we need to die

Will at One Thing I Know posted his sermon Dying So That We Might Live. Here are some excerpts and thoughts.

While preaching a minister asked his church, “Who wants to go to heaven?”
Everyone held up their hands except one young boy.
“Son, don’t you want to go to heaven when you die?”
“Yes sir, when I die, but I thought you was gettin’ up a load to go now.”

The truth is that the words "I'm willing to die" are easier to say than do. Of course there are some things we are willing to die for - or at least claim we are willing to die for. The real question is what are you willing to live for and are you willing to live in a way that is dead to yourself?

Robert Capon says, “Jesus solves the world’s problems by dying." And unless we are willing to see our own death as the one thing necessary for our salvation, we will never be able to enjoy the resurrection, even though Jesus hands it to us on a silver platter. If we refuse to die, we will cut ourselves off from ever knowing the joy of his grace in us...

Jesus modeled how to live a life dead to Himself which included submitting to the point of physical death.

James Forbes ... The church can’t rise because it refuses to drop dead. The fact that it’s dying, he said, is of no use to it whatsoever: dying is simply the world’s most uncomfortable way of remaining alive. If you are to be raised from the dead, the only thing that can make you a candidate is to go all the way into death. Death, not life, is God’s recipe for fixing up the world. And we, as individuals and as church can choose to die, because we believe that Jesus specializes in bringing the dead to life again.

So the truth is that we are dying regardless. We can choose to hang onto our lives (or forms of church or fill in your favorite point) but in doing so we live lives that are less than we ought and in the end, we still die. Or we can choose to die now and live life in Christ Jesus. Then, and only then, can we have abundant life. The Kingdom is come now and will only become more complete. But we must first die. Are you trying to live or die?

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