“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12:24
Previously, I shared my conviction that there is a necessary death that must take place in the soul of the believer if he or she is to experience the fullness of God’s life. I also shared some areas where this necessary death needs to happen as the old, false self gives way to the new, true self in Christ.
I am confident that most believers would likely agree with the need to become more like Christ by putting to death some specific aspect of their false self that hinders their spiritual progress. Be that as it may, it’s one thing to agree that it needs to be done. It’s another thing altogether to know how such a necessary death takes place.
Paul gives us much needed help in Galatians 5:24 where he writes, “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” The verb tense suggests a completed action in the past. It tell us that we must be fully determined that our false self is indeed put to death. That being said, we must remember that crucifixion while decisive doesn’t produce an immediate death. Persons executed in this way would often linger for days, before they finally succumbed. So crucifying the flesh is a process that takes place over a lifetime. But it begins with the clear and unmistakable commitment that the false self must die.
Sadly, as I mentioned in my previous post, too many believers think that as long as they manage their false self well, they are fine. However, this leaves the false self still entrenched in their hearts with nothing more than a smoothing of some of the rough edges. The false self is still very much in place, damaging the soul, hindering effective witness and dishonoring God. So the false self doesn’t need to be managed. It needs to die in us.
John Stott in his commentary on Galatians 5 makes this helpful comment:
“The first great secret of holiness lies in the degree and decisiveness of our repentance. If besetting sins persistently plague us, it is either because we have never truly repented, or because, having repented, we have not maintained our repentance. It is as if, having nailed our old nature to the cross, we keep wistfully returning to the scene of the execution. We begin to fondle it, to caress it, to long for its release, even to try to take it down again from the cross. We need to learn to leave it there. When some jealous, or proud, or malicious, or impure thought invades our mind, we must kick it out at once. It is fatal to begin to examine it and consider whether we are going to give in to it or not. We have declared war on it; we are not going to resume negotiations. We have settled the issue for good; we are not going to re-open it. We have crucified the flesh; we are never going to draw the nails.”
Practically, this necessary death takes place as we continually fill our minds with God’s truth while making it a central feature of our prayers asking God to not only deliver us from evil but to also open our eyes to see that His way is the way to life. Again, such a death is a lifelong process. But it is a process that must involve a continuing commitment until the false self finally expires.
This requires vigilance on our part, because the false self will constantly beg to be taken down from the cross so that it can be in charge of our lives again. When we hear its Siren like invitation, let us remember that the false self only leads us away from God and away from life. We cannot give into it.
There is certainly more that could be said here about the ways we can put our false self to death. However, regardless of the means employed, it begins with the conviction that it is a necessary death.