Dying to self

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.

Hopefully Memorial weekend you will spend some time reflecting on those who paid the ultimate price for your freedom with their lives. In that same respect we know that God gave us His Son as a sacrifice to pay for our sin with His life. John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. In the scripture above, Christ is asking us to lay down our lives for Him. He is not asking us for martyrdom necessarily (but that may come), but asking us to forsake the lusts of the world, and live a life for Him seeking eternal and not temporal pleasure.

Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. What is a living sacrifice anyway? A sacrifice is thought of as a death to bestow honor correct? Matthew Henry said, “A living sacrifice, that is, inspired with the spiritual life of the soul. It is Christ living in the soul by faith that makes the body a living sacrifice.” The world and the lusts of it are Satan’s tactics to draw you away from Christ. The list would be long of the idolatry he uses today in our world that places so much value on self pleasure and stuff. But we can move in our relationship with Christ to the point that the “stuff” just does not matter anymore, and what matters is what we feel led to do in honor of Him, and share the joy He brings with those that do not see yet.  Paul said in Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. You can place honor on the one who died for you for eternity, by dying to the lusts of yourself, and placing yourself at His feet for service.