So how do I do that?

There really is no good answer to this... at least, none that I've found.  How do I die to myself, and live in Christ? 


Galatians 2:20

 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

It's not easy.  I struggled with this for a long time, and every time I asked for advice, I got some variation of "You're already doing it!  Walk in victory!  Jesus already paid the price!  You're fighting a battle you've already won!"

Whoop-de-freakin'-doo.  That's less helpful than it could have been.  Now I know that the Price is already Paid, and that Christ's work on the Cross has accomplished my salvation, but I still find myself looking too long at something (someone) I shouldn't, or thinking things that are not indicative of one walking in victory.

Sometimes, I feel utterly defeated.  And, to be clear, it's not that some external overwhelming force has overpowered me, but rather that some quiet, internal force has spoken into the quiet of my mind at just the wrong time, and I am defeated before I realize what is going on.

I'm beating myself. 

And if "myself" really has been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, then I'm being beaten by a dead man.

Insult to injury.  I'm getting beaten by a zombie.

When I was a younger man, I studied Martial Arts.  I earned belts in Tae Kwon Do, two different forms of Karate, and made significant progress toward my Black Belt in Shaolin Tiger Kung Fu.  I really loved Kung Fu.  It was about out-thinking your opponent, and beating him with lightning fast reactions, rather than force opposing force.  When I studied Kung Fu, I felt like I could protect myself from anything; we learned how to counter weapons, including firearms.  Why did I quit martial arts?  So I could join the Army.  I spent four years training with real soldiers, preparing for war.  We studied tactics and tactical movement and camouflage and different types of weapon systems and all sorts of ways to encounter the enemy and overcome him. 

As a young man, I learned to rely on myself to defeat my opponents.

On the strength of my own arms.

And I think that's where the problem lies.  I think that's why I'm getting beaten up by Zombie A.J.  Because I can't fight me fighting me.  I need help.

Still, it's not like simply choosing to walk in victory.  It's a daily struggle.  And sometimes I don't ask for help.  Sometimes, I don't cry out to God.  Sometimes I don't rest in the strong embrace of Christ, or kneel in the temple of my own heart to the Holy Spirit.  And when I do that, I lose.

Every fight. 

Every time.

But sometimes...
Sometimes I reach out.  I do.  And I find listening ears, strong arms, and a Consuming Fire. 

Blessed Father, help me to die to myself.  Help me to reach out to You.  Make me weak, that Your power is made perfect in weakness.

Why blog this?

"How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them?"

Penn Jillette, Atheist.

      Recently, I sat down for a wonderfully pleasant conversation with one of my favorite High School teachers.  Her theological position is quite a complex one, pulled together from her experiences throughout her long and adventurous life.  Raised in the Christian church, influenced both positively and negatively by Christian pastors, with a good sprinkling of Buddhism, Taoism, Atheistic philosophy, and real life mixed in, she is a fascinating personality and a wonderful teacher.  Honestly, I cannot say enough good things about her, and that's not just because she might one day read this.

     So when we met again after an extended period (I have moved away from my high school stomping grounds, and sadly I do not get back there often enough) we had a lot to catch up on.  How is the family, how is school, how is work, how is life?  She knew I was a Pastor, and wanted to hear all about how things were going with my ministry, and what I was doing with my church, and eventually the topic came around to outreach.  We had a wonderful exchange about reaching out to hurting people and offering them warm clothing, or supporting a local food pantry, and about community meals the churches in my area provide at no cost to anyone who wants to come. 

Then I said "Christ calls us to go out into the streets and tell people.  To tell them how much He loves them and to bring them into His sheepfold.  Christianity is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread."  It's one of my favorite descriptions of sharing the faith, because I think it is so very apt.  

"That sounds an awful lot like proselytizing," she said.

"It is. Christianity is a proselytizing faith," I said.

"You shouldn't do that," she said.

And suddenly I realized a logical disconnect from what we had been talking about only a moment before.  It was wonderful, we both agreed, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and shelter the homeless.  But in the eyes of my friend, it was crossing a line to tell them about Jesus.  I was stunned, and she very perceptively picked up on the disagreement and moved to another topic, but the idea stayed with me.  

When I offer someone bread, it's consumed.  When I offer them a warm coat, it wears out. When I offer them shelter,  usually it is a temporary arrangement.  But when I offer them Jesus... Jesus who

is the same yesterday, today, and forever,

and when I offer them salvation, there's nothing temporary about that.  Like Christ says to the woman at the well, 

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

 It's not bread that is consumed, or temporary shelter, or clothing which the moths will eat, but eternal life.   And how much would I have to hate someone to not offer them that?

So what is Suicidal Christianity?

The longer I profess Christ, the more things change.  The scriptures tell us that He is

the same yesterday, today, and forever

and they're absolutely right about that.  What evolves over time, then, is my understanding of Him.

When I was a child, Jesus was the shepherd in the field with the lamb in his arms. Probably because my grandmother had this painting

hanging in her dining room.  This image of who Jesus was cemented my early understanding of who Christ was. When my father, later that year, made me memorize the 23rd Psalm, this was the image which helped me to remember the words... green pastures, still waters.

And so it was easy, shortly after girls lost their kooties and developed their hips, to forget this Jesus.  Suddenly there was something I wanted which didn't involve green pastures or still waters, and while I still attended church, it was usually whatever church my girlfriend was attending.  And this gentle, Shepherd Jesus had no teeth, and no strength to sway me.

Later, after I had chased my own desires into the pit of depression where they led me, I began to look for help.  I was alone and suicidal, and the day I figured out how I was going to kill myself, some ancient thing inside of me cried out for rescue.  And the shepherd came.

A version of this painting hung in my bedroom for several years after I decided to live, and it still fills me with life.  But this isn't the gentle, humble, timid shepherd holding the lamb beside the stream, this is a man of strength and courage, able to seek and to save those who are lost.  And so my understanding of Christ changed again.

And it has been changing ever since.  Christ Himself is not different, but each time my understanding of Him grows, I must set aside a part of myself.

This is the heart of Suicidal Christianity. I want to know Him fully, even as I am known by Him.  Past experience has suggested that the best way I can do this is to lose more of myself... or perhaps, to lose more of my own understanding, with the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit, to grow in my relationship to Christ.  The best way I can do that is to die to myself, to die to my own understanding, to die to my pre-conceived notions of who God is and how He works. I hope, someday, to be able to truly say

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

The interesting thing about the human experience is how human it is.  From behind this curtain of biology we look out on the reality of God's creation and marvel at what we see and smell and hear.  But what do we really experience?  We see the world as our bodies tell us it is.  Our noses report baking bread, our ears singing birds, and our eyes puffy white clouds in the distance.  We feel the cool of the morning on our bare arms, and taste the dew in the air. 

And after a while, we begin to suffer from the illusion that it's all real.

We're like the smoker who, burning through two packs a day for twenty years, pushes a piece of food into his mouth and wonders what the fuss is... it has no flavor.  Everyone else seems to be relishing the meal, but it all tastes the same. 

And like the smoker, most of us don't realize that the bias is within us.  That the world is more beautiful, more wonderful, more glorious than we can imagine, but that we cannot know it, because we do not see our own limitations.  To us, watching the sunset is a just pretty painting of reds and yellows and blues, and not the progression of the universe in a delicately balanced, beautiful dance set to its own never ending music.  To us, who have never spent a day without a heart beating in our chest, it's just a muscle, and we don't give it much thought until it begins to fail.  To us who breathe without thinking, we fail to see the majesty of the atmosphere, the combinations of chemicals and gasses and water.

Let us, as we begin this experiment of Suicidal Christianity, attempt to cast off the flesh not merely for its sinfulness, but for its limitations.  Shakespeare wrote "There is more in heaven and earth... than is dreampt of in your philosophies."  Let us set aside the man, and attempt to see the world as God sees it.  After all, I am crucified with Christ, therefore I no longer live, but Jesus Christ now lives in me.

Once we look at the world through the eyes of the Divine, we discover beauty we could not have imagined.