From what
I was then to what I am now.
To read
these words-
1Co
15:31 … I die daily.
Luk
9:23 …let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow
me.
Mat
10:38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not
worthy of me.
To read
the above words is to comprehend death to self. This is something that needs to
be before us constantly as Christ followers, constantly.
When we
first accepted Christ as our Savior in genuine conversion from being lost to
sin to being saved to eternal life, a change took place in us. A new world was
opened up for us to witness. A hope that didn't exist before was suddenly
present in us. The knowledge that we were lost in our sins and are now saved
through the grace of Christ is something exquisite beyond measure. The
conversion experience for a lot of people is quite remarkable and there is a
pointed old man to new man that people who know us witness. While we may have
been caught up in partying to please self- we are now caught up in living to
bring the amazing truth of salvation to others. Sometimes our initial
conversion experience is so powerful we can't help but shout it out to all who
will listen to us. We explain to those we were once partying with that
something awesome has happened and it can happen for them too. More often than
not, those we are trying to convey our new sense of purpose too will shun our
new found faith and as a result, shun us. We didn't mind though, we felt the
weight of sadness that one feels as they witness someone missing out on an
amazing opportunity, but we didn't feel regret over our conversion.
To be able
to say our lives before accepting Christ we were different people is something
a lot of Christ followers can say. I won't say all, because I truly don't know
how it might be for everyone. Some Christ followers are raised to be so from
their childhood and slip into their conversion differently perhaps.
From what
I was then to what I am now.
Can I
still say those words or has my life after many years from that initial
conversion become such as it would be unrecognizably different from my life
before that conversion?
I'll tell
you the truth for myself- I have lived on a slippery slope. There I was
standing upon the mountain, upon the rock, the firm foundation in Christ and
then somehow without much realization that rock was being chipped away at. The
mountain was being excavated so subtly I wasn't aware on a fully conscious
level- whether choosing to not hear the bulldozers and earth excavators, the
dump trucks being filled with foundation boulders, I don't fully know. On some
level I have to believe I was handed some ear plugs and I chose to put them in
my ears. I was also given a blind fold and I slowly chose to slip it on over my
eyes. Then after a while I unstopped my ears and removed the blindfold only to
find myself no longer upon the mountain, no longer standing on the firm
foundation only found in Christ. I was at the bottom of what remained of my
destroyed Christ following life and I was living for myself- very selfishly
concerned with my self-centered pursuits- even though some of those were tokens
of my former Christ following life that I wanted to keep so I could try to keep
myself deceived that I was still where I needed to be- on that narrow Christ
following road.
Again,
truthfully, over the course of the last forty years of my life I have climbed
the mountain a few times, only to climb down again. I stopped my daily dying to
self gradually so as not to shock myself back into continuing to do so.
Our CROSS
must be picked up DAILY.
Our DYING
TO SELF must be done DAILY.
This daily
cross bearing and dying is a DAILY recognition of our not naturally wanting to
bear that cross, or die to self. We choose to bear the cross KNOWINGLY, we
choose to put our self-serving to death KNOWINGLY. We don't indulge the
self-serving in ourselves that will forever fight for supremacy.
Our daily
choices must be done with recognition, not done by rote to the point we no
longer think much about what we are doing.
More on
this tomorrow by the GRACE and WILL of our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST!
Eph
2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
2Co
5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things
are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Rom
6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as
Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also
should walk in newness of life.
