Not only will followers of Jesus be characterized by love, and dying to self, they will also be living examples of freedom and redemption. Jesus Christ came to this earth, not to bring us into greater bondage and enslavement, but to set us free, and to give us life.

Many people feel that following Jesus and obeying God is too restrictive, and that God only wants to destroy our lives and give us a list of commands and instructions to follow.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is sin that enslaves and destroys life. It is bondage to sin and addiction to things of this world that make us less than human. Jesus came to make us more human, more alive, and more free.

Follow Jesus into Freedom

So when followers of Jesus go out into the world to reveal Jesus to others, they must go out in a way that is compelling and beautiful. We should be the most joyful, colorful, happy, humorous, carefree, lively, and hopeful people the world has ever seen; not dour and humorless as we generally appear.
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It is good that we are excited to get to heaven and spend eternity with God, but we must do more than sing and pray while we wait to get there. While we wait for Jesus to return, we love and serve others, and thus bring glory to the God of the universe.

Many of us cannot wait to die so we can be glorified; God cannot wait for us to start living so He can be glorified. The church is willing to die, but only to die physically so we can “go to a better place” to be with God. This is not glorifying to God, but glorifying to death.

Christoph Blumhardt said that “If all we aspire to is to get out of this world in order to be free in the next, then we pay tribute to sin and death” (Action in Waiting, 192).

God wants us to die while we are living. He wants us to die to ourselves while we are alive so that before we “go to a better place” we can help this world become a better place as well.

Jesus came to this earth not only to help bring us to heaven, but also so that He could bring heaven down to earth. The inauguration of the Kingdom of Heaven was a central theme of Jesus’ life and teaching, and He wants us to continue on with the task He started, of bringing the rule and reign of God to the dark and sinful places on earth.

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Many people today recognize that the church is dying, and so they do everything they can to pump new life back into it. “We need nicer buildings,” they say. “Better trained pastors. Exciting children’s programs. Lively music. More money.” But no matter which measurement you use, none of it seems to be working.

Robert Farrar Capon said it best when he wrote this:

The church can’t rise because it refuses to drop dead. The fact that it’s dying is of no use whatsoever: dying is simply the world’s most uncomfortable way of remaining alive. If you are to be raised from the dead, the only thing that can make you a candidate is to go all the way into death. Death, not life, is God’s recipe for fixing up the world.

Many Christians, of course, look forward to dying. We love to quote what Paul wrote in Philippians 1:21: “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Yes, many Christians say they are ready to die, for that means they get to enter heaven and spend eternity with God and all their loved ones, free from pain, sin, suffering, and temptation.

When my youngest daughter was four, we were sitting at the dinner table one night when she said, “Daddy, I hope I die soon so I can go to heaven to be with Jesus.” Those are shocking words to hear from a four year old, but they reflect the theology of most Christians, and probably what we had inadvertently taught her ourselves. I tried to explain to her that being with Jesus is not about dying, but about living. It is not about the future by-and-by, but the present here and now. “I hope you live a very long time,” I told her, “so that you can show the love of Jesus to those who do not know that He loves them.”

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Note: I’ve written a book about this, which is available on Amazon.

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Many people today recognize that the church is dying, and so they do everything they can to pump new life back into it. “We need nicer buildings,” they say. “Better trained pastors. Exciting children’s programs. Lively music. More money.” But no matter which measurement you use, none of it seems to be working.

Robert Farrar Capon said it best when he wrote this:

The church can’t rise because it refuses to drop dead. The fact that it’s dying is of no use whatsoever: dying is simply the world’s most uncomfortable way of remaining alive. If you are to be raised from the dead, the only thing that can make you a candidate is to go all the way into death. Death, not life, is God’s recipe for fixing up the world.

Many Christians, of course, look forward to dying. We love to quote what Paul wrote in Philippians 1:21: “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Yes, many Christians say they are ready to die, for that means they get to enter heaven and spend eternity with God and all their loved ones, free from pain, sin, suffering, and temptation.

When my youngest daughter was four, we were sitting at the dinner table one night when she said, “Daddy, I hope I die soon so I can go to heaven to be with Jesus.” Those are shocking words to hear from a four year old, but they reflect the theology of most Christians, and probably what we had inadvertently taught her ourselves. I tried to explain to her that being with Jesus is not about dying, but about living. It is not about the future by-and-by, but the present here and now. “I hope you live a very long time,” I told her, “so that you can show the love of Jesus to those who do not know that He loves them.”

[Read more…]

Followers of Jesus will be characterized by death and resurrection.

We all want to experience the resurrected life of Jesus, but before we can rise to new life in the future, we must die to ourselves and die to our past. The church that does not die chooses instead to live in a vegetative state on artificial life support.

We cling to the past, to the traditions and to the forms of church handed down to us from the eras of Constantine, the Reformation, and Industrialism. Churches that cling to these past forms are still living, but without any real life. This fight to keep from dying allows us to survive, but only as the living dead.

It is when we embrace death that we rise again to new life.

Death Before Life

This cycle of life is seen in the pattern of day and night, the cycle of seasons, and the following of one generation upon another. The importance of death and resurrection is the identifying characteristic of Jesus Himself, and is the central theme in all Scripture.

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