Every year as a Pastor I struggle with the Easter message.  I think there is internal pressure you bring upon yourself at this time of the year. I know this is the one Sunday most people will visit our church and the time that many unchurched folks will check us out.  So you begin realizing this sermon is important and then you get preachers block.  How can you communicate this incredibly important message in a 30 minute block of time?

This year I am drawn to the above verse of scripture.  This verse has caused me a lot of frustration.  I have gone to many conferences and been taught that the way to a deeper spiritual life is by death to self and letting Christ live totally through you.

It seems as if they were saying you cease to exsist and Christ is now living totally through you.  I confess I have tried this route many times only to revert to my old way of living.  Charles Ryrie in his book Balancing The Christian Life really helped me on this.   If you notice this verse carefully you will see that it says, "I now live" Christ definitely indwells us but we live out that live in the power of the Holy Spirit.  As I began to look at the context of this verse it dawned on me that Paul was not giving us a verse on the deeper Christian life though it definitely has application in that area.  His main thrust was that we can't earn eternal life through human effort.

In verse 19 He describes how he died to the law, I think Paul was saying that no matter how he tried and believe me he did he could not measure up to the high standard of the law.  But this is not a bad thing but rather a good thing for it was through this experience that he discovered grace.  And grace is the only way that any of us can live unto God as Paul puts it.

In verse 20 I think Paul is continuing this thought and telling us he has completely identified with Christ on the cross and died to the law or human effort to obtain salvation.  He was putting all of his hope in Christ and in Christ alone.  He was no longer under this tremendous burden to obey the law for salvation.  But now Christ was his hope, he was living moment by moment through faith in the resurrected Christ.  Paul has died to the law for righteousness sake and found life in Christ.  We must keep in mind the overarching theme in Galatians, false teachers who were trying to put Christian back under the law.

Paul makes it clear in the above verse that if the law or religion could prepare us for eternity then Christ would not have to die.  But He did die revealing the inability of human effort through the law to save and prepare us for Heaven.

These are just some thoughts and ramblings as I go through the sermon prep time.