Jesus gave himself up; he died to himself to save us and make us his. Now we give ourselves up, we die to ourselves, first when we repent and believe the gospel, and later as we submit to his will day by day.

You may be thinking, “If such a life is totally of Him, through Him, and to Him, then where do I come in?” You do not. That is just where you go out! This is what Paul meant when he said, “For to me, to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21). God credits only one Person with the right to live in you, and He is Jesus Christ; so reckon yourself to be

To be crucified with Christ is to be executed judicially with Him, to expire. To those who expire in this way, God has given the very Life that He restored to the Lord Jesus when He raised Him from the dead, so that we can say not only, “I have been crucified with Christ,” but also, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me”