"To Die To Self"

 "Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves." (S.O.S. 7:12)

  "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)

  Think of this as way to examine your priorities and your commitment to the Lord; as it should be part of every believer's life, in due season. If you are familiar with Paul's letter to the church in Galatia, then you must know how much that letter deals with the issue of faith verses works. Works are not that which we do for Christ; rather, the things we do in an effort to feel better about ourselves, as if they prove our own righteousness. We must understand that any effort to take credit for our salvation is robbing from God's grace; or as Paul puts it: "I do not frustrate the grace of God," which pretty much means to violate His grace, which is gets pretty close to despising; if you can try and realize how that might look. 

  Regardless of the amount of time that you have been serving the Lord, it is important that we all come to the understanding that our flesh is not really our friend. We might think that we can control it, or that we have it under control; but doing so, is a sure way to wreck yourself. That well known term, "Check yourself before you wreck yourself," is realized without warning, because we become blindsided by our own deception of what kind of person we think we are.

  Solomon writes of this in Proverbs 24:30-31, saying, "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down." We might not realize this is happening, because we cannot see our busyness as a sign of being slothful, or our knowledge as being void of understanding. 

  Good news is here for anyone that might need some! He is more than able to fix you and make you well! You actually don't really even need to ask Him; you must merely listen to what He says, and then obey! Crazy as it seems, but we truly do not know what we need. So what makes us think we can ask Him to fix us, by telling Him what we need, or how to fix us? Notice that everything is about observation and examining; nothing here is about doing and making do with what can be gained! 

  To be perfectly clear, there is only one issue that deals with doing anything: "there will I give thee my loves." As clearly as that might appear, we are still not capable of knowing what that requires, how it is that we make that happen, or what it is that we need to do! Wow, this is really tuff; there must be some other way! O, wretched man that I am...

"For when we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet preadventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:6-8)