The Sick and Diseased Self Life

Why is the work of the cross indispensable to our walk with the Lord though it is indeed so painful and lengthy of a process?

· What is the death to self as described in scriptures?

1 ¶ To what conclusion, then, shall we come? Are we to persist in sinning in order that the grace extended to us may be the greater?

2 No, indeed; how shall we who have died to sin, live in it any longer?

3 And do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

· The believer indeed experiences a gradual but actual spiritual death. There is an annihilation or extinction of self. The believer progresses and gradually loses sight of the “I” in him or her. The “I” or “me” finally dies out, and or literally is extinguished. The self diminishes, loses it life, its energy and will power. It becomes less recognizable to the believer and loses its power to exert itself, to be independent, to be able to overcome by its own strength, and exert its will. The self as it becomes extinguished, is swallowed up in the immense river of the Lord’s resurrection life.

Philippians 3: 10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

· The believers’ ability to chose as he or she wants becomes weaker and less perceptible. The many deaths to reputation, fame, timing, expectations and so forth, which God takes it through, cause the death of the self-life. It is a gradual process, which takes years.

· Most Christians will never experience these stages of “death to self.”

· Most believers do not have the intimacy in prayer and the knowledge of the Lord to understand the process.

· Most believers do not have the heart to obey the Lord at all costs, and allow the cross the Christ that comes through implicit and an exacting obedience to do its work of killing off this cancerous self life.

· Most believers do not understand the process of absolute yielding, total surrendering, and suffering quietly under the will of God as He does this work in our lives.

· Most believers cannot fathom the concept of yielding total control of money, career, ministry, future plans etc. to the will of another, mainly God. One of the deep lessons of the cross is that God has a set of ideas, notions, plans and desires many times different to ours. It is difficult to go through the process of laying down all of these things about us.

· Remember that the “law of the cross” of Christ dwells in Christ Himself. This means that every time we obey the voice of the Spirit of God it will automatically activate the cross into our lives. Every act of obedience to the Lord entails sacrifice, a walk of faith “on the water”, and a humbling ourselves before the might hand of God. This is the law of the cross literally kicking in and being activated.

· With every step of obedience however, the cross continually frees us from the diseased self-life through the operation of its very law residing in the voice of the Spirit. As I have said, the law of the cross to execute continuous death on the self-life resides in the very Christ Himself.

1Co 1:23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;

· Why is the death to self so necessary in the eyes of God?

· In the self-life dwells absolutely no good. It is diseased through and through.

Ro 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

· We try to perfume, exalt and beautify the self when it only has one worthy function left to it. God has condemned it to die. Only through the complete death of self can we be free from the corruption of sin.

· Until this self-life is totally extinguished, it will bind us at every turn with pride, which will cause the Lord to resist our plans.

Ro 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin. {freed: Gr. justified}

2Co 1:9 But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: {sentence: or, answer}

· It binds us to living through our mental reasoning instead of a walk of faith. This severely limits how far God can take us in the vision and calling which He has for our lives. Only a walk of faith and yielding to God’s voice without control will free God to take us without us imposing boundaries in our lives.

· Unless the self-life is killed be the cross, we will be unable to clearly hear the voice of God. This is because the noise of our hurts, our bondage to sin, and our being led by our emotions will drown out the still small voice of the Lord within us. Only as the self-life is destroyed is our souls quieted in freedom and the voice of the Spirit becomes clearer and clearer.

· We will love the world instead of loving the Lord, we will exert our control instead of being led by the Spirit, and will remain in our selfishness instead of being the servant of all.

What are some properties of this self-life.

Rom 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

· The body of sin, which is representative of the self, is an actual spiritual/ psychological body made up totally and wholly through and through of sin. Until this self, this” I,” this body of sin is totally put to death by the cross, we will have the ability, the bondage and inclination, and propensity to sin.

· As we have studied before, ‘the law” described in the following verse is descriptive of any time that we work for the Lord outside of the leading of the Holy Spirit.

1Co 15:56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

· Any church programs or agendas, or personal plans, done by us through the means of what appears right and good, noble and charitable, or of a productive nature, but not having been initiated by the Lord falls under the category of “the law.”

· Please notice that the power or strength of sin is the law. Therefore anything performed outside the direct initiative of the Holy Spirit will give power and place to the law of sin. Our best schemes and plans outside the leading of the Holy Spirit only exalt the self-life instead of putting it to death by the cross. The exaltation of the self-life encompasses the body of sin, and the law of sin. No wonder why so many of our churches lie in disarray. Few of them operate solely by the voice of the Spirit.

· The self, or body of sin, is a possessor of the law of sin. In other word the law of sin dwells within the self-life. A law is defined as something that under a set of specific conditions will always produce specific results. Hence Newton’s law of gravity states that what is thrown up into the air must always come down to the ground. The law of sin states that we, left to ourselves, without having the cross of Christ to deal a mortal blow to the self-life, can, and only will produce sin and will always be in bondage to sin. This is why in no way can we ever expect a person that has not accepted the Lord into his or her life to produce or bear anything but sin! The law of sin is always active and ready to produce continual patterns sin according to its very law.

Roman 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? {the

· In verse twenty-four Paul gives a perfect description of the self-life. He calls it the body of this death. In the days of Paul one of the most horrible types of punishments inflicted on criminals was the following. A corpse was bound and tied to the body of the condemned fellow. The villain was forced to live out his existence as to his time of punishment with this corpse rotting, and decaying, bound, and on top of him. This is called “ the body of this death” and describes the depths and utter sickness of our sinful self-life, which keeps us in bondage at every point.

24 body…: or, this body of death}

· What is Christ’s purpose to destroy this cancerous self life?

· As the self-life is destroyed we pass on more and more into the very life of God Himself. Death is swallowed up into the victory of the infinity, the freedom, the faith, the immensity, the wisdom, the river of life, and the will of the Lord who resides within us.

· No longer are we caught at every turn in our being offended by our brothers and sisters, our being bound by sin and hurt, our control of the pulpit instead of allowing the Holy Sprit to lead and so forth.

1Co 15:54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.