And yesterday…
And tomorrow…
And the day after that…
Basically I have chosen to die to myself daily.
Yesterday I was talking to my team about hanging my hammock in a place that is right near the front edge of the roof of the building we are staying in to which my team leader replied…"Just don't die."
My response…"I will. I die to myself daily."
And it struck me…do I ACTUALLY die to myself daily?
What was supposed to be a witty remark turned into conviction in an instance.
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Paul seemed to grasp the concept of dying to self daily, but today I feel we as Christians come off as a bit perplexed when pastors talk about dying to yourself daily. I actually read a post about this and an unbeliever thought the writer was talking about some suicide pact. Talk about a skewed perspective…
But just how skewed is our perspective as Christians?
For so many of us, we live out our everyday lives knowing we are walking in sin, but claim to be Christians. This very act is what turns most unbelievers away from God in the first place. The body of "believers," aka the church, is killing the very church it is supposed to represent!
It's time for confession! I believe the Catholic church is on to something with that…They just don't go about it in the way I feel scripture defines confession. We are called as brothers and sisters in Christ to confess to one another and pray for one another…Also referred to as "bringing it into the light."
BRILLIANT!!! But how many of us are transparent with one another? How many of us ACTUALLY do what scripture tells us to do? It's time for some vulnerability people! I'm not talking about telling each other "I'm a sinner" and then praying in generalities. I'm talking about getting to the roots of that sin. Struggles with lust, pride, anger, fear, doubt, bitterness. Lies, adultery, stealing, coveting, and even murder if you have hate for someone(because scripture says hating someone is the same as murdering them).
So what is it going to take to get to that level of faith to follow through with confession and prayer?
Dying to yourself daily. Waking up every morning…better yet, going to sleep every night in the mindset that the person going to sleep that night isn't going to be the same person who wakes up in that very body the following morning. Scripture says not to go to sleep angry. I believe it also means not to go to sleep with regrets, with fear or doubt, with hopelessness or depression, or anything else that holds you back from becoming the greatness God has called you in to.
So as soon as you lay your head down, confess to the Lord what you did that day. Lay it down at the foot of the cross where it can be washed clean…white as snow…by the blood of Jesus Christ. Vow to wake up the next morning a changed person…Someone who doesn't make the same poor choices they made the previous day. Another scripture comes to mind about a dog returning to it's vomit. How many of us do that every day? Even multiple times during the day? We make a poor decision that leads us down a path we know we shouldn't venture, but yet when faced with similar choices later that day or the following day, we "return to the vomit" and gorge ourselves on the very regurgitation that made us sick in the first place expecting to be able to stomach it a second, third, fourth, or fifth time. It's a sorry pattern that we have fallen into and it's about time we get out of that rut!
Trust me. I'm preaching to the choir. I AM the choir! I'm just as guilty of this as the next man.
But this is a declaration…I hope and pray I die. Every day. I want to have a funeral service for myself every evening as I fall to sleep so that when I wake up in the morning I don't live the way that former self did. I want to have a headstone for every day forward that has an epitaph that reads…"Here lies the old Charles Morris Jr., who died again today to the old self so that he could enter into the new self tomorrow. A man after God's own heart."
So what does it mean to you to die to yourself daily? What habits are you going to lay to rest? And will you rise the next day as a zombie…the living dead? Or will you wake up as a new creation each day ready to live each day as a new day? You decide.
John 12:24 "Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."
