CHRIST LIVETH IN ME

Amazing Grace

Daniel W. Whittle, 1840–1901

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ liveth in me. (Galatians 2:20)

“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). One can almost hear the apostle Paul exhorting the carnal Christians at Corinth with these strong words. How important it is that believers realize with conviction that their earthly bodies are the residence of the living God! Such an awareness should cause us to have an earnest concern for the proper care of our bodies. It is also the motivation we need for Christ-like living—to allow His perfection to be demonstrated in our mortal flesh.

Oh, to be saved from myself, dear Lord, Oh, to be lost in Thee;
Oh, that it may be no more I, but Christ that lives in me.
— C. H. Forrest

The evidence of true conversion is the growing awareness of Christ within us as the Holy Spirit confirms this fact with our human spirit (Romans 8:16). As we mature in the Christian faith, we appreciate increasingly the biblical truth of the glorious identification and security that are ours: God is in Christ, Christ is in us, and we are in Christ. Nothing can ever defeat or destroy such a divine union.

The author, Daniel W. Whittle, was a most interesting individual. He joined the Illinois Infantry during the Civil War and rose to the rank of major. For the remainder of his life he was known by this title. Following the war he returned to Chicago and became treasurer of the Elgin Watch Company. In 1873, however, he resigned this high position and under D. L. Moody’s influence entered the evangelistic ministry. He was unusually successful as an evangelist as well as the author of a number of favorite gospel hymns, most of which he wrote with the pseudonym “El Nathan.” “Christ Liveth in Me” first appeared in Gospel Hymns #6, which was published in 1891.

Once far from God and dead in sin, no light my heart could see; but in God’s Word the light I found. Now Christ liveth in me.

As lives the flower within the seed, as in the cone the tree; so, praise the God of truth and grace; His Spirit dwelleth in me.

With longing all my heart is filled, that like Him I may be, as on the wond’rous thought I dwell that Christ dwelleth in me.

Refrain: Christ liveth in me. O what a salvation this, that Christ liveth in me!

For Today: John 17:22, 23; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Galatians 2:19–21; Ephesians 3:16, 17; Colossians 1:27

Live with the confidence of an indwelling Christ who promises to help you do all things through His strength (Philippians 4:13). Sing this musical truth –

Osbeck, K. W.

• As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the won of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in the them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. John 17:2-23
• And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. 2 Corinthians 6:16
• For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. 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. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Galatians 2:19–21
• That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell i your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, Ephesians 3:16-17
• To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:27