How can I die to self?

bmjackson said:

As crucifixion was a common form of punishment in Roman law, I guess it was. Jesus knew it was going to be His destiny.

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Or it was incorporated as what might have become a post crucifixion phrase into the literary style of the day of the writers of the books who wrote those stories later.

TenthAveN said:

Every time I pray for God to forgive my sins, I don’t (as far as I know) have any trouble confessing them, and telling God that I believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, but when I get to the part that says Jesus is Lord, I get this resistant feeling in my chest. No matter how much I want to mean it, I feel like I don’t. I have several theories as to why this happens:

1) Fear of Man. This has been a long time struggle of mine. I feel I’ve made decent strides in the past week to overcome this, but I still feel so useless. Why would God give me grace if I’m going to be useless?

2) I am afraid of giving my life to God then failing to do what He asks me to do, but this kind of ties in to my fear of man in point one.

3) Dying to self is hard, and it’s a natural heart reaction to the thought of making someone else the Lord of my life.

I don’t know which it is, could be all three. But I feel like God won’t accept me if I say Jesus is Lord but I don’t mean or, or feel like I don’t mean it. Advice and prayers, as always, are appreciated.

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I think what might help is studying the person and character of Jesus, because you may have a problem with trusting who He is. We are usually unsure about things we are unfamiliar with, and if you familiarize yourself with the person of Christ, that may help your trust issues with Him.

In a larger context God is light and is representative of giving and love (selflessness)

Fallen humanity is representative of darkness (taking and selfishness).

To escape the fate for those who are selfish and rebellious, God sent Jesus to pay for all sin and offer salvation to all who trust in Jesus.

The "dying to self" described in Luke 9 is described as daily. So even if in the aorist, it would still be repeated.

Perhaps a better understanding van be gained from Galatians 5. Christians often struggle with the contention between the flesh (the "old man") and the Spirit.

We are told to "mortify" (put to death) the deeds of the flesh. This is not best done by conquest (which feeds the flesh) but through starvation (make no provision for the flesh).

It simply means read your Bible daily, find out what God wants, then obey it.

We all eventually die to self, what too many consider to be who we are, the flesh returning to the elements from which it is formed. The question is, have we discovered and turned on the spirit within to carry on or does it remain dormant and go out like a light unused along with the flesh?

Again, we are told nowhere in the Bible that we are to die to self. Self is neutral, it follows that which it has bowed down to - God or the devil. It is sin that we are to die to, but if we do not but that in the right place and chase some eastern mystical idea of dying to self, then we open ourselves up to deception. It is the old man, the sin nature, who is to be crucified with Christ, not self.

bmjackson said:

. It is the old man, the sin nature, who is to be crucified with Christ, not self.

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Yet self is what Eve focused on when she chose her will over that of God's. This self serving concept of course leads to self interest, self justification of deeds, etc which of course leads to personal gain at the expense of others. Sin. Jesus said to reject this way of thinking and return to the will of God first which of course is love all as self, not for self. It is called repentance and is essential to gain access to the gift of the Kingdom Jesus died to give us (by denying self).

We are to love all as self, meaning that we are to love self too, but in the kingdom, deny self in favour of others.

bmjackson said:

We are to love all as self, meaning that we are to love self too, but in the kingdom, deny self in favour of others.

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As I said, 'which of course is love all as self, not for self.'

TenthAveN said:

Every time I pray for God to forgive my sins, I don’t (as far as I know) have any trouble confessing them, and telling God that I believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, but when I get to the part that says Jesus is Lord, I get this resistant feeling in my chest. No matter how much I want to mean it, I feel like I don’t. I have several theories as to why this happens:

1) Fear of Man. This has been a long time struggle of mine. I feel I’ve made decent strides in the past week to overcome this, but I still feel so useless. Why would God give me grace if I’m going to be useless?

2) I am afraid of giving my life to God then failing to do what He asks me to do, but this kind of ties in to my fear of man in point one.

3) Dying to self is hard, and it’s a natural heart reaction to the thought of making someone else the Lord of my life.

I don’t know which it is, could be all three. But I feel like God won’t accept me if I say Jesus is Lord but I don’t mean or, or feel like I don’t mean it. Advice and prayers, as always, are appreciated.

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Romans 12:1-2 ESV / 751 helpful votes
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

TenthAveN said:

Every time I pray for God to forgive my sins, I don’t (as far as I know) have any trouble confessing them, and telling God that I believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, but when I get to the part that says Jesus is Lord, I get this resistant feeling in my chest. No matter how much I want to mean it, I feel like I don’t. I have several theories as to why this happens:

1) Fear of Man. This has been a long time struggle of mine. I feel I’ve made decent strides in the past week to overcome this, but I still feel so useless. Why would God give me grace if I’m going to be useless?

2) I am afraid of giving my life to God then failing to do what He asks me to do, but this kind of ties in to my fear of man in point one.


3) Dying to self is hard, and it’s a natural heart reaction to the thought of making someone else the Lord of my life.

I don’t know which it is, could be all three. But I feel like God won’t accept me if I say Jesus is Lord but I don’t mean or, or feel like I don’t mean it. Advice and prayers, as always, are appreciated.

Click to expand...

I think it is demonic. Bind the spirit of doubt and unbelief in Jesus name.

Die to self - It's just another way of saying take up your cross and follow Jesus "And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." (Luke 9:23).

Just starting with -
"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Matt 22)

We can't do that without the Lord's help.

We may not even want to but God wants us to keep His Word as the result of being His such as -

'The religious observance that God the Father considers pure and faultless is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being contaminated by the world." (Jam 1:27)

"Be angry, but don’t sin — don’t let the sun go down before you have dealt with the cause of your anger;" (Eph 4:26)

"...and all their intellectual arrogance that oppose the knowledge of God. We take every thought captive so that it is obedient to Christ." (II Cor 10:5).

Etc

I know this is an older post, but the topic is interesting and I would like to give my position on the subject.

I struggle with this also. I understand that the issue is seeing Christ fully as our Lord. The only way a Christian can see Christ fully as Lord is through the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Christ fullness has to be revealed to us, and as we study the gospel, our belief and love for Him increases. This is done through putting on the New Man by the Spirit. It is the Spirit that helpers our infirmities, Romans 8:26, not us.

Also, when we come to Christ, we are GIVEN the Spirit (Holy Spirit), 1 John 4:12. This Spirit is the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead the dwells in us, Romans 6:10, and we have this Spirit as the earnest of our inheritance (a down payment to our inheritance) to the Kingdom, that is, until our redemption. Therefore, we are to put off the Old Man (where we struggle to do so according to Romans 7), and put on the New Man, Ephesians 4:22).

No man on earth knows how to put on the New Man because it is the Power of God which has made this possible - we have been crucified with Christ and we now walk in newness of life, the New Man. We are to believe what God has said. Our old man has been crucified - a fact. We walk in newness of life - a fact.

Our only struggle is in believing this to be true because the SELF is so use to controlling our lives (Romans 7). But in Christ, we have been set free from the flesh, we must believe this truth, this is the renewing of the mind. Pray for this truth to be revealed to you.

Although you struggle with believing Christ is Lord, and you judge yourself because of it, it doesn't matter. God crucified us on the cross with Christ. Who do you think God crucified? Good people? No, he crucified sinners. And He made us righteous in Christ, not of our making. He did it. So we are already righteous because God Has made Christ to be our righteousness, 1 Corinthians 1:30; we can bring nothing to the table - because we, our flesh, our carnal nature, have been crucified. We are not told to force ourselves to love Jesus, a carnal man cannot do it - Romans 8:7; when we do this this we place ourself under the law of sin because we rouse up our flesh. However, we are given the Spirit of life and Love by the Holy Spirit which enables you to love Jesus, and even our enemies. It's the Spirit that comes with Power to DO, that we cannot do. For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of Power - 2 Timothy 1:7.

Now most people say, so what do I do then? The answer to that question is: we pray, confess our issues to God, ask for revelation, ask to be given the ability walk according to the Fruit of the Spirit, ask to be given the ability to hear the guidance of the Holy Spirit, ask that we be given the ability to love our enemies, read the gospel, and meditate on God's word. Ask that our inner man be strengthened like Ephesians 3:16. As we do these things, we will be GIVEN the strength we need BY THE SPIRIT. We will see a miraculous change and growth. God will do for you what you cannot do! Philippians 4:13. We are not told to DO, we are told to BELIEVE what has already been done in Christ Jesus. So we ask that those things be manifested in our life. And we know that God will hear our prayer, so we patiently wait for the manifestation of the Power of God to operate in our life. There is no Power but God's Power. We cannot be condemned by no one and no situation, for there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus, Romans 8:1, and even If our heart condemn ourselves, that won't work either, because He is greater than our heart, 1 John 3:20.

The Gospel is our teaching tool to understand how to walk in the New Man that has never been known before, according to Spirit of God in Christ Jesus. We would not have known how to do this, how to live in Christ Jesus. No one does. That's why we have the gospel to teach us, and it is the Power of the Gospel that brings about the Spiritual changes in our lives according to Christ. As it is said in Romans 16:25,
Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secrete since the world began.