Die and Live

We were buried with Him . . . that just as Christ was raised from the dead . . . even so we also should walk in newness of life —Romans 6:4

Oswald Chambers says, "No one experiences complete sanctification without going through a 'white funeral'-the burial of the old life.  If there has never been this crucial moment of change through death, sanctification will never be more than an elusive dream. There must be a 'white funeral,' a death with only one resurrection-a resurrection into the life of Jesus Christ.  Nothing can defeat a life like this.  It has oneness with God for only one purpose— to be a witness for Him."

I am reminded of the movie Castaway where Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) says, "I couldn't even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing.  And that's when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive.  Somehow. I had to keep breathing.  Even though there was no reason to hope. ... I know what I have to do now.  I gotta keep breathing.  Because tomorrow the sun will rise.  Who knows what the tide could bring?"  There is no way that any of us can kill ourselves in a way that is acceptable to those around us or to God.  So, we, like this movie character, have power over nothing.  If I am to die, God needs to kill me in a way He sees fit.  If I am to live, He has to do the living.  

Oswald continues, "Have you really come to your last days?  You have often come to them in your mind, but have you really experienced them?  You cannot die or go to your funeral in a mood of excitement.  Death means you stop being.  You must agree with God and stop being the intensely striving kind of Christian you have been. ... It will not happen by striving, but by yielding to death.  It is dying— being “baptized into His death” (Romans 6:3)."  

We can't be a "new creature" if we are the same person.  The hard reality is, no matter how hard we make a humanly change within ourselves, we are going to hurt someone God created and loves.  The new life, the new creature, has to be made by the Creator.  Somehow I have to quit living and God has to be the only life.  I can be no more.  "This is the will of God, your sanctification ..." (1 Thessalonians 4:3).  

This is a difficult theological concept to practice.  I know how to say all the church sayings regarding this on how to live, but how really do you die and bury yourself and keep physically living?  "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21).  Paul understood this and he craved that everyone would know Jesus, despite of himself.  How can we ever reach such a goal of Christ living through us?  It seems so impossible, but then "with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26b).

Like Chuck, we gotta keep breathing because the Son did rise.  We have a hope.  And who know what the tide will bring tomorrow?  Jesus says, it will be a new life!