Fruit
I have always wanted to know what it means to die to self. You always hear people say that … “To follow Christ you must die to self daily.” or “To follow Christ you must take up your cross daily.” I think they are right, but I want to know what that means. The past week I have been praying that God would show me what that would look like in my own life.
He said, “Maddison…I’ll start here. Galatians 5:22- But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” I just got done reading Francis Chan’s book- Reversing Our Trageic Neglect of the Holy Spirit.(bomb book, read it.) He points out that in this verse it says the “fruit of the Spirit” not “fruits of the Spirit”. It is a singular form of the word. Meaning that when we have the Spirit of God, all of these attritubes will be evident. Not just patience, not just joy. But all.
Alright God. What else ya got?
You must die to your old self- your sin. Romans 6:2-4 says “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” I encourage you to read on through 11. There are many more passages in the Word that talk about dying to our sin. Galatians 5:24-26 says “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”
Interpretation- Dying to yourself- take it literal. A few things that God would whisper to me throughout the week… A cook is yelling at me at work: when you want to yell back at the cooks, don’t; just say okay sorry or okay thank you. When you don’t want to wait for someone to finish their sentence/opinion because you strongly disagree, bite your tongue and wait til they are finished. I got tipped 10%, had a headache, was hungry…the list goes on: Don’t complain but find joy. Do not envy that girls’ hair, clothes, body, boyfriend, the list continues. The thing about this is, God doesn’t expect us to do these things on our own. We cannot. We have to rely on the Spirit to die to self. He takes the pressure off of our incapable selves.
Now as my day goes on, I am constantly reminded of ways in which I can die to my self and my sinful desires. I asked God to show me and HE did. HE is helping me to encompass the FRUIT of the Spirit, not just one for every day of the week. I encourage you to pray that HE would show you where you need to die to self. I’m not saying it will be easy, it will be hard and humbling. But you will experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
