31 I die every day—I mean that, brothers—just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The posture of death is the posture of a Christian. We must be dying to ourselves, our own selfish desires, our own avoid-the-pain mentality and this must happen every day. I don’t know about you, but every morning I wake up I have to fight my physical body. It just does not want to act like the twenty year old I am. It keeps trying to convince me I am fifty. I don’t believe it of course, and thus the pain. But because I live with this death-to-self daily does that mean I am gloomy and miserable to be around? I hope not! For death to the Jesus-follower is the gateway to life. The more we recognize our limitations, the more God can pour His abundant life into our ever-emptying vessel. If we are filled with us, our way, our choices, our pride, our sinfulness, then there is no room for God’s will, presence, power, humility and forgiveness. Both can’t exist simultaneously. So the more I die, the more He is present with everything that makes up His character. The fruit of the Spirit can then be evident in my life. I experience the cleansing water of the Word flowing through the clogged pipes of my spirit. And as the water passes through I get wet and the clogs are cleared. That is one of the great paradoxes of the Christian experience; the more I die the more I live. It makes no sense to the modern quick fix mind. We want the good life of God without the death to self. And remember, this is a life-long process. Every day begins a new journey, a journey where we can partake of God’s grace and experience in a real way His presence in our every-moment existence all with the goal of an eternity in which we participate right now.
The Arnold Journey 