In Jan. of 1995 I lost someone I dearly loved- my Dad. He wasn't the perfect Dad, in fact, he was hardly ever home, but I knew that he loved me. I still remember seeing him laying in the casket, wishing he could talk to me again, joke around like he often did, or make that hysterical scrunched up face he would do to make us laugh. Once, when I was alone at the casket I said some words to him despite knowing he wasn't really there anymore because it was just his dead flesh but his spirit had moved on.
For several years I would occasionally go to the cemetery and sit talking to him while I cleaned around the tombstone, telling him what was going on and how I felt. For me it was all part of the healing process; but my Dad was dead to me. He couldn't talk back, give advice about our new daughter or play with her and make her laugh like he would have if he was still here. In the hard times he could not comfort me the way I would have liked. For now, his voice is silent to me. Human mortality of the flesh is absolute.
We don't like death. It is painful for us and reminds us of our own and our loved ones mortality. We don't want to suffer the loss of their presence, friendship, comfort, love, laughter, etc. I can't even imagine the grief if I lost someone very close to me. So it is no surprise to me that we avoid death or anything like it, as much as possible. But when we give our lives to the Lord we are supposed to die.
As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross my interest in all the attractive things of the world was killed long ago, and the world's interest in me is also long dead. Gl. 6:14 TLB
"...the world is crucified to me, and I to the world." (MKJV) Our interest in the things of the world needs to be dead if we are to live in the freedom of Christ and not in the bondage of the world. When we try to keep our feet in both, we die spiritually and bondage increases. No, we don't want to die to the world because there are still things we like there, and want to keep. It's not that we have to remove ourselves from the world, but that it can no longer speak to us:
"Vicky, come be like us, think like us, believe what we believe, watch what we watch and listen to what we do, have all the same pleasures..." If I am dead, I can no longer respond to those voices. As a matter of fact, I cannot even hear them for my ears no longer work! Just as when I stop responding to those voices, then suddenly the world is no longer interested in me. Is it a loss? Not for me since I found true freedom comes from being "all in, holding nothing back" from God.
I have not suffered such grievous loss with this death because it comes with such reward as life in the Spirit with God. Though I have died to the world's evil pleasures, my life is now hidden with Christ in God (Cl. 3:3) and I am alive to God through Jesus my Lord (Rm. 6:11). It is only when we truly die that we begin to produce much fruit, and isn't that what we want? "...Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit." (Jh. 12:24) If we truly belong to Christ, we must crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts (Gl. 5:24) and live for Him.
To remember: true freedom, joy, love and peace are only found in Him.
To remember: true freedom, joy, love and peace are only found in Him.
Therefore, Christ having suffered for us in the flesh, also you arm yourselves with the same thought, that he suffering in the flesh has been made to rest from sin, in order no longer to live in the lusts of men, but in the will of God the remaining time in the flesh. 1Pt. 4:1,2