Jesus said, that we should carry our cross daily, and die to ourselves, if we want to follow him. At the first glance to that saying of Jesus, it seems very difficult thing to do, and we ask ourselves the question, if we can actually do that, on a daily basis, being non perfect human beings, although we have the Holy Spirit in us to help us to do so.
When we read Philippians 3:7-10, we can see, that Paul was really counting everything in his earthly life, as rubbish, in order for him, to get more of God. In other words, Paul was looking to the eternal value of spending his life for Jesus, and the things God wanted him to do on earth, instead of spending his life for himself, and the things he wanted to do for himself.
Paul realised, that if had spend his life for himself and the things he wanted to do, instead of what God had in plan for his life, then, he would get all those human earthly desires satisfied, but the value of that, would be only for his life on earth, without bringing any value for his eternal life. That is why he decided to give life to those heavenly things in his life, which would serve God, and not himself, and would have value for his eternal life in heaven.
As Jesus said that we should die for ourselves, in order to live for him, he meant that we should set what he has commanded us to do, in our daily life, to the priority number 1, and then, after that do what we want to do. As the Bible says that we should not longer live for ourselves, but for him, who died on the cross for us, that is Jesus.
It is impossible to live for what God desires from us, and to live for ourselves, at the same time, because we will fall in love with the one or the other. We can not serve two masters.
We need to be just like a seed in the ground. Unless it dies, it will remain forever in the ground as a seed, but will not produce fruit. The only way for a seed to produce fruit, is when it dies.
So, in a similar way, God wants our life to be like a seed, which will produce fruit, only when we die for ourselves. Is that easy to do? Not at all! In a matter of fact, to die for ourselves on a daily basis is often very difficult, because we have to say ‘No’ to our flesh, and say ‘Yes’ to the Holy Spirit in us. And that is where the battle is in our life, when we have to sacrifice what we want, in order to get what God wants, and our desires will sometime, conflict with what God desires for us.
But the Holy Spirit is there, to help us, become overcomes, just like Jesus said, that he has overcome the world.
In order for us, to know God better, to have more of God in us, and to know the power of God in our life, just as Apostle Paul wanted to do, as written in Philippians 3:7-10, we have to come to a point, where we can say like him “I consider all things rubbish, in order to gain Christ.” Everybody can say that, but to do that, there must be a sacrifice or ourselves, and that is sometimes very difficult to do, but it is possible, when the Holy Spirit is involved, and gives us the ability, power and grace to do so. If he does not help us, we can not die to ourselves in order to serve God, but will possibly find living for ourselves, more often.
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