The Undead - The Sequel

We looked yesterday at "dead in sin." One of the recurring themes in Scripture is "dead to self." Jesus said, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me" (Matt 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). No ... not quite "dead to self." But Paul wrote about being "crucified with Christ" (Gal 2:10) and said we should "lay aside the old self" (Eph 4:22-24). He told the Colossian Christians, "consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry" (Col 3:5). He wrote, "Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Rom 6:11). He urged us to "present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship" (Rom 12:1) and "those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Gal 5:24). There's a whole lot of "dead to self" going on here. What does that mean?

So, it appears that "dead in sin" and "deny himself" are both the same thing. In the passages above, "self" is described for us. There is "immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed." It is "the flesh with its passions and desires." Peter wrote, "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed" (1 Peter 2:24). "Self," then, is "sin." John wrote, "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world" (1 John 2:16). That "self" -- the worldly self. The remedy for this particular "self" isn't pretty. It is ... death. One author wrote,

The flesh, the enemy within, dons a friendly uniform, one that a Christian might wear, and suggests reasonable directions. We welcome him into our ranks. When he causes trouble, we try to whip him into shape, get him to cooperate with the program and stop interfering with our efforts to do things right. Or we work hard to figure him out. What makes him tick? Why does he demand gratification that way? Maybe a journey into the past will uncover the source of these crazy tendencies and enable us to reason more effectively with him.

What we need to do, of course, is shoot him ... And if he doesn’t stay dead, we must shoot him again, then beat him, then tie him down in the sand under a hot desert sun, turn loose an army of red ants on his body, and walk away without sympathy. And then we must do it again and again, 'til we're home. An overdone metaphor? Not when we see the enemy for who he is, for what he wants to do. We are at war. The enemy within is the flesh, and he wants to ruin our relationships and thwart God’s plan.

What am I to kill? The answer, of course, is the flesh, that nature within me inclined to sin. But what is it? How do I recognize it? As a start, think of it this way: sin is any effort to make life work without absolute dependence on God. It is giving higher priority to my satisfaction than to God's pleasure. It involves a follow-up commitment to find joy for my soul outside of God, a commitment rooted in the belief that there is something truly good that God does not provide. It boils down to self-dependence and self-preoccupation and self-centeredness, attitudes that look to other people and things for the satisfaction we were designed to enjoy.

- from Connecting by Larry Crabb

We are repeatedly told to die to self. Jesus said it is a prerequisite to being His disciple. Scripture describes it as a "daily" thing (1 Cor 15:31). Is it your experience? Is it your aim?