Such renouncing is not turning from something to nothing, as if we are to empty ourselves of all desire, but to everything that Christ is for us. Let us not look back to what we have said goodbye, like Lot’s wife, but look to Jesus, “the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). The shame, suffering, and death of the cross were not joy for Christ but looking through it, he focused on the joy to come, his resurrection, the salvation of his people, his eternal glory. And his joy is ours, as we have been crucified with Christ, we love him supremely, die to self daily, and live for him truly, serving as salt in a world that needs to “taste and see that the LORD is good!” (Ps. 34:8).
Tag Archives: Dying to Self
The New Has Come
Like many catastrophes, the Fall came without warning, but unlike many catastrophes it came with deceptive subtlety. In the midst of the Garden, Satan in the form of a serpent deceived Eve, who sinned by eating the forbidden fruit and shared the temptation with Adam, who ate too. And so fell our ancestors, and the human race, “from their original righteousness and communion with God,” and as a result they “became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all parts and faculties of soul and body,” as our Confession of Faith puts it.[2] In the history of human tragedies, the first was the worst.
Planter, Pastor, Preacher 