Are you dead? (Part Two)

In order to understand the phrases dying to your carnal self and hating your life, we need to define them. You hate your life when you hate the fact that the busyness of your current life and the demands of your selfish nature stands in your way to obey the Lord’s every command and be as fruitful as possible. Dying to self is to do something about it and remove these from your life so you have more to give to the Lord.

What is it in us that need to die?

Our life needs to die. “What do you mean my life? What am I worth dead?” you may ask. If you live YOUR life, you live it as you like for yourself. You make decisions according to your desires, your passions, your lusts, your comfort and securities. This is what needs to die. So what does such a life look like? In looking at it we assume you are a Christian and could build your life around any of the following:

a.    You have a comfortable (in many cases a very luxurious) home, an impressive career, a number of pleasurable activities, inclusive of the cars you drive, the sports you play and the social life you live. Christianity is an essential status you had to acquire and you make sure that your giving and your presence at church circles are not passed unnoticed.

b.    For some who were not so fortunate in life to have the opportunity to acquire loads of money, the basis of their Christianity is actually very similar than described above. The way around the lack of money is being one-eyed king in the land of the blind. You make sure you impress those around you with a lifestyle and a presence that are just a little more impressive that those of others. Quite often power, such as in serving in many committees, forms part of the package.

c.    For a third type of Christian comfort is the name of the game. You do your Christian duty by paying your tithe and sooth your conscience by attending church regularly, attending home cell and so on. You just do not want to be asked to be involved in any more, since it may interfere with your sports idolatry or social life.

d.   Some Christians are ambitious and climb the ladder of success in sport and career, tagging Christianity along because they really would not like to wind up in hell.

The Lord Jesus said in Mathew 7:21-23 under the chapter heading “True and False Disciples”, that many will tell Him they have done all these wonderful things in His name and for Him, but He told them He does not know them. Why is this? It is actually quite simple – those who do not die to themselves and hate their own lives, only tag Christianity along with their self-centred lives, which they love more than the author of this Christianity. They never go to the trouble getting to know Jesus through studying His Word and obeying what He tells them to do and therefore, when they approach Him on the day of judgement, He seriously cannot recall that He ever met them, because they never had a relationship with Him.

How much do you know about the Lord? Do you know which of your actions He likes and dislikes? Do you know what His exact will for your life is and what He wants you to do to get there? What is it that stands in your way to get to know Him better and find out what He desires for you?

In human relationships, such as with your spouse, partner or boss, you know what to pursue with the person involved in the relationship and what to avoid. As you get to know your boss, you know what not to do and what to do to avoid his displeasure. The same applies to your spouse.

Why would it be different with the Lord of hosts? If the Lord Jesus and the angels had to step lightly to stay in favour with Father God, why would it be different for us? A general lie that is preached these days is that the Lord’s love is unconditional? If it had been so, why did He deal so severely with certain people, including those of the New Testament? Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11) come to mind. Why did He not just give them a fair chance to come to their senses and repent? If He loved them unconditionally, why did He act so severely?

God seeks holiness and obedience? He probably made an example of Ananias and Sapphira as a message to the Christians in the ages to come. If He had to act so severely with all Christians lying to the Holy Spirit, many more would have died. Maybe this is the reason why certain Christians died prematurely. Only God knows, but since the passage about Ananias and Sapphira concludes with these words; “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events”, should we not fear God enough not to act like them.

As I studied the book of Acts and came to the account of Ananias and Sapphira, I felt the Lord said to me the church is polluted with Ananiases and Sapphiras. How often have you deceived people with your spiritual motives, creating an untrue impression of yourself or what you do in order to impress those who matter? God is not to be fooled around with. He may be merciful right now, but there are lots of evidence in the Bible that we will answer one day for our actions and motives. Can the Lord say of you as He said of Job: “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” (Job 2:3)

Lord, you need me to be wholly available to help in the harvest. Help me to hate and die to those things in my life that keeps me from getting there.

To be continued.

Are you dead?

“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

“⁵For if we have been united with Him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with Him in a resurrection like His. For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

“⁸Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God.

“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace,” (Romans 6:1-14).

Have you ever struggled with the things you do that you do not want to do as Paul mentioned in Romans 7:14-24? How many times have you decided not to criticise, or not to retaliate, or not to defend yourself, or not to be nasty with your body language, or not to return to your pet sin or idol? Maybe you have decided to live more for Jesus and less for your material desires, but struggle to sacrifice your time for the sake of those that need you because you cling to your comfortable lifestyle.

The problem is that we set up our lives to be in control and therefore, however hard we try to live without sin, including the sin of making our own decisions, we do not succeed. I have desired to live outright for the Lord - under His control and in obedience - for a long time now, and since I have set out in the attempt to master it, I have received real understanding of where Paul was at as recorded in Romans 7:14-24. It is especially difficult to control the feelings, thoughts and the tongue toward those with whom I have relationship challenges and in relationships where pride tends to rise.

Since I am in serious pursuit of holiness and to be right with God, I fasted and prayed about this and the Lord said to me: “You’re not dead.” Suddenly it struck me – a dead man cannot retaliate, be proud, be critical, be full of material lusts or be selfish. A dead man can be slapped, kicked, criticised, be shouted at, and so on, but he will not respond. If I am dead in myself, but alive in Christ, I look at myself from inside of Christ and tell my flesh: ‘I am alive and will act like Christ would, but you are dead’. I then asked the Lord how do I die to sin and self.

“Ask me to teach you,” He said. Now, please think carefully before you ask this off the Lord, but if you do, expect to be challenged and for things to happen in your life that will help your carnal nature to move out of the way. I am looking forward to the result though. Maybe you can witness below if you had death-to-the-flesh experiences. If you as a kernel of grain die, you will produce much fruit.

“Jesus replied, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 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. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me,’” (John 12:23-26).

If your life, in other words your lifestyle, desires and behaviour, stand in the way of the Lord accomplishing His desires for you, you need to lose (hate) your (current) life (John 12:25) so you can take up His life (Romans 6:8-10).

Father, teach me to die so I could live only for You and bear much fruit.