DYING TO ONESELF

                     

     

Picture this scene:

You are driving on the road, when this car comes behind you, tail bending , flashing hiss cars front beams, you allow him to pass - but that’s not the end . He starts intimidating you for taking too long to move out of the way!

OR

Imagine a very common situation for many of us today at work, where you have a nagging boss, a real tyrant , who yells at you no matter how hard you work,

OR

A situation at home, wherein you are nagged by your spouse over what you feel are petty things,

OR

You get constantly yelled at by your parents over issues you feel they do not understand,

OR

In your group of friends or peers you are constantly ridiculed.

When you are intimidated, neglected, ridiculed or purposely provoked and you don’t react or dwell on the hurt or the insult but your heart is at peace,

-          THAT IS DYING TO ONESELF.

In life we are faced with similar situations, some even graver than these!!! In all of these situations, how do we react and more importantly how would God want us to react?

When your good is spoken of as evil, when your views are not considered, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, when you reach out and the door is closed in your face and yet in spite of all this you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defend yourself, but take it all in patience and with love

–        THAT IS DYING TO ONESELF.

John 12: 24 says "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit”

The meaning of dying to self is that…I die, meaning I am no longer the reason for my existence, and no longer the center of my own little universe. Instead I’ve replaced the
“Me, Myself and I” attitude with our Lord, Jesus Christ. He lives in me now, so I begin caring and considering for others at the expense of myself, like Jesus always did.

James 1:2-4 says  

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”

If our lives went so smoothly, without a dark cloud or any problem, we would not even have any knowledge of having a need of God. He keeps us at times in situations where we are so broken and kneel before Him until we really understand and know that we cannot take another breath without Him giving it to us. He does this out of love. Our faith has to be and will be tested and we need to walk forward blindly, having only His hand and name to cling to.

Dying to self and suffering, go hand-in-hand. Whatever the situation you are going through , work , at home or with your family that is driving you to the point of tears and you feel like you are up against a wall.

Ask yourself, do you believe that God is in control of your life – down to the very last detail? Can you trust Him with your life? Are you prepared to trust Him when all is going wrong? As we celebrate our happiness with Him, so too we will at times, suffer with Him and we are to count it all as joy! "Dying to self" is not something you should be afraid about. Carrying your cross is reason for joy!!!.

He must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30)

If our goal is to die to ourselves so that we are carrying out God's will all the time then we need to go through some processes to achieve that- processes that will lead us through a journey of holiness and involves humility, strengthening our faith, and love .

For this, Jesus must increase in our lives, and our worldly thoughts that we've had since childhood must decrease. Our worldly wants are directly contrary to God's desires. In order for your spirit to grow, our worldly desires must decrease

A path to achieve this is similar to how we eat well to get a healthy body- we need spiritual food for Jesus to grow in us- a healthy diet of

 1) The Word of God,

 2) Fellowship with spiritually inclined Christian Brothers & Sisters

 3) Constantly reaching out to others in need

We would have to completely cut out on things of the flesh , i.e. all things material and worldly and purge ourselves of our pride, self-will, selfishness, self-esteem, and all the other things that cause us to think about ourselves first and God second , the flesh must die . I must add that this is all possible only with God's help and guidance. You cannot do it alone.

Jesus said in Matthew 16:24 ; "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.

Imagine you are this unshapely hideous rock and you want God to carve out this wonderful masterpiece out of it , this would require him chiseling out all the unwanted stuff , our sins , our attitudes , our character ,in short our entire life  . This chiseling would come with excruciating pain as every time he chisels we die to ourselves ridding ourselves of all the un-wantedness in our lives. He will break us and shape us and grow us and then will continue to do this all the way through our lives with Him. He will form His Son’s likeness in us. This obviously will cause suffering. Dying is a painful thing. We want to hold onto ourselves so very much. He wants us to let go and trust Him regardless of what we see in front of us right now.

This simple explanation I share above, should be going on every day all day quietly in the background as we learn to die more each day and walk more and more in Him

In essence;

When we truly recognize that serving one self is no good, rid ourselves of material and worldly desires of the flesh and we choose to serve only the Lord.

– THAT IS DYING TO ONESELF.

When you can see your brother or sister prosper and let him have his needs met and you honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no jealousy, nor do you question God even though You are in more dire circumstances and your own needs are far greater 

 – THAT IS DYING TO ONESELF.

When you are insulted or wronged and humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, without resentment or hatred rising up within your heart

–     THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

Concluding Prayer: Dear Lord, bring me to a place of humility before the cross so that I willingly die to myself in order that I may live in, with and through you alone . Amen.

Sunith Dsouza

HSI Media

Sunith.hsimt@gmail.com