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.