Identity

"When Christ bids a man, He bids him come and die!"

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Had a great conversation about this with my brother the other day...

It is interesting how two people can come at a point of truth from two totally different perspectives.

I was speaking of a friend and how I had encouraged him to 'die to self' in a specific circumstance he found himself in. My brother asked some penetrating questions about this, specifically addressing the problematic way in which this might promote an unhealthy dose of 'martyr-complex-death-wish' thinking, along the lines of some early Christians. (There were cases of some Christians actually seeking martyrdom at the hands of the Romans, instead of merely accepting martyrdom when it confronted them...)

It took a while for us to come to terms with each other on the subject, but when we did, I realized how different we see the world.

I was attempting to stay faithful to the call of the gospel to relinquish control to a Victorious Jesus, Lord and Christ over all Creation. I come from, however, a place of almost whimsical and carefree living. My psychology is much more spontaneous and prone to pursue whatever pleasures this moment offers. And so, I have come to see the call of Christ for me as a constant setting aside of my desires in order to learn His instead...

My brother, however, was approaching this from the perspective of one who tends to approach God from a very different mindset. One who, prior to Christ, tends to seek punishment for sins, and who views their own character flaws through a microscope will find in God a Father who offers a life of affirmation and pleasure that counters the inherent tendency to self-critique and self-condemnation...

I believe we are both talking about the same thing, yet doing so from very different places:

The call to follow Jesus is a call to die, but it is also a call to truly live!

For it is only in Jesus that true life can be found, and it is only after our own will is subjected to His that we can find it. It is on the other side of the Crucifixion that lies the Resurrection. Along any other path lies only a counterfeit, a broad and easy path that leads to nowhere, or worse...

And so, the call to come and die, is paradoxically, also a call to come and live! ...to experience real life, in all of its sensual pleasure and beauty and comedy!

The call to the cross is a call to identify with Jesus, as is the call to life a call to identity in Christ.