Life in Death

You may or may not have seen my post from last night.  Coffee and the wee hours of the night  produced a deadly combination of rabbit trails and a not so coherent posting.  I believe that I got off track and tried to post two thoughts in one.  So I decided to forgo the original post and focus on the principle of life through death.  Lord willing, I will post about being Hidden in Christ at a later date. 

The scriptures have been resonating in me about this concept of life through death, of losing your life in order to gain it.  Mark 8:35 states that, "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it."  So how is this possible and do I really believe it?  Do I take the step of faith that my life will truly be saved if I lose it for the gospel?  Let me assure you, God keeps His promises.  "Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you or forsake you." (Deut 31:6)  Jesus reassures His disciples this same promise in Matthew 28:20 after the great commission, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."  How can you trust that God truly has your best interests in heart?  Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

God's glory and honor will always super cede our happiness and our desires.  "For we are created by Him and for Him." (Col 1:16)  However, it does brings Him glory when He blesses us, when He takes care of us, when He gives us life.  So not only are His promises assured, they are also good.  The reward is promised that we will gain life if we lose ours for the gospel, so what does that practically look like?

 Put to death your sinful nature and your sinful desires and do it daily.  Read Romans 6:1-14.  It explains not only what the death of Christ meant, but also what the resurrection of Christ meant as well.  Verse 3 and 4, we share in His death and in His life through the resurrection.  Since we have been put to death in Christ and raised with Him in new life, we are no longer slaves to sin.  We must throw off our sin nature and not let it reign in our mortal bodies. (verse 12)  The command is reiterated in Colossians 3:5-10. 

He is an opportunity to save your life and for me to save my own!  I must lose these desires, I must release my desires that corrupt me and that destroy me.  Think about it, if you want to save your life, you will lose it.  Don't hold on to anything will a clutched fist.  Don't say to God, I will serve you in all of these other areas like reading my Bible everyday and tithing, and in return let me continue to sleep with my girlfriend of boyfriend.  There is nothing done half way here.  True surrender is your whole life.  It doesn't say lose some of your life, you know the easy stuff to give up, but not your desires or goals, hold on to them and you will gain your life.  No, it says lose your life in its entirety.  The things you are unwilling to give up will ultimately destroy you.  So what is holding you back from experience the goodness of the Lord?  What are you unwilling to give up?  I can testify to that, the things that God is calling me to be sanctified from this year, have always destroyed me.  Video games and laziness single handily destroyed my efforts to graduate college on time.  My unwillingness to submit my relationships to Lord in purity has caused disaster, heart ache and regret.

I implore you to see this.  Your selfish desires will destroy you, they will lead to a unfulfilled life mired with regret, pain, and scars.  Find life in your own death.  Die to yourself and submit those dreams and desires to Lord and let Him fulfill them.  He is a good father and a giver of good gifts (Matt 7:11).  He will give us the desires of our heart, however it requires one thing, to delight in Him. (Psalms 37:4) Find your satisfaction in Him and you will not be disappointed, in fact you will be never be satisfied like that elsewhere. (John 6:35) Taste and see that the Lord is good. (Psalms 34:8)

I am praying for you all, that you see that God has a good work to be carried out in you until Christ's return!  (Phil 1:6)

Finally obedient!

I am trying to not put a lot of pressure on myself to make an inspiring and profound first post of my blog ever, so if it is terrible I am asking for forgiveness in advance. 

Ok, with that caveat out of the way, let me give you a story about how all of this came about.  I know that I will give parts of my testimony through out the blog, but we will start on January 1st, 2012.

After celebrating with my small group on New Years Eve, I came into church like I did most every other day, longing to spend time in worship, receiving a message from my pastor, serving in the children's ministry, and socializing and catching up with friends that I did or didn't see the night before.  The setup was different, more like a coffee shop kinda feel, and Pastor Jimmy challenged everyone to consecrate themselves before the Lord, put the Lord in the right perspective, repent of sin, and allow God to speak to us about what He had in store for us in 2012.  Man, did I get hit with a body shot from the Holy Spirit.  It was made very clear to me through the Holy Spirit that I was supposed to consecrate myself for the entirety of 2012, and to give up all of the vices that had plagued me through out my life and especially in my walk with the Lord.  One by one, they were rattled off...No alcohol for a year, No video games for a year, No laziness, No relationships, and remain pure for a year. (I will go into detail about why these are my vices later.)

I am glad those chairs are linked together because I probably would have fallen over backwards.  Overwhelmed, I had to get up and find a corner to pray.  I wrestled with the Holy Spirit and the Lord for the whole service, most of the time in tears.  "I couldn't do this.  There is no way that God is asking me to do this all at once.  Do I really have to give all of this up?"  The more a prayed the more it was confirmed in my Spirit that this is what I needed to do.

After lunch with some friends, I went away to a coffee shop, and put on some worship music and opened my Bible to look for insight, or maybe an excuse.  The Lord put several scriptures on my heart.  Luke 14:25-35, what was the cost of being a disciple?  I really had to evaluate this decision, just like the builder and the king in this passage, was I really willing to give all of this up for a year?  I know the importance of a vow and that it is better to not make one at all then to make one and break it. (Ecclesiastes 5:5)

As I was evaluating the cost, I thought about Mark 8:35-38, specifically verse 35, "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it."  I know that I am not really losing my life, like I don't believe giving up any of these things will actually kill me, and I know that people in the past and even now have sacrificed way more than I could possibly imagine for Christ and for the gospel.  However, I saw this passage in a different light than I had before.  I was TRYING to save my life.  I was having some of Jesus and then some of the things that I wanted.  I would commit myself to ministering to singles and kindergartners at my church, but then I would use those deeds as leverage for the things that I wanted to do.  Essentially, God and I had a barter system, I would do some good things for Him and then I could, in turn, do things that I wanted.  What an illusion!!  I was just like the nation of Israel in Jeremiah 2:13, "My people have committed two sins: They have FORSAKEN me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water."  I was trying to find satisfaction apart from the Lord, and I was content with the dust that I was drinking, when I could have found all of that in the Lord.

BAM!!  It hit me again.  Instead of approaching this task that the Lord had given me with fear, I suddenly became excited!!  I want to drink from the wellspring of life and only the wellspring of life!  Oh man, how great is that going to taste!  Then entered the thought that I needed to offer myself as a living sacrifice to the Lord (Romans 12:1).  To come completely, not with a divided heart, mind, body, or soul, but with everything.  Matthew 22:37 is so true, we are commanded to, "..Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."  There is no half measures in there, no additions, no different portions other than all, and in the Greek, all means all.  Luke 14:33, "In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple."  That is pretty black and white.  There is no bait and switch that Christ is pulling here. 

With assurance in His promises, I said on January 1st, 2012 that I would consecrate myself to the Lord and this is the story.