The Death of Sinner Births Life To a Saint
Hello friends, I know…I know, you have not heard from me in a while. The truth is, I have been dying. It’s not what you think. God has been killing me, and you know, now that I think of it, I did not see any of you at my funeral:)
I have heard all my life that we must all die, so God may live through us. I am completely convinced that very few people truly know what that means. Oh, I am sure most people have a ideal of what it means to “die to self”, but very few understand just “how deep that rabbit hole goes”.
Friends, there is nothing what so ever, that God likes about you and I. Everything about us is a disgrace to the one who created us. We are sinners; everything about us is dark and useless. God wants absolutely nothing we can offer him. We have no righteousness, no TRUE love, and no life. God wants nothing more than to utterly destroy every inch of our being.
I know it is popular to believe that this magical thing happened the day we “asked Jesus into our hearts”, and some how, because we believed, God miraculously preformed this divine surgery that changed us into His likeness. This is, unfortunately, not true. It is one thing to be a believer, and completely other to be a “Christian”(Like Christ). A disciple of Christ is to be a learner of Christ, to walk after Him. Our goal should be as John the Baptist, we should decrease and Christ must increase. I will take it a step further and say that we should not only decrease, but completely disintegrate. God wants us all dead. I know the language that I am using here, may be a little defensive, but so did “drink my blood and eat my flesh”. When Jesus said that to those who where following Him, they left. The truth is, that is the way we all are. We want everything to be sweet and nice. When someone tells us we should die, that does not fit into our plane of living the life that we want to live. I am sorry to burst your religious bubble, but God does not want you to live the life you want to live. He wants you to die, so He might live. God no longer wants credit for all of your earthly treasures, your house, cars, and savings accounts. He does not want you to “be willing to give all of that up”. He DEMANDS that you lay it all down before Him. He wants every lustful, self centered, hateful, greedy, desire that you have. If you don’t want to give up your life for His, that’s fine. Just stop calling yourself disciple or Christian.
There is good news for those who lay their lives down and die. God promises a resurrection. I know when we all physically die, we will one day be resurrected, but God promises us one on this side as well. His life for ours….It is a great trade off. “For those who will loose their life, shall find it”. Quit allowing the enemy to convince you that the life God come to give you will be found in you earthly kingdom of”stuff”. God’s Life is found when we are striped of everything that we hold onto. That could be many things, such as you car, house, and other material things such as that, but we also hold onto things such as our temper, greed, loved ones, even our religious doctrines, to name a small few. God wants all of you my friend. It is not good enough for you to know you have a cross you must bare, you must also pick that cross up, carry it to your calvary, and there you must die. The scriptures say that, if you do not do that, you CAN NOT BE HIS DISCIPLE.
Dear friends, I am not going to kid you, dying is no fun at all. In fact, it can even make you question rather or not you want to live your life for God. The love affair that we have with ourselves is a powerful bond, but I believe you will find that the LIFE that you gain is well worth your loss.
5 Responses to “The Death of Sinner Births Life To a Saint”
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:55 am
Frank…this is a horable blog…in a good kind of way!
May God bless you TO DEATH!
James
August 25th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Whoa dude that may have been worth the wait!!! I’m still looking for the place to plant my cross to die. Seems I can’t get still enough to get it done. That scripture that says “Be still and know that I Am Lord” scares seems to allude me. Great to hear from you !!!
PRINCESS PEGGY Says:
September 24th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Well, I must be reading the wrong Bible. The one I read tells me how much God loves me - how He hates sin but LOVES the sinner. God is love. When we accept Christ, we are new creations. The old is passed away and BEHOLD the new. And, then there’s the part that reassures me (and God is not a man that He should lie) that once I ask forgiveness for a sin I’ve committed, HE forgives me & remembers it no more.
I think you made some pretty strong, incorrect statements about God and for sure if I was not a believer , what I read in your blog would send me running the other way - away from God.
There’s a number of believers that are so quick to get defensive towards people (myself included) who follow the example of a loving God and that we have BEEN MADE the righteousness of Him - we’re in right standing. I’m not a dummy that thinks that I can behave how ever I want, etc. And, as far as nice houses, cars, etc. just because we have them, doesn’t mean we treasure them more than our Heavenly Father.
AND the biggest thing I think you need to think about is what did Jesus go to the cross for & die for? He took it all so we didn’t have to go through the things such as sickness, grief, sorrow, etc. I know I’m not expressing this the way I’d like it to come out but………..I sure know I hope to never read anything so discouraging again in my life. I read your blog to a friend of mine & didn’t express my opinion & their reaction was the same. So, 2 of us agree which probably doesn’t mean much but yikes!
You’re in my prayers & not that it probably matters but, you’ve lost a reader.
Peggy
Frank Lee Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Peggy, I am very sorry that you have no idea what I am talking about. I pray that one day you will.
October 5th, 2008 at 9:24 am
It’s hard to conceive that someone could say, “he took it all so we didn’t have to go through things like sickness, grief, sorrow, etc.” Paul spoke of continual sorrow (Rom. 9:2). He left Trophimus in Miletum sick (2 Tim. 4:20). He said he was “troubled on every side” (2 Cor. 4:8). He spoke of despairing even of life (2 Cor. 1:8). He said that it’s through many tribulations that we must enter the kingdom of heaven (Acts 14:22), so apparently he, like James (1:2-4), believed that we are to suffer like they suffered. Remember, no discipline of God seems pleasant when it’s happening. It’s only afterwards that it leaves the peaceable fruit of righteousness (Heb. 12:11).
Maybe the death of Christ was not so that we would be able to avoid suffering. After all, Paul did say that he found it necessary for himself to “fill up what was lacking in the afflictions of Christ” in his body (Col. 1:24). Maybe Christ’s death was really to produce a people that is zealous for good works, like Tit. 2:14 says. Maybe it was specifically to give us the power to “endure hardship” (2 Tim. 2:3) like good soldiers of Christ.
There’s no way to convince someone of the things Frank was talking about without your giving yourself to Christ and experiencing it, the Scriptures do speak quite loudly against the idea that Christ died to keep us from things like sorrow and suffering.