1 Corinthians 11:26, ‘For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.’
When we are going through many circumstances and situations, proclaim the Lord’s death, until He comes. We should not stop announcing this, in our lives! Through our lives, this death, should work in us, to manifest the life of Jesus. When we look at Jesus, on the cross, we look at His physical suffering and physical death. We know what Jesus has done for us on the cross. But this is only one side. Do not forget the other side – proclaiming His death, until He comes. Satan has blinded many Christians in Christendom, to see the reality of ‘death’, working in our lives! This is the way of the cross. Jesus, through out His life, He took the cross in His inner life, He died to the self-will and suffered in the flesh. He was tempted in all the things as we are, yet He was without sin! In all of His temptations and trials, He was proclaiming, ‘It is not my will, but His will be done’. This is the dying of Jesus. In every situation, this ‘dying of Jesus’, should work in our lives. Proclaim the ‘Lord’s death’. Let the dying of Jesus work in our hearts and let the life of Jesus be manifested in our lives. True disciple of Jesus needs to follow this. Jesus is our example. He is our forerunner. This is the only way to have His life, to put death to our ‘self-will’. He always walked the way of the cross, which is the way of death to the self. The way of the death is the path way to the resurrection. If there is no death, there is no resurrection! We need to be conformed to His death.
Philippians 3:10, ‘that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.’
If we are not dying to our self-will, it is not possible to be conformed to His death.
2 Corinthians 4:10, ‘always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.’
Daily, we have to always carry about in the body, the dying of Jesus in our lives, so we can experience the resurrection life. God wants to manifest His life in our lives, by carrying the dying of Jesus.
Luke 9:23, ‘And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.’
Jesus says, ‘Take up the cross daily, and follow Me.’
V24, ‘For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.’
This is the way of the cross.
1 Corinthians 15:31, ‘I affirm, brethren, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.’
Apostle Paul also says, ‘I die daily’. We will come across many different situation in our lives and we need to follow the dying of Jesus, take up the cross and die, so as to manifest the life of Jesus.
Matthew 16:22, ‘Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” 23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”
Peter wants Jesus to avoid the way of cross, but Jesus is rebuking Peter. ‘Avoid the cross’ – this is the Satan’s voice; this is the man’s interest. But the Lord’s interest, for us is to ‘follow the way of cross’. Jesus says, ‘those who avoid the cross, they cannot be my disciple and they are not worthy of me’.
The way of the cross, having the dying of Jesus, every day, in our lives, being in that brokenness and manifesting His resurrected life in us; this is the blessed life that God has established in the new covenant. By our lives, we should proclaim the Lord’s death, every day in our lives.
Galatians 2:20, ‘I have been crucified with Christ; and 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 up for me.’
This is Apostle Paul’s testimony. Are we longing to have this testimony in our lives? In every situation, we need to die to our self-will. Christ should live in us.
John 12:24, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’
In the Church, if we as many grains of wheat are broken and gathered together, we will bear much fruit! How blessed a Church would be, like this. Let us have a longing to be this broken grain of wheat among the Church, to be a blessing to others. This is one side. On the other side, there are many weeds also, who do not want to follow this way of cross, avoiding it and they will still lead a shallow Christian life. Their hearts are hardened as the grain of wheat is not broken! Their outer shell is very hardened and strong and they are not willing to be broken. We need to change; we need to be broken. For our hearts to be changed, we need to go through the brokenness. We need to die to our self-will. We need to be broken so we can bear much fruit! Let us examine ourselves, to which category of this, do we belong?
Jeremiah 4:3, ‘For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem,
“Break up your fallow ground,
And do not sow among thorns’.
V4, ‘Circumcise yourselves to the Lord
And remove the foreskins of your heart,
Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
Or else My wrath will go forth like fire
And burn with none to quench it,
Because of the evil of your deeds.’
“Plow up the hard ground of your hearts!’ – This needs to happen in our lives! This hard heart, the seed needs to be broken, if not it remains alone! If we want our hearts to be changed, we need to be broken and submit ourselves to Him.
It is better to fall into God’s hands and be broken. Let us submit ourselves to God to be broken, so that He can use us. God wants us to be changed from a ‘fallow ground’ to a ‘beautiful garden’! Through this beautiful garden, the fragrance, the aroma comes.
2 Corinthians 2:15, ‘For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; 16 to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things?’
We can be a fragrant aroma to the Lord and be a blessing to many, if we are broken! The way of the cross is the way of the brokenness. Fragrance can come only through the brokenness.
John 12:3, ‘. the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume’.
Let this be a reality in our lives, Lord. Our lives, our family lives, needs to be filled with the aroma. Our Church should be filled with this fragrant aroma. This is possible only when we go through the brokenness, the way of the cross, it will produce a fragrant aroma to the Lord and to others around us.
Mark 14:3, ‘While He was in Bethany at the home of Simon the leper, and reclining at the table, there came a woman with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume of pure nard; and she broke the vial and poured it over His head.’
She broke the vial and the fragrance came out. Without brokenness, there is no fragrance! God wants us to be broken! We need to experience and live in this reality of brokenness! This is true Christianity! May Lord help us to not to be a hypocrite or a Pharisee!
When others are crucifying us by saying wrong things about us or when we are seeking our self-will or honor or praise from others and when we are facing many different situations, are we ready to die to our ‘self’?
When Jesus was on the cross, one soldier wanted to make sure, if He died, he pierced Him with a spear on His side, to ensure that He was dead. God allowed this soldier to pierce Jesus’ body to ensure that Jesus died or not. Similar soldiers and different types of spears may pierce us, across our lives through different people and different situations to make sure that are we really dead or not! God speaks to our hearts that we are not dead! We need to die! God will allow many situations to arise to see if we are dying to our self and are broken. When Jesus was pierced, blood and water came out. When we are pierced, what is coming out of us? when we go through these situations in our lives, externally we might not react but what goes on in our hearts? God knows our heart. What is the response in our hearts when we go through this piercing? We need to be carrying the dying of Jesus in our bodies.
John the Baptist says, ‘He must increase and I must decrease’. In every situation this must be our attitude. He must increase and we must decrease and decrease until we become zero.
His life should be manifested in our lives. Always be conformed to His death. Let this be our prayer – ‘Lord as you were broken on this earth, let us also be broken in this earth’. May we be broken, so He can use us to be a blessing, to many around us – A sweet aroma to God and become into likeness of Him. This is possible in our lives because the Holy Spirit will help us. If we are really longing for this life and confess, He will give us the strength. Let us submit ourselves to God, like a clay in a potter’s hand. When we are broken, God will use us for His glory.
May God bless us.
