HEAVENSREEF

One of the real differences between believing and having faith and living it out is the dying to self.

THE REAL DIFFERENCE IS IN THE DYING.

We need to die to our self and things and put on a new self…….we are new beings in CHRIST with new hearts.

Dying to self means the old me is gone…….there was a before CHRIST and an after.  And when you are able to think back, you can see what you really were: the walking dead!

ROMANS 6:8  “WE KNOW THAT OUR OLD SELF WAS CRUCIFIED WITH HIM IN ORDER THAT THE BODY OF SIN MIGHT BE BROUGHT TO NOTHING, SO THAT WE WOULD NO LONGER BE ENSLAVED TO SIN.”

Dying to self also means the things you used to love, now you hate……and the things you used to hate now you love.

I know “hate” is a strong word here, but for some that might be precisely how you feel!

So the things we used to do and now we disdain and have turned from, can really be summed up like this:

ROMANS 7: 15  “FOR WHAT I AM DOING, I DO NOT UNDERSTAND; FOR I AM NOT PRACTICING WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO DO, BUT I AM DOING THE VERY THING I HATE.”

Those very things we have turned from, as much as we try, we do slide back to them every now and then, but when we do, the Spirit convicts us and we realize our sin and repent.

Let’s be honest here…….no one and I mean no one is perfect; no not one.

THERE IS ONLY ONE PERFECT ONE.

Try as we might and living as we do, dying to self is really a hard thing to grasp.  Because underneath it all, we still are very selfish and self-centered beings…….take a look around you.

We can only accomplish a die to self with CHRIST’S help…….HE is our example, our model and when HE comes into your heart, you turn.  You turn from a worldly mindset to a new one and start to live abundantly as you treasure those incredible blessings around you.  And your treasure of the souls you know becomes your priority……..to know JESUS is to sacrifice for HIM.

LET HIS GRACE FOR YOU HELP YOU TO REACH IN GRACE FOR OTHERS.

Dying to self is an every day learning experience…….you surrender, you sacrifice for others and you devote your life to serving others for the Savior.  You are no longer devoted to the things that have a temporal meaning, but instead are devoted to the stuff of eternity.

DYING TO SELF IS THE ONLY WAY TO LOOK UP AND OUTWARD.

As time marches on, we lose sight of ourselves, and we have our sights set on the HOLY JESUS who died on the Cross for our sins……..we learn to die to self and to live for HIM.

I’m not saying we will never have stress or have circumstances that don’t go our way.  This is a fact of life really……..but we can still learn to set our feelings aside for the good of others and for the sharing of the GOSPEL……let us try daily to do this. 

Your inner talk can be a gentle soothing quiet and good one, or a grumbling one.  The first one is a result of the Holy Spirit’s supply and a submission to the wants and needs of your own…….a die to self.  The other grumbling one, is an inner self-centered mindset with the only desire to please self and only self.  Which one are you?

Examine your thoughts frequently because they will tell you much!  Continue to look through HIS lens, look to JESUS to purify your thoughts……..because when you follow JESUS, HE asks you to die to self, to love others first and to remember and glorify HIM in the process.

JOHN 12: 25 “THE ONE WHO LOVES HIS LIFE WILL LOSE IT, AND THE ONE WHO HATES HIS LIFE IN THIS WORLD WILL KEEP IT FOR ETERNAL LIFE.”