What Does it Mean to Live in Christ? Why Living in Christ is Far Better Than Living in This World

What does it mean to live in Christ?

Why should we live in Christ?

What does "born again" mean?

In today's episode, we will discuss living in Christ. I will be pairing this with prayer and scripture, and I will be answering the questions above.

First, I want to say a quick prayer: "LORD, I pray that you lift up every single person reading this right now. Please open up our eyes, our ears, our hearts and our minds to you, LORD. Holy Spirit, consume me and move me to do the will of God the Father. Work through me to make an impact in other people's lives and use me as a vessel for your work, LORD. I pray that whatever each person is supposed to receive from this episode, they receive it and implement it in their daily lives. I love You with every ounce of my being. In Jesus' name, Amen."

Now let's get into some scripture:

"For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." -Philippians 1:21

"More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith. My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead." -Philippians 3:8-11

In Philippians, this is Paul writing. So he's saying in these verses here, to him, to live is Christ and to die is gain because whenever we are Christians and we have the Holy Spirit within us, whenever we die, we're going to go to heaven with Jesus. So, going to heaven to see God the Father and Jesus Christ is actually the best thing that could ever happen to us. So that's why he's saying that to die is gain.

At the very beginning of the Bible, in the book of Genesis, whenever God is talking to Adam and Eve, he tells Adam that they can eat from any tree of the garden, but they must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He says that if they eat from that tree, then they will certainly die. After they did eat from that tree, sin entered the world, and we became dead in our sins. Jesus Christ came onto the earth, He lived a sinless life, and He died on the cross to forgive us of our sins. Whoever believes in Jesus shall not perish, but have eternal life. So whenever we ask Jesus Christ to come into our hearts and forgive us of our sins, we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that He has been raised from the dead, and we repent and ask Him to come into our hearts, He saves us and we are alive in Jesus Christ. So we are born again in Spirit.

We have the Holy Spirit within us whenever we're saved by Jesus. So we're no longer dead in our sins, we're alive in Christ. So, everything in this world that is a gain to us, all of the worldly things, is considered a loss because none of this worldly stuff matters. That's what Paul is saying here in these verses in chapter three of Philippians. Without knowing Jesus Christ, he really had nothing. Even though he had money, status, and all the different things in the world, once he realized who Jesus Christ was, he encountered Jesus, and he got the Holy Spirit, he realized that all the things he had in the past really meant nothing. The very most important thing in our lives is knowing Jesus Christ and striving towards the prize of going to heaven and seeing our Creator and our Savior.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!" -2 Corinthians 5:17

"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

So, we are crucified with Christ, we are alive in Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit within us, and we have the gift of eternal life in heaven. Our worldly life no longer matters because our true home is not here in this world. Our true home is in heaven with Jesus and God the Father. So once we are saved, we no longer live by what we can see or the worldly things in this world, but we live by faith in God and in Jesus Christ our savior.

"Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me." -John 15:4-5

In these verses, Jesus is talking to his disciples. Jesus is the true vine, and we as His disciples have to remain in Him so we can produce fruit, and we can do nothing without Jesus Christ. He is our Redeemer, He's our Savior. He sustains us, He gives us our portion, He's our daily bread, and He is everything. We have to make sure that we are remaining in Him, we're abiding in Him, and we are living our life for Jesus because He died so that we may have eternal life with Him.

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on the things of the Spirit. Now the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace."

-Romans 8:1-7

If you are saved by Jesus Christ, then you have the Holy Spirit within you, and you no longer have the mind of the flesh. We no longer live to please our flesh and give in to our worldly and sinful desires. We have a mind of the Spirit, we live to please the Holy Spirit, and give in to the desires of God. That's why it's so important for us to ask God to match our desires with His, make sure we're keeping in step with the Spirit, and asking the Holy Spirit to guide us. We do still have that sinful nature, but we are no longer slaves to sin because, as believers of Jesus Christ, we are free in Christ. He has conquered death and sin. So we're no longer slaves to sin, but we have a new life in Christ Jesus.

"And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know the true one. We are in the true one—that is, in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life." -1 John 5:20

That verse right there says it all. Guys, I know that the world is so contradictory to what the Bible says. The world will tell you to give in to your flesh and do what makes you happy. Whatever you desire, that's what you should do. Whatever's gonna make you happy, that's what you should do. We know as Christians and as believers of Jesus Christ that we have to deny our flesh, pick up our cross, and follow Jesus daily. We are no longer slaves to sin, but we are slaves to Christ, and we have eternal life in heaven with Him. We don't belong to this world. We don't need to give in to our fleshly, sinful desires and live according to this world or according to our flesh. We have to live in Christ.

Whenever we live for Christ and we're walking in step with the Spirit, that is way better than ever trying to live in this world. Giving in to our sinful desires and giving in to our flesh only leads to destruction and heartbreak and all bad things, even if for a moment it feels good, it's not going to lead to anything good. It's so important that we make sure we're keeping in step with the Spirit and we're living our life for Christ.

If you're not sure how to live your life for Christ, look in the Bible. All in the Bible, it tells you how to live like Jesus. In the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus leads by example and shows us exactly how to live our lives. We have to seek every day to live and have a heart like Jesus. We're not going to do this perfectly. We are human beings and we are going to make mistakes, but we have a new life and we are made a new creation in Christ. We have to own that, we have to step into that, and let God renew us. We have to let Him purify us and show us how to live our lives, keep in step with the Spirit, and ask the Holy Spirit to guide us every step of the way.

So I hope this episode helped you guys to realize what it means to live in Christ and why living in Christ is far better than ever living in this world. So that is it for today's episode. I will see you guys next week.

I love you guys so much.

Never forget to choose faith over fear.

-Lorena Camille (Faith Fuels My Fire)

p.s. If you'd rather listen to Faith-based, spiritual growth, mindset, and mental health tips, then check out my podcast. There I will share my personal experiences, stories I've never told before, and bring you along with this hot mess life of mine. New episodes every week.

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Scripture taken from The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.