During the baptism ceremony at my previous church, the Pastor used to spontaneously invite congregation members to share words of encouragement with the baptismal candidates before they were immersed in water. So yesterday, I was just visualizing myself sharing with some candidates and what I might have told them. And you know what came to my mind to share. I would have told them that they were now “Signing up to die.”   Of course, they were also signing up to get other wonderful blessings from God as well, but in conjunction with that, “They were signing up to Die”.

Here is what God’s word says about this:

“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.”  Romans 6:4

As we can see, we are signing up to be buried. Old things must be passed away, and behold, many things will become new (2 Corinthians 5:17). What is taking place here is called consideration. In legal terms, consideration is a key requirement that must take place for a contract to be valid. Consideration is defined as something of value that is exchanged between the parties involved in a contract. Therefore, the life that we value must die in exchange for the Spirit of God (Acts 2:38) and newness of life. Today I am reminding us that obligations to our spiritual contract must be met. God is keeping His part of the contract/covenant, but are we keeping ours?

I know giving up things in this life might be hard, but what might help is this. Don’t think about it as dying in the strictest of sense, think about it as becoming alive. Without death, life cannot be birthed. The seed must die for the plant to come forth, the womb must die for the baby to come forth, and the body must die to then be alive with God in Heaven (New Birth). Dying is a good thing because “death can bring forth life”.  So don’t think of it as a burying; think of it as a birthing. The more you and I fulfill our obligations of dying to this world, the more Christ fulfills His obligations of birthing Himself within us. In other words, the more we bury ourselves in Jesus, the more Jesus buries himself within us.

Life can be perceived as existing in two distinct states simultaneously: being alive and being dead. What do I mean by this? Well, when you are living on earth, you are alive to earthly things and dead to God because of sin. Then, after acquiring salvation through Jesus Christ, we must be Dead to Sin and alive to God. Either way, there are always two states being present at once (Death and Life). The only difference between these life and dead combination is that one leads to eternal life and the other eternal damnation. Therefore, we must think wisely about which life-and-death combination we choose.

Why is dying so important, though?

Well, let’s look at this scripture:

John 12:24-26  (NIV) Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

This scripture says many wonderful things, but I want to paraphrase what it is saying to me at this moment. It tells me that dying is the only way to produce much fruit (one seed producing many seeds). So, if you think you are not producing enough fruit in your Christian life, then the answer is right here in this passage. You are not dead enough, and still alive to aspects of this world. In this regard, God is saying your obligations are still not met. You have not allowed the situations He has placed in your life to kill you as yet (die to self)? You fought against what He placed in your life and did not surrender your will over Him!

Maybe this is why the church seems powerless and ineffective in our present age, especially when compared to the biblical Apostles. The church is dead because so many Christians are still alive. If we want an alive church, then we need dead Christians in it. In the natural when someone passes away, we always remove the dead from the presence of the living. The same thing must be applied in the spiritual, we who are now dead through water baptism must remove ourselves from among the living and draw closer to God.

I would like to close here. God bless you my friend. I hope this blog encourages you to improve your walk with God. I know it sure helped me!

PS: Dane Miller was last seen in a funeral home speaking with an undertaker.

Your Brother in the Lord,

Dane Miller – “God is the Author, I am the Pen”

Authored Book – What is the Woman Saying – Lessons from Biblical Women.

PS: I welcome your feedback on this blog post and encourage you to leave a comment below or subscribe/