Laying Your Old Life Down And Living In Your New One

My Utmost For His Highest

 

“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends….I have called you friends…”  —John 15:13, 15

“Jesus does not ask me to die for Him, but to lay down my life for Him. Peter said to the Lord, “I will lay down my life for Your sake,” and he meant it (John 13:37). He had a magnificent sense of the heroic. For us to be incapable of making this same statement Peter made would be a bad thing— our sense of duty is only fully realized through our sense of heroism. […]  “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16). Yet it is contrary to our human nature to do so. If I am a friend of Jesus, I must deliberately and carefully lay down my life for Him. It is a difficult thing to do, and thank God that it is. Salvation is easy for us, because it cost God so much. But the exhibiting of salvation in my life is difficult. God saves a person, fills him with the Holy Spirit, and then says, in effect, “Now you work it out in your life, and be faithful to Me, even though the nature of everything around you is to cause you to be unfaithful.” CHAMBERS

Most of us are just like Peter.  We mean to do what we say and then the pressures of life get in the way.  Peter was in the survival mode after Jesus was arrested.  What he thought he was willing to do .. he did not have the personal strength to do.  What he wanted to do when people saw him and accused him of being with Jesus was to say “You are right, arrest me and take me away like you did Jesus!” But what did he do instead … he denied his Lord … he ran to identification with those who despised Jesus to protect himself.  Jesus had told him that he would .. Peter didn’t believe it.  We want to stand with our Lord, but that requires faith and obedience … laying your life down … turning your back on what this world craves … you can’t do it on your own .. ask Peter … So what happened to Peter that he would stand before the religious leaders and proclaim the Gospel?  The Spirit of God happened.  On his own, he denied Christ, with the power of God working through Him, he embraced Jesus in the face of perhaps his own death.  The Spirit is the difference in our lives as well.  Every day we need to stoke the “fire” in us.  Laying your life down can be moment by moment … it is certainly not a one time deal … It is another day … so let’s get after it Christian … and let your light shine … ELGIN

Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)