When I was a young man, I once went to a voice trainer. She was a rather large woman — not fat or flabby, just solid. I had hardly crossed the threshold into her studio when she barked at me: “Expire!”
I said, “Expire? But I’m too young!” (which I thought was incredibly funny). She did not think so, and she made it demonstrably obvious that she did not think so. So I expired.
“That is not the way to expire,” she quickly told me. She then showed me the proper way to do it, and man, could she expire! Whooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!By the time she was through expiring, she seemed to be about half her former size.
Then she barked at me again: “Inspire!” So I inspired.
She said, “That is not the way to inspire.” She expired again, then inspired — and man, did she inspire! She sucked so hard I thought the pictures would come off the wall. I could almost see the grand piano coming across the room, and her mouth seemed open wide enough to swallow it.
She then preached to me a magnificent sermon. “You will never, ever learn to inspire,” she said, “until first you have learned to expire; otherwise, you will only perspire!” Is that not good?
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” (Galatians 2:20, AMP). That is to inspire.
With every step we take into the future, we can say, “With Christ I died, and now through Him I live, as He shares His Life with me on earth on my way to heaven, and then forever.” That is what it means to be a Christian.
With every step you take, you first expire: “Lord Jesus, I can’t; You never said I could.”
Then you inspire: “Lord Jesus, You can, and always said You would!”
This is what keeps you from the futility of doing nothing more than perspire.
“For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection” (Romans 6:5). — Ian Thomas
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