Welcome to Welling: For Your Spiritual Well-being and Your Ministry Overflowing.
Everybody is talking about the new normal, especially post-corona. Unfortunately, the new normal looks like the old normal, both of which are subnormal. But the phrase “the new normal” has been rather popular, whether in business or in society, where after a crisis, a new situation develops that is presented like the prior state of the crisis, but in a new way.
The very fact that “normal” has to be used is an attempt to get to prominence some degree of routine, some order by which we are able to handle life. Unfortunately, crisis after crisis touches us, and even the new normal will be passé. The concept, however, is good at least for a little time, that something is regularized or routinized, so that life can be managed, life can be lived, in a new way of working perhaps, a new way of living.
I’m going to present a new normal–not a new subnormal–in the series called “I, I, I, I,” banked on the incredible seminal verse of life which captures your new normal of the spiritual vitality that you and I need. This segment is called “Myself versus My Self.”
In the last talk I talked about the egotistical, prideful self that is myself, being the self-empowered source of my existence and the object of my existence. However, we cannot deny our personal identity, the psychological self. In that, I’m just referring to those two words, My self, with a capital M but a small s.
The verse which we are looking at has both parts to it. I am a person, but I should not be proud about being that person. Because something has happened, that the old normal is gone and a new normal has arrived.
So when the Apostle Paul speaks in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me,” that is speaking about an egotistical identity, which was the old normal. His new normal, “I now live in the flesh.” And how do I now live in the flesh? I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me, the new normal.
So I want you to look at those four I’s with–pardon the play on words–four eyes. It’s a profound statement of a new normal, a new perspective, a new experience, a new dynamic into which you’re moved–not the old, prideful, self-empowered living by which you are attempting to please God and fulfill His expectations, but a new Christ-empowered way of life where, although you cannot be perfect, He, living in you, has already brought the declaration of your righteousness before God. And therefore you can live in freedom.
The secret of your Welling is in His in-dwelling. This is a new normal. The old normal was the law, the flesh, the self, what Romans will call the Adamic Way. In the new normal, you can continue in grace, in Christ, in freedom, in life. We don’t want a new subnormal, but there could be a new normal in your life. The secret of your Welling is His in-dwelling.