Are You Willing to Lay Down Your Life?

I read this passage today from “My Utmost for His Highest” by Oswald Chambers and I wanted to share it with you.  I hope it encourages you today.

“Jesus does not ask me to die for Him, but to lay down my life for Him.  Peter said to the Lord, “I will lay down my life for your sake,” and he meant it.  (John 13:37)

Let’s bring the King honor as we lay down our lives.

If I am a friend of Jesus, I must deliberately and carefully lay down my life for Him.  It is a difficult thing to do, and thank God that it is.  Salvation is easy for us, because it cost God so much.  But the exhibiting of salvation in my life is difficult.  God saves a person,  fills him with the Holy Spirit and then says, in effect, “Now you work it out in your own life, and be faithful to Me, even though the nature of everything around you is to cause you to be unfaithful.”  And Jesus says to us, “…I have called you friends…”  Remain faithful to your Friend, and remember that His honor is at stake in your bodily life. ~ Oswald Chambers

Imagine if Oswald were still alive today.  I am sure he would be blogging for his King and the words written above would’ve been one powerful post!

I love where he wrote, “Salvation is easy for us, because it cost God so much.”  Salvation did not cost you and I anything, yet it cost Jesus Christ everything.  After all that He did for us, the least we can do for our King and our Friend is lay down our lives for Him.

It is not easy to lay down our lives and die to ourselves on a daily basis, because it is not in our selfish, self-centered nature.  Add to that, everything in the world around us is screaming in our ears telling us to be unfaithful, (just turn on the talk shows, listen to some secular music, read the cover of a magazine at the checkout line, etc.)

Granted, it is hard to give up our rights along with our lives for a friend…but this Friend deserves it.  Let’s bring Him honor by how we live

May we be willing to have a heart like Peter as we lay down our own lives where God has called us.