What I am talking about above is this: Our true identity is in Christ, and so too our true life. But as long as we try to hold on to our false identity, our false self, and all the things we think are necessary for it, we are not yet living the life we have in Christ. So, we have to die to all that is false, so we are free to walk in our true identity and our true life.
We are never truly without help, because our help is in God. But we so often live as if he is not, so we have developed all kinds of strategies of manipulation and coping, in the vain attempt to have our own life and identity apart from God.
We hold on to the remnant echoes of our false identity, our false self, and do not realize that we are utterly helpless apart from God — and so we do not look to God as our only help.
We may come face-to-face with our helplessness in a thousand ways. The illusion is that, while there may be some things we cannot handle, there are some things we can. The truth is that we need God for everything, even our breath. And one day, when we come to our very last breath, all the illusion falls away completely, and it is then that God creates us.
The psalm writer said, "You hide Your face, they are troubled; You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; And You renew the face of the earth" (Psalm 104:29-30).
Our breath gone, we are dead — you can't get more helpless than that. But it is then, when we have come to our final helplessness, that God sends forth his Spirit, and we are finally created. So, it is in dying to our corrupt self, our false self, that we come to the moment of our creation, where we are created in Christ.
Baptism shows this to us. We are baptized into Christ's death, and buried with him, so that we may be raised to walk in the newness of his life.
Jeff Doles
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