Matthew 26:1-2 NASB95
When Jesus had finished all these words, He said to His disciples, [2] “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man is to be handed over for crucifixion.”
There’s something about the words “You know that after two days the Passover is coming” that speaks volumes to my heart about practical holiness. How many of us have known that certain events or tasks were “coming” and held dread in our hearts about some aspect of it? Let me use a practical example. If you are planning on a cross-country trip with your family from the East Coast to California by car, you might say something like, “I am really looking forward to being in California, but I am DREADING the long drive.” In a couple of months, I, with a few other people, will be flying to Africa. The mandatory mask rule will still be in effect in all the terminals and during all flights. I found myself in the last couple of weeks being tempted to say, “I am so excited about being in Africa again, but I’m DREADING having to wear a mask for all those hours in the airplane and the terminals.” Have you ever had to have a confrontational conversation with someone, and though you knew the conversation was essential, you DREADED having to do it? I am sure you could apply the DREAD word to many other circumstances or some aspect of the circumstance that you have faced or are about to face. Victorious Christianity is simply Christ living His victorious life in us, and it is applicable to the smallest details of how we live our lives; what we think, what we do, and what we say. Because we are in Christ, our life is not our own. Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ, and I no longer live…” The person who dreads things; the person who gets offended; the person who worries; the person who envies; the person who can’t forgive; etc., died on the cross with Christ. Christ is now our life – Colossians 3:4 – or, as Paul continued in Galatians 2:20, “…, but Christ who is living in me.” Christ never dreads anything that is contained in God’s will for his life. We can’t find anyplace in Scripture where Christ complained about God’s will, and He, as our life, still doesn’t. Dead people don’t DREAD, and the Christ who is our life never does. Therefore if Christ who is in union with us is being allowed to live His life through us in the details of life, then we should live a DREAD free and therefore COMPLAIN free life. You might say, “Well, that’s impossible,” and I would agree, but you have to remember that Jesus came to live the “impossible life” through our humanity. You see, our level of surrender is measured by His level of surrender because we are one with Him and His surrendered will and heart. I love it when God speaks to me about these kinds of things, not because I can pass it on to you, because God, when He speaks these things to me, is passing them on to me because He wants me to experience the victorious life of Christ and the transformation it brings, at a deeper, and therefore more freeing level than I have ever known before.
Philippians 2:14-15 AMP
Do everything without murmuring or complaining, or questioning [the providence of God] [15] so that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and guileless, innocent and uncontaminated, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and [spiritually] perverted generation, among whom you are seen as bright lights [beacons shining out clearly] in the world [of darkness],
Because we are in Christ, we live from Christ; not for Christ.