I have lived this. The Lord told me to leave a company where I had a great career, a great title, and a great future. I was enjoying my time there. People asked, “Rick, why would you walk away?” But I had learned something a long time ago. I will do whatever God tells me to do. And every single time I have released what I was holding, He has handed me something bigger than what I gave up. Not because I deserved it. Because that is how the Kingdom works.
— Remember, the Kingdom of God functions on the system of sowing and reaping. Anything you give up for God becomes a seed, and He will make sure that you reap a harvest on every seed sown.
— The fully surrendered believer is the most useful believer in the world. God can promote him. God can elevate him. God can put him in front of presidents and kings. And the surrendered believer does not get inflated by the platform, because his identity is anchored to the cross, not to the spotlight. He/she is a dead man/woman walking. Therefore, they are not distracted by the praise. When the spotlight does come, they deflect the glory right back to God. That is the kind of believer God trusts with kingdom influence!
4. Jesus Died For Me, So Now I Get To Live For Him.
Here is the heart of why the mutual crucifixion makes sense at all. Jesus did not just die FOR you. He died INSTEAD of you. He took what you deserved, and He gave you what He had earned. He paid in His own blood for a debt you could never pay. Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20 AMPC that the life he now lived in the body, he lived by faith in “the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Read that last phrase. “Loved me and gave Himself up for me.” That is the exchange. Jesus died for me. So now I get to live for Him. It is not a burden. It is the highest privilege a believer will ever have. The cross is not asking you to give up your life as a punishment. The cross is inviting you to give up your life as a thank-you offering.
How this applies to you
— 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 TPT says, “He died for everyone so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf.” Read that. He died so we could STOP living for ourselves. The whole purpose of the cross was to free you from a self-centered life and reorient your entire existence around Him. A life lived for Him is the life the cross paid for.
— The cross is the deepest love letter Heaven ever wrote.
— Romans 5:8 TPT says, “But Christ proved God’s passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly!” Read that. He proved His love. Not in words. In blood. While we were still lost and still ungodly. You did not earn this. You could not earn this. It simply happened because God loved you enough to believe you were worth dying for. Think about that!
— Some Christians serve God like an employee punching a clock. Stop. You are not God’s employee. You are God’s beloved son or daughter, and the cross is the receipt of His love for you.
— In my almost 30 years of walking with God, I have learned that the believers who serve God the longest and the most faithfully are the ones who never forget the price Jesus paid for them at Calvary. It’s so easy for Christians to get caught up in a fancy title, a new job, a new house, a new car, more money, vacations, and so on. They may thank God for this and thank God for that, but this is a reminder today that you should never cease to give God praise for what Jesus did for you on the cross. If you can remember the cross, you will not serve God out of obligation. You will serve God out of an abundance of gratitude!
— I don’t serve God because I’m afraid of going to hell. I know I’m not going to hell. I serve God every day simply because I’m thankful. I love him, and I appreciate what Jesus did for me on the cross. He saved me from an eternal death. Now I get to give him the rest of my life.
— Jesus died for you. Now you get to live for Him. What a privilege!
Declaration of Faith:
Father, I thank You that the cross has rewritten my relationship with both life and death, and I walk in a freedom most believers never taste!
For me to live is Christ, and for me to die is gain, and I refuse to negotiate with the enemy over a life I have already laid down!
I give You ALL of me, because the cross gave me ALL of Jesus, and I will not insult Your love by holding any of it back!
I refuse to live the half-surrendered, carnal life that drains the joy You died to give me!
I lay it all down at Your feet, knowing that what I release into Your hands, You hand back with Your hand on it!
When You promote me, I deflect the glory right back to You, because the spotlight is Yours and not mine!
Jesus died FOR me, so now I get to LIVE for Him, and there is no higher privilege in the universe!
I am not God’s employee punching a clock; I am His beloved son, and the cross is the receipt of His love for me!
I serve out of overflow and not out of obligation, because the love of God is the fuel that drives my whole life!
I am living in THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, I am Living THE GRACE LIFE, and GREATER IS COMING FOR ME!
I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen!
This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!
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