1. They do not understand that God uses the difficulties and events of our lives to teach us His ways.
2. They do not understand that God must be found in today, and as He is in today, so is our peace and happiness.

Growing spiritually requires the crucifixion of self and learning how to cooperate with God’s purpose of conforming us to the image of Christ.  There is nothing about my past I can crucify.  There is nothing about my future I can crucify.  The only thing I can crucify is found in today and I identify those things as they are exposed by the difficulties of living life today.  In other words, the events of today are exposing the self sins I must give up to God.  They must be dealt with by knowing that God is present and He is with me now. God is in the middle of my present difficulty because the present is where the great I AM lives!

In this blog I have discussed the concept of living Life on a Cross.  To crucify self, the process of taking thoughts captive must be integrated with the Life on a Cross model.  When we are able to do that a powerful transformation begins to take place at our spiritual core.  The power of God to really change us at the level of thought and motive becomes evident to us.  As we become more patient, more kind, more forgiving and more obedient, we begin to authentically reflect God in our lives for the first time.  This is real Christianity.  This is the purpose of God.  This is how we are putting on the mind of Christ.

Are you willing to allow God to deal with you at the level of thought and motive?  To allow God to deal with us at such a deep level begins with learning what it means to take our thoughts captive and bring them in obedience to Christ.

The truth is this:  I think things I hate to admit I think.  How about you?   Years ago when I struggled with addiction, anger and depression, very little of my thought life was pleasing to God.  My thoughts were nested in anger, resentment and getting what I wanted when I wanted it.  My thoughts came in an endless stream and were constantly goading and leading me into behavior that produced spiritual beatings that tortured my soul and my spirit.

I  once heard someone say they considered their mind to be like a bad neighborhood and they avoided going there alone!  I’ve found a lot of truth in that remark.  However, as I have learned to better submit to God’s purpose, the greatest single example of His work in me is the transformation of my thought life.  I still think thoughts that I need to surrender to God but they do not begin to approach the character and nature of my thoughts as they existed long ago.  The change in my thought life is factual proof to me that God’s grace has changed my heart to the extent that I am no longer the man I used to be.

The crucifixion of Jesus began with a beating – a scourging of unbelievable intensity.   The purpose of scourging was to weaken the body in preparation for actual crucifixion.  The intensity of the beating was dependent on the particular mood and disposition of those charged with performing it.  In the beating and scourging of Jesus, scripture indicates he received a particularly harsh and extended beating.  He was almost beaten to the point of death.  Crucifixion was a long process and would have been even longer without scourging to weaken the victim.  Jesus’ actual time on the cross was evidently shorter than what would be normally expected and it may have been the result of the extreme beating he received in the scourging phase of the execution.  The important thing to remember is that the beating was administered in preparation for death.

When we consider the crucifixion of self-will, how does the beating of Jesus relate to the process we must experience?  It is easy to make the connection when we consider the consequences of our sin and the results they produce in our lives.  When self-will is rampant in the life of a person it produces spiritual disaster and the effect is much the same as a beating.  There are beatings we receive from the results of addiction.  They are beatings that accompany divorce.  There are beatings that accompany anger and resentment.  There are negative spiritual consequences that follow every human activity that is not consistent with God’s will and His truth.

The beatings we experience as the result of our sin should be indicators for us that something about our spiritual condition is corrupt.  God allows us to experience these spiritual beatings so that we might come to the end of ourselves and begin to allow him to work in and through us so that we will be conformed to the image of Christ.   The scourging of Jesus was designed to weaken His body in preparation for death.  The beatings we experience as the result of sin produce the same effect – weakening of the flesh so that we may die to it.

The beatings we receive as the result of our sin come in many forms, but there are four broad categories that are most prevalent:  Broken Relationships, Addiction, Depression and Anger.   These fruits of sin should serve as danger signals for believers because if any or all of these fruits exist in the life of a believer they are the result of a rebellious self-will living independently of God.  These fruits of sin produce the spiritual beatings we are allowed to experience and the beatings will continue until we surrender to God’s great purpose, which is to conform us into the image of Christ.  These spiritual beatings are administered and allowed by God to bring us to the end of ourselves.  In the same way Christ was beaten in preparation for his execution, our spiritual beatings prepare us for the death of self.

1. The beating
2. The crown of thorns
3. The Fixing of hands to the cross
4. The Fixing of feet to the cross
5.  The Spear in the side

Each step in the crucifixion process of Jesus provides a visual and mental picture of the way we must engage ourselves to the same process in order to crucify self.  In the days ahead we will share these principles in more detail.

For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.  (Gal 5:17)

Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.  (Gal 5:24-25)

And in his letter to the Romans, Paul wrote:

Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.  (Rom 6:4-7)

It is only by the death of self that the risen life of Christ may be revealed in us.  Only by the death of self may His Spirit fill us.  Jesus says we must take up our cross and follow Him.  Paul says we must crucify our flesh and die to sin.  The cross is the most powerful instrument of Christianity and crucifixion is a bloody business.   Most of the modern church has lost the view that the cross is an instrument of death.  Worse, most Christians have no idea how to use it for the purpose of learning obedience by faith.

The heart of real Christianity is found in the crucifixion of self and allowing the risen Christ to live through us.  That is the only ground upon which the Holy Spirit may trod and invade our spirit.  It is by the death of self that we are filled by the Spirit and the death of self only occurs when we bring the seven deadly sins of self to the cross of Christ for crucifixion.

As a wise man (Zig Ziglar) once said, “You have to BE, before you can DO“