RUN LIKE A CHAMPION

During the first three years of my Christian life, my heart burned with the love of Christ. I wanted to tell everyone of His great love. I couldn’t wait to come into His presence through prayer and reading the Bible. Those were wonderful days I shall never forget. There was one special place where I would meet with Him in the mornings. The memories of those days still linger with me.
But after three years, something happened in my Christian experience. The flame of the love of God in my heart began to die . I didn’t know what to do. I knew I was a Christian, but I no longer experienced the victory I once knew. I didn’t know how to recapture that flame that once burned deep in my soul.
One day, I met a man named Leo Humphrey. He was a red-headed ball of fire. He witnessed to everyone he met. When I saw the fire of God’s love burning deep within him, I realized how defeated my Christian life really was. One night, Leo and I were ministering together in a beach-side community on the Gulf of Mexico. I confided in Leo, “I’m defeated. I don’t know what to do. I struggle in my walk with God.”
That night Leo and I prayed together. It felt like half an hour. But when we finished, I was surprised to see the sun rising. We had prayed through the night. That was the turning point in my walk with God.
That night I took my wife and placed her in a casket. I took my furniture and placed it in a casket. I took my automobile, my clothes, and all of my material possessions and placed them in that casket. I took my ambition to be some well-known preacher and placed it in that casket. I took my dreams and aspirations and placed them in that casket. Then I crawled into the casket and I died.
No, I didn’t do that physically. But I did spiritually. Sammy Tippit died. I died to the “self life” — to ego, pride, self-sufficiency, and selfishness. The apostle Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God” (Galatians 2:20). Paul had not been physically crucified, but he died spiritually to the “self life.” His life could only be described by “Christ who lived in him.”
When I discovered this great truth, the fire of God’s love once again began to burn deep within my soul. Actually, I had died to self when I became a Christian. The “old man” had died, and I was raised to a new life in Christ. That’s why I had experienced so much victory in the beginning of my Christian life. But somewhere along the way, I thought I could live the Christian life. I tried, and I failed miserably.
The victorious Christian life is the crucified life. It’s the life that has died to self — and has been raised to victory by the indwelling presence of Jesus Christ. It’s the life that truly understands, “no longer I, but Christ who lives in me.” It’s dead to self and alive in Christ.
I had to climb in a casket one evening. Only then did I begin to experience the victorious Christian life. There’s a casket waiting for each of us. Life results from death. We’ll never know the resurrected power of Christ until we’ve experienced the crucified life with Him.