The End of Me Is the Beginning of Christ
Just as the faintest turn of a dimmer brings back the light, yielding to Christ restores His fullness in us.
📚 Devotional Credit:
T. Austin-Sparks – Open Windows
Insight from The Risen Lord and the Things Which Cannot be Shaken, Chapter 11
📸 Photo Credit:
Photo by Unsplash
T. Austin-Sparks opens today’s entry by highlighting a vital truth: our union with Christ is not just a theological concept but a lived experience—basic in its reality, yet progressive in its outworking. We are united with Christ in His death so that His resurrection life may now animate our own. This isn’t about trying harder to behave like Him, but about yielding our self-life to the ongoing reality of the Cross so that He may fully express His life in and through us.
This means that every appearance of the “I-life”—the old patterns, the old reactions, the self-justification, the subtle pride—has no more standing. It is to be smitten by the Cross as often as it rises. The moment we detect its return, we are not to negotiate with it but to reaffirm our settled stance: Christ is our life now, and He alone has the right to express Himself through us.
Sparks encourages us to trust God to do this work deeply and thoroughly. Not as we perceive the self, but as God sees it. There are depths of self we’ve never uncovered—things that don’t look wrong but still originate from the old man. These, too, are to be brought under the rule of the Cross.
This is not a call to self-critique but a call to surrender, to yield to the ongoing operation of Christ’s death and resurrection in our daily experience. As we live out our days in fellowship with Him, He brings the hidden places of self to light—not to shame us, but to invite us further into the liberty of His life.
📓 Personalized Journal Entry – Voice of the Holy Spirit Through Scripture
I am not asking you to destroy yourself; I’ve already included you in the death of My Son. What I call you to now is not more effort, but more trust. When you agreed with Me in your spirit and counted your old self crucified with Christ, I took you at your word. The transaction was real, and so is the life I now live in you.
There will be moments today when the old habits of self-expression rise again—not always in bold defiance, but in subtle, self-protective ways. You may notice a quick defense rising on your tongue, or a hunger for recognition in your heart. You don’t need to manage that. Let Me show you what I see. Yield to My inner prompting, and I will bring those old remnants under the finished work of the Cross. In those very moments, I am inviting you to let Me express My life instead.
I do not condemn you for the flesh that still lingers—I overcame it. But I love you too much to let it govern your reactions or hijack your peace. Let each rising impulse become an altar. Let each temptation to react in self be met with quiet trust. That is where My resurrection life breaks through and makes you truly alive—alive to Me, and dead to self.
Your part is not to achieve My life, but to receive it. Not to fight for victory, but to abide in Me, the victorious One.
Scripture References: Romans 6:3–6; Galatians 2:20; Colossians 3:3–4; 2 Corinthians 4:10–11; Philippians 3:10; Romans 8:13; John 15:4–5; Ephesians 4:22–24
🌿 Real-Life Analogy
Like a dimmer switch turned down at dusk, the change from day to night is barely noticed until the room is filled with shadows. You weren’t trying to sit in the dark—it just crept in. But the moment your hand touches the switch again, light floods the room without delay.
Our self-life operates just like that. It doesn't always charge in—it dims the light gradually. But as soon as we become aware and yield back to the indwelling Christ, the brightness of His life fills us again. We don’t need to analyze the darkness—just turn the switch.
Today, in a conversation where you might otherwise defend yourself, or in a moment when you crave approval, respond by quietly affirming, “Lord, I yield. Be my response right now.” Then walk on, resting in the assurance that His life in you is more than enough.
🙏 Prayer of Confidence
Father, I thank You that I am already united with Christ in His death and resurrection. I don’t have to put myself on the Cross—You’ve already done that. And You’ve raised me with Him to walk in newness of life. So today, I rest in what You’ve finished. I trust You to expose anything in me that doesn’t reflect Christ, not to shame me, but to invite me deeper into His life. I say “yes” again to the Cross and “yes” to Your resurrection power expressing itself through me. Thank You for doing what I never could—bringing to death all that is not of You, and living through me all that pleases You.