The invitation to come to Jesus is always “Come and Die.” Always. And die we must. Why? Why is the invitation so extreme? Simply put: the old man has no place in New Life. Our old self is full of lust, greed, the desire for instant gratification, and we’re willing to do anything to get it. We lie, cheat, steal all in the name of “letting me do me.” In the name of myself, I mow people out of my way, I see everyone as a rival. I will do what I can to gain more money, more power, more prestige. I feel threatened by people do better than I do, or seem like good people, and so I seek to cut them out, or destroy them. The old me must die if I am to have New Life.
There is no room in my life for the old me to be able to run loose. I’m to give of myself, to love the Lord with all my heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. I’m to consider others as better than myself, and seek to show honor to all. I’m not to retaliate when wrong is done to me. In everything I do, I’m to honor Jesus, and my life is no longer about me, but honoring God in all I do. In Christ, I recognize that money, popularity, possessions, power, and anything else that is temporary is either going to be all I get, or it will have no hold over me. So I need to seek Jesus. I need to seek Him out in all I do. Everything I have needs to belong to Him. Everything I am needs to belong to Him. I can’t have the Old and the New mixed together. I need to be completely made new.
Mark 2:18-22
Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
James 4:1-12
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
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