Gal. 2:20 - I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
	This is a verse many of us have known for years, and have had the Holy Spirit apply to our lives in a variety of ways. Currently, our young people have been dealing with this Letter to the Galatians for the past few weeks, and I have had the joyous occasion to take this verse once again to the Holy Spirit for His instruction and enlightenment as to this truth of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
	Together, let us search into this verse anew, touching on those basic truths which we should never forget, reminding ourselves of the faithfulness of our Lord to make Himself known in us, and seeking after the Holy Spirit to reveal even more of the wonderful love with which we are graced by God.
	Initially, let us be thankful for the encouragement of the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul, and heedful of the reason for being crucified with Christ, that He now lives His Life in us. This has caused many of us to realize that our lives are no longer our own, to do and to say what we please, but rather that He is the One who is now our very life, and we must be open to His will and to His guidance and to His expression in our walk on this earth.
	This leads to the question that many of us have asked ourselves and the Lord concerning what it means to be crucified with Christ. We have some parallel scriptures in the letter to the Colossians, Chapter 2, verses 20 and 22: Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,... after the commandments and doctrines of men? As well, verse 3 of Chapter 3: For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 
	When we were dead in our sin and trespass, we had no idea of what it meant to live. We were in a miserable existence, separated from our God and Creator by a barrier of spiritual deadness. There was a measure of daily physical functioning, which is biologically termed "life" with its emotional and self-serving seeking after something better, but there was no true life. What we were experiencing was a rapidly instituted reliance on anything which would, how-be-it ever so briefly, give an indication that there was something of value in our survival. We sought after passionate expressions of feelings that would give evidence to the fact that we were all right. But we weren't! We were self-deluded into the lie of what this earth calls "living". 
	We were alive to the lie that man can get by on his own, without any need for God. We made our own gods, and claimed that they gave us a reason to live. We sought our deities in money, family, someone to love and cherish, or work, or sports or anything in which we could claim a measure of our individual god-hood. And, what did we ultimately discover in every avenue that we undertook? Marriages soon died, abilities soon withered, money disappeared, in short, all that we deified soon crumbled and faded in the death-throes of vanity and worthlessness. Ecc. 1:14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Even more evident was the fact that the more worthless our valued possessions and gods became, the more worthless our existence was magnified. 
	It isn't until we come face-to-face with God in the Person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that we find value in our lives. Sure, we can do all kinds of good things because we are taught to do them, or because we feel guilt and shame in our lawlessness, but our works are worthless in the light of the glory of God in Christ. So often, we find individuals, and this is true in some of us, who feel that God would not hold anything against us if we are good on this earth. However, in that man-made goodness, we are ultimately deifying ourselves above the value of Christ, and God will not have any part in it. Not one of us can practice any form of godliness in our seeming goodness, and expect God to deem it of value, because our motive of action is based in the idea that we can save ourselves apart from Christ. Please think hard on this fact! How many of us have spent a great portion of our lives in our self-delusion that because we are basically doing good works, God will not damn us to hell? The very motive behind those works is the cause of our utter damnation! Anything but Christ, and our efforts, no matter how well intentioned are a vile means to say to God, point-blank, that we don't need the death and resurrection of His very Son to find salvation. We can save ourselves!
	Some of the most needful people after the salvation and relationship of Christ are those "good" people who are trying to make it on their own merit, and will be utterly destroyed unless they open their hearts to the life of Christ Jesus Our Lord and Savior. It is easier to share Christ with a hardened criminal, because they have no hope in their works of lawlessness. They know that God can not find honor in their physical lives because of their conscious neglect to a life that might be considered worthy of God's consideration. They are already damned by their actions, and are fully cognizant of the fact that they need a savior, because they are lost without Christ.
	It is the "good" people of this world who are hardened in their deceived belief of that goodness. These are the ones who seem to find it most difficult to accept the Lord Jesus Christ, because they make a claim to a life that has fulfilled the just requirements of moral behavior, yet they fail to recognize the spiritual wantonness that so easily sways their hearts from God.
	  Death is the way of all those who are separated from God. Death of spirit, which is the very basis of true life. It was the spiritual life that died in Eden, and it is that spiritual life that can only be quickened by the life of Christ in our hearts. This is the basis of the passages that we are considering.
	What does the Apostle Paul mean when he states over and over again that we are crucified with Christ, that we are dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, that we are dead and our lives are hid in Christ?
	There is no simple answer in terms of a ready-made formula. We can speak a simple truth, a fact that is of tremendous spiritual significance, the reality that we are now dead to this world and alive unto God through the life of Christ. That truth is life itself, Christ who now lives in us. He is not a formula. He is not an idea, or a way of life. He is life! 
	As we have accepted Him into our hearts, as we have acknowledged His rightful place as the Lord of all, so have we been placed into His very death in order that we might have His very resurrection life as our life. This means that we are dead indeed to all sin and trespass that was formerly part of us. We are freed from the bondage of the law which served to identify that which was never to be a part of us until Christ came. As well, we are no longer part of the death existence of this world. From our Christ-centered spiritual awareness, we can see the futility of all that tried to signify an importance in our beings, and in the beings of others, and recognize it for the decayed wretchedness of death that it is.
	How many of us have experienced the spiritual realization of the filth that was a part of our beings apart from Christ? I don't know about each of you, but it seems daily that the Lord, through the wonderful working of the Holy Spirit reveals continued aspects of my being which need to be put to spiritual death in order that Christ will more fully receive glory in my life. I do not claim that I always respond immediately as I should, but simply the fact that the Holy Spirit brings to my awareness those things that are displeasing to God and that need to be put away from my life now in Christ. This is all a part of our being crucified with Christ in order that He can live forth from our beings. 
	Another aspect is that we are to consider ourselves dead to the things of this world. All those things which we used in order to find a reason for our existence no longer have a part of us. We are removed, by Christ, from those attractions and those desires of this realm which serve to but defile our beings. Lies and abominations they were, and such they still are. The difference is that we can now see them for their awful reality. When we were spiritually dead in our sin and trespass, we knew no better. We were deceived and seeking after those elements for the sake of their brief sensations, even though we knew they were hurtful and temporary. Now, in Christ, we see the debasement of these worldly elements, and should have no desire after them any longer. When we purposefully choose those elements, now that Christ lives His life in us, we no longer find any enjoyment in them. Rather than even a momentary reprieve, these elements now serve only to grieve our beings which have been made alive in Christ. As spiritually dead, they had no spiritual applications to cause us to feel their actual infliction of torment. But now, in Christ, the things of this earth cause tremendous anguish in our spiritual life of Christ, and we can no longer bear them.
	Having seen the light, we can't tolerate the darkness. We find the Apostle Peter dealing rather severely with the truth that once we have become partakers of the spiritual truth of Christ, we can no longer find a release in the world, we are dead to it. II Peter 2:20-22, For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. The "wretched" enjoyments of the world are no longer ours, because they are steeped in the stench of death.
	Another aspect of our having been crucified with Christ is centered in the fulfillment of the law. It is easy to say that we are no longer under the law, which served but to condemn us, but do we now live in that truth? The fact is that the law pointed to our need for a savior, for some means beyond ourselves of coming into right-standing with God. All our efforts only served to show that we could not save ourselves, we couldn't keep the law. Even if our actions were good, our motives were deceitful, so we found ourselves under the just condemnation of the law. It is only in the fact that we are crucified with Christ, that we have come into the righteousness of Christ before God. As Christ bore our sins on the cross, when we accept Him as our live, we also find that He has buried that curse of the law in our grave of self. We can no longer be condemned, because we are dead to that old self and no longer subject to the just requirements of the law. Our Lord Jesus Christ has made us to be alive in Him, on the other side of the cross, having submitted Himself to be the fulfillment of and paying the full penalty required of the law.
	The issue then becomes, why do we still desire to serve the law rather than God? It would serve us well to consider in our lives whether we serve God in the freedom of the faith of Christ, or try to avoid Christ in service to the law. What I mean by this is that sometimes we may find it easier to live our lives as closely allied to the law as possible because the course of a life lived by faith in Christ might seem too arduous and uncertain. When we have a strict set of guidelines by which to live, we can try to plan our lives the way we want it to be. We can say that we can't do this or better not do that which we have no desire to do on the basis of some obscure requirement of the law which can justify our unwillingness to serve God in complete reliance upon His mercy and grace. It is far easier to say that we aren't allowed to do this or that, rather than to live by the Holy Spirit Who daily guides our steps along the path that we are to follow. Please hear this very clearly! I am not at all saying that the law, as given by God, is contradictory to what the Holy Spirit would have us to do! What I am saying is that man has so twisted and perverted the law to fashion it to the likes and dislikes of human nature, that one can find every type of human interpretation that would prevent us from fully following the Holy Spirit in His Divine Guidance into those paths that we would rather not follow. Have you ever noticed that there are those Christians who are so legalistic that they can quote all types supposedly scriptural reasons as to why they should not have to serve the Lord on a daily basis. Rather than seeking after God to make known His will through the Bible, they rely on selected portions of verses, out of context, and expounded by all manner of men, as to why complete service to God is not possible and shouldn't be considered. Admittedly, it is far easier to follow printed lists of thou shalt and thou shalt not's until they begin to contradict each other. The maze of thou shalt not do this except in the case of that situation, in which instance thou shalt do the opposite for a short period of time until the condition changes to the point that thou shalt not again, or shalt do it twice depending on the effect of the thou shalt not in the first instance boggles all imagination. We are so willing to accept any convoluted maze of contradictory legalistic rituals simply so that we do not have to place our utter reliance on Christ. Man is so good at twisting everything to fit into a humanly acceptable package of nonsense that excludes Christ, regrettably, even after having accepted Christ. 
	The doctrinal labyrinths of Christian teachings cause more entanglement to those who are seeking after God, solely in terms of a structured framework of laws for their lives. If only they would learn that the Holy Scripture, as opened by the Holy Spirit in a living manner as we seek after Him to make known God's plan and purpose for us, is the only true spiritual guidance for our lives. God has set our paths before the foundation of the world was laid, and He is working to cause us to desire that living path in its every essence. He has made every one of us, and knows our every aspect. He Alone is able to direct us into all truth by His Holy Spirit. He Alone knows the most effective manner to deal in our lives in order to bring us into the spiritual maturity of living our lives by the faith of Jesus Christ. There is no set formula or man-conceived manner of coming to know Christ and His abundant life in us. Only God can teach us to learn to live by Him and Him alone!
	This is another exposure of being crucified with Christ. All our beings become focussed on the reality of Christ living His life in us. As that becomes more and more the basis of our relationship with God and with each other, we realize that we would not be able to survive apart from knowing His way in our lives each and every day. This is why we can no longer enjoy those things of the world which once so enthralled us. This is why we can no longer find an answer in the books that once seemed to be filled with wisdom and strategies for a more successful life. All of the elements that are apart from Christ become tainted with the stench of death, because they are lifeless in their essence. We see them with eyes that have beheld the great treasure and can no longer be satisfied with anything other than Christ. How many of us have given expression to the wonder that the people of this world can even survive without Christ? Daily we are faced with situations and dilemmas which require Christ and Him only in order to find the answer and resolution. As those times of trial and tribulation envelope us, it is only by the very life of Christ that we overcome. Without Christ, we would be lost in absolute powerlessness to endure. We have lost all ability to make it on our own, because we are dead to our own resources of survival. Rather, thank the Lord, our power to overcome is completely resting in Him and in His consummated victory. Isn't that a joy to consider. We no longer have to fight because we are set in His triumph over all the elements that had previously attacked us. Being crucified with Christ means that all the elements of this world are no longer in  a position to destroy us. The law is fulfilled and the just requirement of the law has been paid. All that is due to the world in its wickedness is accomplished and Christ is triumphant in His mastery over all the forces great and small. He is Lord, and we are held by that Lordship. He is Master and we are the evidence of His glorious triumph. It is because we have been crucified with Christ, that God causes us to reign with Him. 
	There is much to take before the Lord in this verse of encouragement. It is a clarion sound of joy to the ears that are bombarded with the death-throes of this world. Its piercing, brilliant tone should strike a chord in our hearts to thank the Lord for the great love where with He loves us. We should continuously desire that He would make known the fact that we are dead to self and to the world, and that He is now our life. When we deal with each other, and with all those brought into our sojourn on this earth, we must ask Christ to speak and to love each and everyone through us. That is our daily walk, that is our profession, because He is our sustenance, our very life's blood.
  	I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.