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Just
Shoot Me Dead Already!
Bob Dylan once sang something to the
effect
that "he who ain’t busy livin’ is busy dyin’."
Right on, bro! Live it up! It was a cool concept in the sixties. And even
in this newly minted 21st century, it still sounds pretty good. Except
that it goes completely against Christ’s call to die to self (Romans
6:6-12).
Dying to self. What a concept. What a
glorious pain. How do you do it? That’s always been my big question. It’s
not like you can just pull out a spiritual six-gun and do in the bad-boy
fleshy self once and for all. Nope. Ain’t that easy, pardner. (Although at
times we seem to think we can help others die by shooting them--but that’s
a whole ‘nother thing and we ain’t a-goin’ there just now.)
When I think of the process of dying to
self, or getting rid of selfishness, an image that comes to mind is a
magician pulling an endless rope of scarves out of his jacket pocket. In
the beginning, it seems like such a simple thing. There’s only the end
hanging out of his pocket. Then he gives it a yank. And pulls. And pulls.
And pulls. Soon, a multi-colored pile is at his feet and still he keeps
pulling.
That’s what it’s like to die to self. The
more of your selfishness you kill, the more there is still to die. And
yet, the more you die the more you’re alive! In Christ, that is. The
Bible, especially Paul’s writings, is peppered with these apparent
contradictions. (When encountered, they can make you sneeze in the spirit!
Holy achoo! Bless you! Peppered. Get it? Never mind...)
Self-dying is a daily, even an hourly
thing. Christ said to put our lives down and take up our crosses daily,
and He never talks about laying them down before the end of the day. Yet
we do. We put down our crosses constantly so we can pick our selves back
up. Up and down, up and down, all day every day, all throughout our lives.
It’s part of our walk, and there are no plateaus. That’s the annoying
part. There are days when all I want is a fully furnished plateau with a
big cushy cloud-soft couch where I can just kick back, rest, and bask in
the glow of my great spiritual accomplishments! Mmmm…then "Poof!" reality
hits and that fantasy fizzles fast.
The good part is that there is an end. A
goal. Something better than a plateau. One day we will see Him, we will be
with Him, and we will be like Him.
Whoa! What a glorious concept! Morph that
scarf-rope-pulling magician image in your mind into an image of pulling
yourself up a rocky incline by a rope. The more you pull yourself along
the rope, the closer you get to your goal--the top--where Jesus waits and
beckons!
Sometimes we’ll get tangled-up in the
rope as we go. Sometimes we’ll let go and roll back a ways. So it goes,
and so we are to keep on going. Because He’s always there, and even picks
us up and puts the rope back in our hands.
Some people are amazed at the concept of
resurrection--rising from the dead. But we actually do it all the time. We
die to ourselves a million times a day, and come back from the dead almost
as often! Did you ever think of that? I do. And every time I’m called on
to die again, I wish I could just stay dead! But then the Magician pulls
another colored scarf out of my pocket--the Holy Spirit surfaces yet
another issue--and I must die again. Or, in my infinite wisdom I resurrect
that old "thing" once more. Ouch, already! But he who ain’t busy dyin’ is
busy going to hell. Hell’s not my goal. Hope it’s not yours either.
Die on, bro!
Or, as Paul would say, “Therefore we do
not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are
being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are
achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix
our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is
temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, NIV)
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