{"id":343,"date":"2016-06-25T15:28:16","date_gmt":"2016-06-25T15:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/?p=343"},"modified":"2016-06-25T15:41:01","modified_gmt":"2016-06-25T15:41:01","slug":"god-doesnt-want-us-better-he-wants-us-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/?p=343","title":{"rendered":"God Doesn’t Want us Better; He Wants us Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/em><\/p>\n

John 12:24<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

We won\u2019t experience true life until we embrace our death.<\/p>\n

Imagine your shock, if while walking through a grave yard, you came across the following tombstone:<\/p>\n

Here Lies<\/strong> your name<\/em><\/p>\n

Born<\/strong> your birth date<\/em><\/p>\n

Died<\/strong> Approximately\u00a02000 years ago (exact date unknown)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>As disciples of Christ, embracing our spiritual death is critical to the flowing of Christ\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

When Christ died on the cross two thousand years ago, as believers, we were crucified with Him. Our sin nature and every sin we would eventually commit were put to death in Him. This was a complete work, performed by the only person worthy to undertake it. When Christ cried, \u201cIt is Finished,\u201d[1]<\/a> all human striving for religious achievement was put to rest; all sins washed clean in the flowing of His life blood.<\/p>\n

The reality of our death with Christ is worked out day to day by denying ourselves. Jesus says to follow Him, we are to deny ourselves<\/em>, take up our cross daily and follow Him.[2]<\/a> \u00a0Denying ourselves has to do with avoiding evil<\/strong>, but it also has to do with avoiding good<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Evil: \u00a0<\/strong>Denying evil is about remaining in the love of Christ. We are able to love God and our neighbor because God first loved us. When we are saturated in the satisfying love of Christ, we have no need of anything vile. His power in us allows us to consider ourselves dead to any evil.<\/span><\/p>\n

Good:\u00a0<\/strong>Denying good is much harder to understand, but \u00a0just as vital. We are to avoid \u201creligious\u201d activities rooted out of a desire to live a \u201cgood\u201d life for God. We are to deny any attempt to earn God\u2019s love with our own righteousness. If righteous could be obtain by our efforts, Christ died for nothing.<\/span>[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

The Christian life is not about us trying hard to avoid being evil and striving to do good. It\u2019s about bringing ourselves to the cross of Christ, reckoning ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus; dead to the sin of evil and dead to the sin of trying to earn a righteousness of our own by living a good life. Out of our death flows His life.<\/p>\n

The Christian Life can be summarized<\/strong> in one very powerful verse:<\/p>\n

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I life by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Galatians 2:20<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Challenge: <\/strong>Pick a failure area of your life. Bring it to the cross of Christ and consider it dead. Depend upon the life of Christ in you with that area.<\/p>\n

Lord, I\u2019m sorry for trying to do \u201cgood\u201d things for you. It seems the more \u201cI\u201d try, the more I\u2019m prone to evil. Please show me every time I slip back into relying on myself, that I might deny me and depend upon you. I must decrease and you must increase.[4]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> John 19:30<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Matthew 16:24<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Galatians 2:21<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> John 3:30<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. John 12:24 We won\u2019t experience true life until we embrace our death. Imagine your shock, if while walking through a grave yard, you came across the following … Continue reading God Doesn’t Want us Better; He Wants us Dead<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[130],"tags":[117,122,119,121,125,127,123,20,128,124,126],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-by-glenn-coker","tag-cross","tag-crucified","tag-crucifixion","tag-dead","tag-died-for-us","tag-galatians-220","tag-his-righteousness","tag-jesus","tag-john-1224","tag-taking-up-our-cross","tag-when-he-died-we-died"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}