The title of this post comes from the title of an old Scaterd Few song. 'Sarx' is a greek word for flesh.
Part 1 - From a Facebook post on July 5th.
The
phrase "dying to self" for me used to conjure up an image not unlike a
person who straps himself into an electric chair and then gives a nod to
the executioner to throw the switch.
I'm beginning to realize
it's not that at all. It's a laying aside of doing things in your
inferior man-made way of doing things, and picking up God's superior
grace filled way of doing it. (Which goes in line with what Jesus said
about taking His yoke which is easy and light).
Part 2 - today
"From
that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to
Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and
scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.22Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.”23But
He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling
block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but
man’s.”
24Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.25“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.26“For
what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his
soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?27“For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS." -- Matthew 16:21-27 (NASB)
This scripture was part of what I read this morning. While I was cruising through The Whosoevers Facebook page this morning. I came across a slogan they had. "Murder Your Flesh". It got me thinking to look up what Jesus actually said about the subject. Too often in in church life we throw around slogans and sermon points that sound good, but probably don't translate very well into real world application.
Truth be told, 'murder' and 'killing the flesh' usually brings up dread to the average Christian, causing them to try to muster up some piousness. Out of that comes statements like "I'll spend an hour in prayer", or "I'll fast and pray" that sound good, but truth be told they are usually actions based out of behavior modification, which means they are doomed to failure.
So what did Jesus mean when he said this? Well, consider what he said to Peter in verse 23. "You are a stumbling block to Me, for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's." Ouch! We do this sort of thing all the time. Yet, Jesus labels this sort of thing as downright Satanic.
Of course, in the context of scripture, Peter was attempting to sidetrack Jesus' mission, which is something from Satan's bag of tricks. However, moving the verse into today, how many times do we sidetrack God's agenda by our actions? Cut off that guy in traffic? Rude to the salesperson on the phone? We've all done it. Yet, how many times has God been blocked from moving because of our selfish actions? It sort of comes natural to us to act this way.
Thing is, that's the problem. Doing what comes natural should not be the modus operandi of the Christian. Yet too often that's exactly what we do. What we should be doing is taking up our cross -- taking up God's way of doing things -- on a daily basis.
I can't pretend that I've mastered this. Far from it. After almost 25 years of being a Christian, I feel like I'm barely comprehending the everyday application of these verses.
The folks over at Project Hopeful (a great ministry which deals with adoption of HIV+ and other special needs orphans) have a t-shirt slogan "It's not about me". I'm starting to understand what that statement means.
-- Bob
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