Dying to self

"Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified."

Dying to self, refusing the desires of the flesh, and instead choosing to follow Christ is not easy. anybody who tells you it is is a liar!

I read this quote from CS Lewis last week:
“The Christian way is different: harder and easier. Christ says ‘Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact I will give you, Myself: my own will shall become yours.”

When we realise that we were crucified with Christ on the cross and that we no longer live but Christ lives through us we find release, things do get easier! we can then choose to join with Paul and say that 'for me to live is christ and to die is gain'.

(Thanks to Guildford Boiler Room for bringing the quote to mind)