10/16/06 Dying to Yourself

Dying to yourself. The Bible Talks a lot about it, but we rarely hear about it in church.
We say it all the time: “Don’t tell me to die to my desire to be popular.” “Don’t tell me to die to my desire for my child to be popular.” Until the church recognizes that we must put aside the old man, that we must die to our self, revival won’t come. There is sacrifice involved. There is pain involved. There is humility involved, and most of all, there is faith involved. Our people need to believe that by dying God is in fact going to let them LIVE. Scripture says so. And there needs to be testimonies in the church from people who say so. Can we not just look around and see the messes we have gotten ourselves into when we don’t die?? Broken relationships, hatred, abuse, drug and alcohol addictions, STD’s, obesity, unruly kids, mental illnesses, depression, eating disorders. And that’s just what I saw yesterday morning in church. We are allowing sin and pain and hurt and condemnation to run our lives, and we are being RUINED. Where is freedom? It comes from dying. And this dying isn’t going to take place in your soft cushy chair on Sunday while the choir sings and you smile at the crowd around you, thanking God that no one knows you. It’s going to take place in the quiet moments when it’s just you and God. It’s going to be painful, messy, and ugly. But here’s the deal; we are going to be ruined one way or another. We can ruin our lives with the consequences that come from chasing after sin. Or, we can allow God to ruin our lives, in faith that he has in fact “come to give us life, and give it to us abundantly.”