Welcome to Hank’s Place —
Are you living an unhappy Christian life of trying to die to self? Struggling to deny your appetites, desires, and dreams? Believing the more you deny your needs and wants, the holier, the closer to God that you will be?
Well, stop it. That message of self-denial is nothing more than the ancient practice of asceticism concealed in religious jargon. Abstaining from food, or fun, or future, won’t make you righteous and holy. Colossians 2:21-23. But it will make you religious. The idea that self-denial makes you a better, holier, more righteous person — is nonsense. All it does is leave you with anxieties and insecurities.
Jesus never said, “You must die to self.” Jesus did say in Luke 9:23, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”
Simply, Jesus was saying to trust in Him, not in ourselves. To walk by the Spirit rather than the flesh. To live out each day in the glorious relationship we have with the Lord. Rather than a command to experience a miserable existence, is a thrilling invitation to the adventure of the life that is ours in Christ.
“Have I denied myself enough?” You can never know. So you’d better deny yourself some more, just to be safe. What Paul does do is remind us of the good news that Jesus died so that we might be free from this sort of dead and useless religion; that in Christ WE HAVE DIED to the world and its sin.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” – Galatians 2:20.
“You have died with Christ” – Col 2:20
“We have died with Christ” – Rom 6:8
“Therefore all died” – 2 Cor 5:14
If you miss the power of these verses to set you free, and hear a message that says you need to fast and pray to become spiritually mature, to hear God better, you might decide to fast and pray. Immediately you are no longer walking by the Spirit, no longer trusting in the FINISHED WORK of the Cross. You are trusting in your own fasting and praying to make you mature, more sensitive to God. Where does the Lord fit in this picture? He doesn’t, and that’s the problem. It is dead religion, and it is a faithless way to live.
So recognize dear Christian friend, that you have died, that your life is hidden in Him, in Christ Jesus — you’ll COME ALIVE!
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