I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20 NIV
When we make the decision to be crucified with Christ, we choose to die to ourselves and live for God. Dying requires that we lay down our rights and our desires and accept the life God chooses for us. The crucified life embraces surrender and lays no claim to fairness or respect.
While dying to self and living for God effects every aspect of our lives, it’s greatest impact is on our relationships. It changes the way we do business, the way we treat our co-workers, our family, our friends, and even the strangers we come in contact with each day.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant.
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. Philippians 2:5-7a, 3-4 NIV
These passages challenge me to evaluate the interactions I’ve had with others this week: with business associates, my family, the clerk at the grocery store, the driver who cut me off. Did they find me to be patient, kind, gentle, and forgiving? Did I honestly put their interests above my own? Or did they find me to be proud, critical and demanding? In other words, did they encounter me, or did they encounter Christ in me? If they encountered me, then have I been crucified?
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” Matthew 16:24-25 NIV