Die To Live

I have been thinking allot about how we, as Christ’s body relate to God (relate as in commune, understand, communicate, live, ect.). I have been listening to my pastor’s podcasts, and interestingly enough, a reoccurring theme recently has been exactly that. Here is a life-saving bit that I have discovered within the past couple of weeks:

John 12

23And Jesus answered them, saying, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25"He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. 26"If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

This might be the first time I have ever really studied this idea that wee need to lose our lives to gain real life, or in this case (Christ’s example), die in order to become fruitful.

In one of the podcasts, Dave (pastor) makes a statement that he doesn’t trust people who perceivably have no suffering in their life, and that times of suffering are when we probably are closest to our Savior.

Another passage that drove this home for me was one that I have probably read a hundred times, but didn’t understand until last week:

Philippians 3

7But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

I always interpreted this passage as saying that all of these things aren’t worth, to my flesh, what God has for life. But I think that Paul is saying that following Christ and dying to yourself is like loosing something that you don’t want to loose. And it is painful. It should be considered a loss of something you love, and dying to that thing, but gaining everything by doing so.