Last Note on Dying to Self (at least for a while...)

Over the course of the past week, much has been said about the prospect of being dead to sin in order to be made alive to Christ.  And though it has never been a profitable exercise to overfill a brimming cup with words upon words when so few would seem more effective, it is also not very fruitful to try to live to Christ while remaining stuck in the sloughs of sin, kind of like trying to skip a stone across a mired bog as if it were a lake.  For fear of this risk, one final note seems prudent.

What does it mean to die to self?

The difficulty in all of this is the obvious paradox: how can I be dead to my flesh when I am still so obviously alive in the flesh?  The answer is a matter of primacy, of ownership, of personhood, of motivation more than a matter of logistics.  To die to self means that we will no longer give ascension to the whims of our flesh and its lusting desires.

The point here is: What has the priority in your life?  If it is the impulses of the flesh and its temporal fickleness, than your flesh is still alive and is impeding on your obedience to Christ.

Think of the wheel of a car.  In this case, the car is a life.  Who is driving?  Is it hunger? Sex? Passion? Money? Power? Friends? Anything that drives a life that is not an earnestness for Christ and His glory is evidence that the flesh is the one calling the shots.  This is, in plain terms, idolatry.  We are born ingrained with idols of ourselves.  It is only as we are put to death that those idols are destroyed and we are able faithfully serve and worship God fully.

It is thus not a spiritual matter per se to speak of dying to self to be made alive in Christ.  Rather, it is a matter of Lordship: who has the power to tell you what to do?  Dying to self is the only assurance that we are made alive to Christ for only after we eschew our personal interests in faithfulness to God's interests will we actually receive our right and true motivations that we have been made for.  In this sense, dying to self is not a suggestion: it is an utter necessity for the Christ follower.