Did you know that dying to self has been taken out of your hands? Years ago, as a growing Christian, I was always being told I needed to die to self. I thought I knew what people were trying to say, but I wasn’t sure, and I wasn’t even sure they knew what they were trying to say. I knew it had something to do with being surrendered to Christ and not living a self-centered life. The problem, though, with trying to die to yourself is that Jesus has already taken care of that. The self-centered, independent, guilty, slave to sin self (The Old Man) was taken by Christ in His person to the Cross, put to death, and buried. You can’t die to self when the old self already died in Christ. “For you have died…” Colossians 3:3. Christ is now your life, and He is fully and radically surrendered to the will of God, and you are one with His yielded and self-giving heart. I know this sounds too good to be true, but that’s why it’s called “the Good News.” It is so good; it makes you giddy with joy unspeakable full of glory (Christ in you is the hope of glory –Colossians 1:27).
If Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, then as a branch who is part of the vine, is it possible for the vine to be fully surrendered and the branch not be? Can the vine have wisdom and the branch not have it, or can the vine have an anointing or grace of any kind and the branch not also have it? I am a new creation, a totally new self, created in Christ Jesus to experience and demonstrate His newness of life. “As He is, so am I in this world” – 1 John 4:17.
I think it’s time we started believing the simple truth about who we are in Christ and who He is in us. The truth will set you free, but only if you believe it. I think it grieves God’s heart that we can’t bring ourselves to believe how good the good news really is. He gave His life for it, yet we won’t believe. Will we, in childlike faith, simply receive what He so freely gives. When we do, I believe it makes His heart giddy with joy unspeakable, full of glory.