DAILY VIDEO DEVOTIONAL
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.
Colossians : Chapter 3
1) Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2) Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3) For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4) When Christ, who is your[a] life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 5) Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6) Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.[b] 7) You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8) But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9) Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10) and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11) Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Book of the Month
Sammy Tippit told his fiancée, “I can’t promise we’ll be rich, but life won’t be boring.”
Sammy had no idea what an understatement that would become. Beginning in the bars of Baton Rouge and the nightclubs of Chicago, Tippit has shared the news of life-changing faith in Christ all over the world – including in the middle of a revolution in Romania, the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, and war in Burundi and the Congo.
Sammy’s lifelong adventure has come at a great price. He’s been cursed, threatened, arrested, deported, and blacklisted. He’s also been personally broken, ravaged with illness, and devastated by grief.
Yet he continues to preach to in stadiums, in open fields, and via satellite technology to hundreds of thousands around the globe. For all other books…
About Sammy Tippit Ministries
STM has been providing inspiration and help around the world for nearly 50 years. Sammy Tippit, founder and president, is a world renowned counselor, teacher and evangelist with experience serving and helping people in over 80 countries. Sammy provides materials that help people tackle a broad array of social, societal, psychological and spiritual issues. He is particularly passionate about making materials accessible to other countries around the world. Sammy is married to Debara “Tex” Tippit, and they have two children and five grandchildren.
Sammy Tippit Ministries is a registered 501c3 non-profit organization.
Contact: info@sammytippit.org
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