Christ in you

There is a difference between admiring Christ and becoming like Christ. We can admire Jesus without surrendering to Him. We can study His life without allowing His life to transform ours. We can quote His words without obeying them. We can sing about Him without following Him.

Jesus Himself was never satisfied with admiration. He asked:

But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?

And when His teaching became demanding, many who had followed Him turned away. John records: “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (John 6:66). They had been impressed, but they were not changed.

Christianity requires more. Paul expressed the goal in one extraordinary sentence:

To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Christ in you. Not merely Christ beside you. Not merely Christ in your theology. Not merely Christ in your church attendance. Christ in you. His Spirit working within you. His love influencing your decisions. His truth shaping your thinking. His humility changing your relationships. His purity governing your desires. His forgiveness changing how you treat those who hurt you. His obedience changing how you respond to God’s will. This is the Christian life.

A life that is no longer my own

Paul put it more personally than anyone:

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Notice the structure. “I have been crucified with Christ”: the old self-ruled life has been put to death. “Christ lives in me”: another life is now at work. And “I live by faith”: the transformation is not self-effort but trust in the One who loved me and gave Himself for me. Jesus promised the same indwelling to those who love Him:

If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.

Christ must be formed in us

We met Paul’s words to the Galatians in chapter 3:

My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you.

That verse deserves to be read slowly. Until Christ is formed in you. The goal is not simply that Christ be admired. The goal is that Christ be formed. The Greek word Paul uses for “formed” belongs to the same family as the word for “form” (morphē). The same family appears in Romans 12:2 and 2 Corinthians 3:18, where “transformed” translates a word from which we get metamorphosis. Paul uses one family of words for one great work: a life being given a new shape by Christ.

That takes time. Character does not usually change overnight. God may transform a person’s direction in a moment, but the development of character is often a lifelong process. We learn. We fail. We repent. We surrender. We grow. We are tested. We discover weaknesses we did not know existed. We return to Christ, and He continues His work.

A life that others recognise

When Christ is formed in a person, others eventually notice. Peter and John were brought before the rulers and elders in Jerusalem and questioned about the healing of a lame man. These were fishermen from Galilee with no formal religious training, and the council was surprised by them:

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.

They did not say that these men had been well taught or well qualified. They said that these men had been with Jesus. The best evidence that Christ is in us is not our vocabulary or our certificates. It is a resemblance that others cannot explain by anything else.