Editor’s Note October 2018 – A Call to Death

The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die…

On that fateful cold morning in January, as it was made clear to me in a revelation that I am made for an assignment to reaching the unreached for the Lord, preaching the gospel of truth and peace, I was gobsmacked, and could not fathom why it has to be. Why me Lord? I queried! After all the years of building and accumulating professional qualifications and networks in my field of study, I have just been prompted to begin to diversify all these into ministering to humanity without prior major training or professional exposure?. At the Bible College, I had barely spent a quarter of the time I spent, training in the universities and other professional training institutes. It did not feel right to me, but God said I have been called to die to myself and begin to live for Him. “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” (John 12:24). The key to being fruitful as followers of Christ is kept in dying to self, ego, personal preferences and individual reservations.

The Start of Communion

The expression of love from Christ to the church is a call to bear our cross and follow Him, regardless of our circumstances and situations. According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s words “The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die”. The scriptures also confirm this; “When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35).

It all means pick up your cross on the road to Calvary and die with Him, dying to flesh and start yielding to the promptings to the spirit of God by the free grace which in Christ Jesus. “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (Roman 8:12-13).

I began the journey with self and my human strength, but after a significant amount of struggle and failures, by faith, I gave in to the process of dying to self, and that was the genesis of the supernatural power of God, manifesting in me and the transformations began to unfold…

Entrance into Grace

At the point of death to self and flesh, then comes an emergence of fruitfulness, as that is the only way to please the father. A natural man would continue to dwell on the works of the flesh, and only be exposed to the results of the flesh, which is characterised by the normal and common reactions, the man that has been through the process of dying to self and living in the Spirit will easily access the treasures embedded in Christ Jesus. “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14). Likewise in substantiating the topic of dying to self, John Piper mentioned in His book, Let The Nations Be Glad “…It would also be like saying pick up your electric chair and follow me to the execution room…” Paul the apostle wrote to the Romans; “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise, you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:10-11). It all implies that the exit to the entrance into grace to live in Christ.

No Longer I

The journey with Christ is the beginning of the journey to die to self and at the demise of self, there comes to play the reality of Christ living, and no longer us, but Christ in us. I began the journey with self and my human strength, but after a significant amount of struggle and failures, by faith, I gave in to the process of dying to self, and that was the genesis of the supernatural power of God, manifesting in me and the transformations began to unfold.

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he made a point which has a lot to do with this; “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20). Begin the journey to dying to self today and there shall be an outstanding manifestation of His glory upon you.

Welcome to October…