Jesus is not an additive.

Many teachings seem to make it appear that we have to apply Christ's teachings, principles, and doctrines and even His life to ourselves. THAT IS A LIE!! Christ is not an additive we can add to ourselves to somehow make our lives better or improved. (ADDITIVE definition: something that is added, as one substance to another, to alter or improve the general quality or to counteract undesirable properties.) NO! We were crucified with Christ and do not have a life of our own to apply anything to. Jesus Christ is the only person in the universe that is the true source of life. Doctrines, teachings, and instructions can never provide life. Even the law can never provide life. In fact, nothing that you ever do or do not do can ever bring life. When we are born again His selfless love now abides in us.

True salvation is an abiding miracle. That continued abiding has brought into us in a moment what was not possible otherwise, and it keeps our souls in a state where that reality abides and that reality remains. It is always and at all times a miracle because we still are insufficient in ourselves. Man's innate incapacity, insufficiency, and impotence are overridden, overcome, and prevailed over by the constant abiding presence of another man's sufficiency. That is always so. That is so every moment of our existence in Christ. So that we would not think of ourselves more highly than we ought but rejoice and boast in Him and Him alone, who has made unto us all things. This is by design. Salvation does not correct the emptiness of the vessel. Salvation fills up the vessel with the sufficiency of another. And that vessel is privileged to be a container of the power of a sufficient party. And rejoices and boasts in His sufficiency in the midst of the weakness of the vessel.

It is a second-by-second miracle wrought of God, gifting, imputing to the soul what is impossible for that soul to have as its possession. God designed this to be this way because what we have as the intention of God toward us as a living soul demands the power of God to actually make it a realization, to make it a reality within us. It is designed by God. That's why it must be of grace through faith that this comes to be the faith by which we access the grace in which we presently stand as those who are justified and those who have peace with God through Christ. Remember that we were totally crucified and died with Christ and buried with Him. He did not fix us or repair our old totally corrupt heart. He removed and replaced it. Then we were given a new Spirit. We are a NEW creation, not a fixer-upper. We were crucified with Christ, yet the life we now live is Christ living in us. We never have had a life of our own, and Christ is our only LIFE.

Before the foundation of the world, God had only one true main objective and purpose, and that was to have the person of Jesus Christ Himself dwell, abide, and live within us. That is His Mark. We are ONLY saved by HIS LIFE and by His continual presence within us. It is totally all of God and none of us because it is God who is now working and will continue to work within us to both to will and to do of His good pleasure. .

There’s a lot in what you wrote that points in the right direction, especially the truth that Christ Himself is our life and not something we tack on to improve ourselves. Scripture is clear on that. “I am the way, the truth, and the life” ~John 14:6, and “Christ, who is our life” ~Colossians 3:4. That part is solid. We are not self-improved sinners, we are made new in Him. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” ~2 Corinthians 5:17.

But we need to be careful not to swing so far that we dismiss the place of Christ’s words, commands, and teaching. You said doctrines and instructions can never provide life, and that’s true in the sense that life comes from Christ Himself, not from our effort. But Jesus also said, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” ~John 6:63. His Word is not separate from Him. It is how He speaks, corrects, and leads us.

Also, while it’s true we were crucified with Christ, Scripture does not say we never had a life of our own in any sense. It says that old life was real, but dead in sin. “You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” ~Ephesians 2:1. Then it says, “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” ~Romans 6:11. So there is a real death and a real new life, not the idea that we never existed or had any life at all.

And one more thing to keep straight: God’s purpose before the foundation of the world was not just that Christ would live in us, but that we would be redeemed through Him. “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world” ~Ephesians 1:4, and that redemption comes through His blood ~Ephesians 1:7. The cross is central, not just the indwelling.

So yes, Christ is not an add-on. He is everything. But the same Christ who lives in us also commands us, teaches us, and calls us to walk in obedience. “If ye love me, keep my commandments” ~John 14:15. It’s not Christ plus our effort, but it is Christ in us producing a life that actually follows Him.