As we walk with Jesus in the ever day, we may find that our flesh wants to rear its ugly head and say, “I don’t want to do it that way!” Such a self-willed proclamation can rise up from our stubborn flesh when we are waiting on the Lord to make a way for us or not proceeding on a certain path that we think we really want to take; facing humiliations and rejections; struggling to love those who spitefully use us; or in submitting all of our thoughts and actions unto the Lord.
While reading Andrew Murray’s book, “Humility: The Beauty of Holiness” which was originally published in 1895, the words on the page were timeless even over 120 years later. God’s truths are eternal, for it can be spoken/written in any age and there is always application. One particular passage from Chapter 10 answers the burning question for the souls wrestling with death to self. Murray’s concise explanation of this important concept provides encouragement and direction for all who desire more of Jesus:
How can I die to self? The death to self is not your work, it is God’s work. In Christ, you are dead to sin. The life in you has gone through the process of death and resurrection. You can be sure you are dead to sin. The full manifestation of the power of this death in your character and conduct depends on how fully the Holy Spirit gives the power of the death of Christ. Here is where teaching is needed.
If you desire to enter into full fellowship with Christ in His death and know the full deliverance from self, humble yourself. This is your one duty. Place yourself before God in your utter helplessness. Agree with the fact that you are helpless to slay or make yourself alive. Sink down into your own nothingness in the spirit of meek, patient, and trustful surrender to God. Accept every humiliation; look at every fellow man who annoys or offends you, as a way for grace to humble you.
Use every opportunity of humbling yourself before your fellow man as a steppingstone to live a humble life before God. God will accept the humbling of yourself as proof that your whole heart desires it. Humbling yourself is your preparation for His mighty work of grace as He reveals Christ fully in you. It is the path of humility that leads to perfect death, the full and perfect understanding that we are dead in Christ.
- “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Romans 6:1-4
- “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:20-21