Learning to Die

     A very dear friend of mine wrote me the following in an email recently. It made a difference in my heart, and I'd like to share it, with the hope that it would do the same in yours. 

...lately the Lord has been dealing with me in the area of dying to myself. Sometimes when I find myself struggling with the same old sins again and again, I have the tendency to dismiss it. "Oh, that's my thorn in the flesh!" Do you ever do that? Recently though, it seems like He's telling me, the reason I still struggle is because I am still too alive. When I die, then will I live. It is a hard thing to lay down on the altar and see the knife ready to come down on you. God spared Isaac. He did not spare His own Son. Just because the punishment has been paid for me on the cross for my sins does not mean that He will spare my death either. Not because it is the recompense for sin, or that it does anything for my spiritual destiny, but because it is only after I have died that I can have true life. Still, it is scary, because it is more than letting go of things. It is complete and total death to them. I want it though. I want it so deeply. But still, I am scared. Thank God that He is patient and merciful and kind. It reminds me of that Keith Green song where he says, "Help me, O help me, please help me, my Jesus. Save me from sins that I thought were all gone. Kill me with kindness and break through my blindness. I know 'til I'm dead, I can never live on."