this morning, the sun is not up yet, and in this darkness i am excited to meet with our Lord. my coffee is still drinkable and now… as the sky’s softly becoming pink with a gentle brush of clouds, i come to God as i am.
here is my confession: i get so caught up in finding solace in God that i miss him completely.
how often i prolong death in the morning, by finding sweet things to say to my self. “if anyone comes to me and does not hate… even his own life- he cannot be my disciple. and anyone who does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” luke 14
God, you require me to die each day. help me to keep from being deceived. help me to lay everything down before you, all my pride and even all my wounds. i pray for my friends, also, that you would show up to meet them today, too, and that your light would shine, your invitation to die…
i pray for each of us, for more of your light to shine on us and help us to kill the ideas that we are as much as we earn each month in our paychecks, that we are as good as our job titles, that we are as valuable as we can make others think we are– that we are as worthy as we can convince ourselves we are, or as ‘useable’ to you as we can perform before you. help shine your love on us, Lord!
“but while he was still along way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” luke 15
FRIENDS, we are instructed to die to ourselves each day. this is not for the sake of death, though it is absolute each time. we die for gain! “you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God…. but now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound.” romans 7. as the body of Christ, each one of us are members of the Church, and we have been made to die to the law, and made to be prepared as the Bride of the Lamb of God. we can die with him each day because of his great love for us. this is his invitation.
since we were made to die, let us die this morning. i’m going to count as dead, the sinful desires of jealousy, self-pity, unforgiveness, resentment, bitterness. dead are the lies, the shame, the self-justifications, the hurtful words, the beaten-down thoughts… dead are my dreams apart from Christ, dead are the self-comforting solaces i find. i have died with Christ. may it be completely absolute.
yet even though the death is absolute, the invitation of God doesn’t end there, for He is Risen! let each of us rise again to live joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. in the newness of the Spirit of God, may each of us get up! we are redeemed, accepted, sought after children of the Father. He has run to meet us and kiss us and bless us! this is who we are. despite our efforts to skirt death, the Lord searches and searches to find us, to shine on us, to love us into dying.
may each of us find solace in dying completely.
may each of us rise to the kind of Life we were made for.
