True Spirituality | The Centrality of Death ~ Part 4

The Bible is there to show you that you are a sinner before a holy God, and to show you what your problem is, and that you will say, "I am a sinner, and I need a Savior". God will not be your friend in His word by saying, "It's okay, it's okay." No, He will show you that you are a sinner, but "Here I am, I died for sinners so that you might have life." But you don't have life unless there is first death for the seeds or the plants.

Seeds will not grow unless they first die. There is a process in planting that the seed needs to die to itself first. When it dies, then the plant will grow. God placed that; it was not an accident. God placed it in creation to teach man as well: if you want life, you need to have death. If we want to live unto God, you first need to offer, what does it say? "Your bodies as a living sacrifice". There needs to be death first. There needs to be death before there is life. And that is the difficult part when it comes to man. It's a difficult part. Why? Because when you die to yourself, you will not be comfortable there. Dying to self is not comfortable. No, you could not be comfortable because whatever your character is, whatever you grew up with, whatever you are, whoever you are, you are so used to it. Then the Bible is telling you, you need to die to that. Is that what we are talking about? Romans chapter number 6, we are called upon to die to sin, to die to ourselves. Romans chapter number 6, verse 11, look at it. "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord". Wait, wait, why do you want me to be alive to God, but He first puts death? That's the principle. If you want life, but if you want to lose your life, then death will be at the end. Verse number 12: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof". "Let not" means you could let it. Meaning, we can allow ourselves for sin to still reign, even though we are saved. Could that happen? Of course, the evidence is, we just need to look around. Look at ourselves. When we look at ourselves, when we introspect, when we look at ourselves, what am I? Am I doing the will of God all the time? Am I obeying the Lord every time? And you will see that this is happening: we are allowing sin to reign in us. We are letting sin to reign in our mortal body. But what is the command? "Let not". What is the command? "Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin". Verse 13: "Neither yield." So I can yield, I can not yield. "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves." So if I don't yield my members, my body, to unrighteousness, where should I yield it? It's to God. "Yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God". Brethren, that's what God wants to happen to believers. Know who you are. Understand who you are. Later, I will repeat our illustration, the gospel, brethren. But we should know who we are, and in light of who we are, that will be God's way, or God's method, of how we live as Christians. You should know who you are. Do you not know who you are? Is there an identity crisis? Who am I? What am I? Do we know what we are, or are we confused about who we are? We should know who we are.

True Spirituality | The Centrality of Death ~ Part 4

Related Topics

Share This Topic