"Jesus is trying to KILL me!"

Crazy idea huh? But true. God has designed a life for us that can only be entered into by our death. This death isn’t physical so much as it is actual. God desires a presence in us that is surrendered and completely His. Our future in Jesus is traveled into through the passage of death and burial. It is no coincidence that the very picture of Baptism is a picture of death for the most part. Think of it, Baptism represents three distinct aspects; death, burial, and resurrection. Call us optimistic but we tend to focus on the last more than all the others. We want resurrection, and new life, but God lets us know that the passage is marked by our own death. Two thirds of Baptism focus on topics that we tend to run from. Could it be that we have in our haste jumped the “little detail” of death in an attempt to take hold of something that is out of reach for the living? Could it be that many of us are not living in the fullness of God’s grace because we haven’t truly “taken hold of that which took hold of us?” Could it be that we are living in ourselves with the God “additive”? God will not accept squatter’s rights on that which He alone owns. Paul said it this way “Do you not know that you do not belong to yourselves but you belong to another who paid a very high price for you?” Jesus let us know that to follow Him we will have to take up our execution chamber (our cross) and die then and only then will be useful. “If any man come after me must take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Jesus) It is kind of funny and kind of sad that we tend to think of the things we aren’t doing like Bible study, prayer, or sinless living as “our cross”. But in reality Jesus intended for us to understand that the journey with Him begins with our death to self. Jesus doesn’t want to “reform” your soul He desires to resurrect you. God doesn’t come to take part, but to take over. “If any man clings to his life he will lose it, but if he will loose his life for my sake he will gain it.”