Trust In My Life

by Chip Brogden
I am learning more and more the necessity of letting God have His Way with me. That is not to say I allow Him to live through me at all times as I should.

Would that I would so yield, at all times, and without fail. But in the instances where I have allowed Him to respond through me the results have been startling. It is by this that I know He is alive. I am able to watch Him work through me, almost as though I were standing apart from myself observing it.

In order to bring my experience down to earth in terms of practicality, let me take an ordinary incident and demonstrate how His Life responds for us, and in our stead, when we allow it. I am not a patient person by nature, and I am prone towards laziness and irritability. At times I can be most difficult to live with, as my wife will certainly testify. On one occasion I was particularly angry and was on the verge of reacting as I always do, from Adam’s nature instead of Christ’s nature. But in order to test the sufficiency of Christ’s Life in me, I inwardly turned to the Lord and frankly confessed my inability to control my anger, or my tongue. I did not ask for help to do so, nor did I ask for strength, or for patience. I simply cast it all upon the Lord, saying, “Since I cannot, therefore you must. It is beyond me, therefore I depend on You to do what I cannot. If You will not, then I cannot.” This was not done in an arrogant way, but in a matter-of-fact tone that was simply relaying the facts of the situation. As long as we think WE can, or even if we think God will enable us to do it, we are still striving. We must cease to do, and allow Him to do. I already knew how it would turn out if I tried to handle this on my own.

After uttering this simple prayer I never gave it another thought, but waited to see what the Lord would do in me. Each time my mind would try to take the matter up again the still small voice would say, “Trust in My Life.” Over and over again in recent weeks this gentle prompting has guided me through impossible situations and carried me well beyond any short-term victory I had ever been able to procure by way of self-effort. We know that Christ was tempted in all areas like as we are, yet without sin. He is over all things, and there”s not a single temptation, situation, problem, or circumstance that He has not already mastered. We do not worry that Christ may stumble, or sin, or be taken advantage of by the enemy. Why? We trust in His Life; we know the Man; we believe He is sufficient, nay, more than sufficient, to answer any and every test, trial, and temptation. Since He lives in me, and I am a vessel which contains His Life, why can I not trust in His Life working through me as much as I would trust Christ on earth? Is it not the same Spirit? Decidedly so!

“Trust in My Life,” that Spirit urges. Cease striving, trust Me, watch what happens. In so doing, I can report that in this particular case my temper was non-existent; my words were soft; my manner meek; in essence, the Living Christ was expressing Himself through me, and my part was only to yield and watch in amazement as His Nature began to engulf my personality. Who else could display such patience? Such love? Such peace? It cannot be conjured up, nor can it be duplicated by asking “what would Jesus do?” and setting out to copy His example. Trying to imitate Christ is the path of frustration and despair. Let me say undeniably that you will never meet a Man like Jesus. Try for a million years and you can never duplicate His personality! Your best attempt to “be more like Jesus” is as feeble as trying to grow a plant out of a concrete rock. Only a proud, ignorant person thinks they can even come close to being like Jesus.

No, the answer is, “It is no longer I that liveth, but Christ that liveth in me, and the life that I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.” I live, yet not I but Christ. It is not Jesus reproduced in me, it is Jesus instead of me. It is not my life, my work, my effort at holiness. It is Christ my Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption.

As I learn to trust His Life for the small things, I am finding the larger things to be less large. It is all a question of leverage. When you have a large load you desire to lift with a lever, the closer you move the fulcrum to the load the less force you have to exert to lift it. Consequently, trusting His Life effectively positions the fulcrum in such a way that you exert very little force, while the Lever (Christ) does all the work . Of course we eventually arrive to the place of total rest and exert no self-effort at all. Simply “ask, and it shall be given unto you.”

A better analogy is one Christ made Himself: “take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me…and you shall find rest unto your souls”. A yoke is made for two oxen. It was common practice to yoke a weak animal with a stronger one and thus strengthen the weaker. In our situation we cannot get stronger; we must be made weaker. Our whole problem is we are too strong in ourselves. So we are never told to improve our flesh, for God has judged it unworthy of being saved and nailed it to the cross. But the illustration of the yoke shows us that Christ is doing all the work for us while we reap the benefit of His labor. He is not pushing us from behind, exacting impossible demands upon us like a slave-driver. He is beside us, laboring on our behalf. If I take His yoke upon me I am carried along with Him. We may rest since He carries all the weight. His Life is unrestricted and limitless. The weight of the world is not too heavy for Him to bear. We must therefore cast our burden upon Him, because He cares for us and He is well able to handle it. It is His privilege to do so.

Paul thought himself a strong individual until God weakened him. Now Paul rejoices in his weaknesses, boasts of his inadequacies, and revels in his sufferings. Why? “When I am weak, then I am strong.” How so? He is at last cognizant that “apart from Me, you can do nothing”; that human strength and self-effort only delays the inevitable and eventual defeat; that true strength is manifest through the denial of self and trusting in His Life. For His Life, that is, His Being, Nature, and Essence, is Christ Himself. Today there is a need of strength; He is my Strength. Tomorrow the need may be patience; He is my Patience. Next week the call may be for more self-control; He is my Self-Control. Each new revelation of weakness and need provides us with fresh opportunity to trust in His Life and observe a living Christ expressing Himself through us.

About the Author

CHIP BROGDEN is a best-selling author, teacher, and former pastor. His writings and teachings reach more than 135 nations with a simple, consistent, Christ-centered message focusing on relationship, not religion. Learn more »

13 Comments

  1. Mark Peyron

    Thank you Brother Chip ! This is the powerful truth of the gospel of Christ ! He is everything and everything is his !

    Reply
  2. Lolo

    Amen, I experience similar things you have in my life. Leaving things up to Jesus while I do what seems to be proper to be done.

    Reply
  3. der

    I say Amen to this word. It is a new journey with Jesus by relying on Him. Chip grace be with you.

    Reply
  4. jeffrey lacatus

    What a revelation that unfortunately many followers of christ will attest to having!

    Reply
  5. Sandrine

    Thank you Chip,

    I have some days late in my reading, but today this text really did me good.
    My heart is always heavy, and I always want to cry and I am in a certain fear… My heart is a little lightening when I try to convey my conviction to others… or when I pray… but this Heavy burden is still there hard my heart.

    I love the image of the lever… well, I will try to unload on the Lord this weight in my heart and trust him…

    Reply
  6. Monette

    This is exactly what I believe too! Wonderful writing Brother Chip!

    Reply
  7. chrissy

    Thank you Chip I needed to hear this today as I responded to a provocation in my own strength and it went horribly wrong. Why didn’t I just take the time to surrender this to Him? Even my best efforts are rubbish!

    Chrissy

    Reply
  8. BettyLou

    Praise God! Let the whole body of Christ get it about this New Covenant life in which HE DOES ALL !! We are the living sacrifice He asked us to be – since He died for us we can certainly cool our flesh jets and let Him live in us instead of us strutting our stuff. We are dead and our life is hid with Christ in God. So since we are already seated in the heavenlies, and we don’t have to strive to get to heaven, we can just have fun letting Christ live vicariously in us. We don’t have to worry about sin anymore – it has no more power to condemn us. Others that were tapped in to walking in the spirit and explaining it well was our brother Andrew Murray, George Mueller, Smith Wigglesworth and Eugene H. Peterson who wrote “The Message” version of the bible which reeks of New Covenant language in the translation. Thank you brother Chip !!!

    Reply
  9. Marthe

    Merci mon Frère pour ce message glorieux !

    Ce n’est plus moi qui vit, mais Christ qui vit en moi !

    Ce message m’a fortifiée dans sa richesse, sa force et sa douceur !

    Le Seigneur avec sa patience et sa fidélité sans fin, déverse abondamment sur nous Sa Sagesse ! afin de nous amener à Sa connaissance.

    Que notre Seigneur continue à se servir de toi pour Sa Gloire !
    Merci mon Frère !

    Reply
  10. Ken Dawson

    Its like a story I tell people–When I die and stand before God and He says to me–Ken why should I let you into My kingdom? I will have nothing to answer Him–I will just simply look over to Jesus expecting Him to say–I have him covered Father–Then God will say to me–come on in.

    Reply
  11. seng lee

    Thank you Chip for remind me that I’m weak. Is true I can’t do anything without Christ. A while back I was in prison for a anger sin. I was scared, because of what I heard about isolation, how horrible those places are. Fear was in my mind right away. But I starting to pray a similar prayer you pray above and suddenly his strenght just overflow me and the fear was gone. I’m just saying that when you’re afraid and weak that’s when christ’s power really manifest…………and thank again for remind me that I can’t do anything without our lord and savior Jesus Christ..

    Reply
  12. Christy

    Chip, I couldn’t have said it any better myself, and I have said it to others whenever the opportunity presents itself, I.e., “it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me”.

    Very well said, and thank you for allowing Christ to write through you! 🙂

    Reply
  13. Sharon

    Thank you again!
    First of all, I want to say that I appreciate your candor in admitting your faults. That is rare these days. It’s comforting to know that we’re all level at the cross. Non of us are “super-spiritual”,i.e. above anyone else.
    Secondly, I’ve noticed that those areas where we “think” we are “strong”, are usually those areas where we are exceptionally weak!
    May our areas where we think we are “strong” become red flags to us, because it is especially in these areas where we are operating in the flesh, instead of relying on the Lord Jesus.

    Reply

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