Death to self – the life of a bondservant, ‘a living martyr’

Romans 6:11-12

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.

I also have been reading Rees Howells and I first off love how much time is taken with his early life, with the lessons he learned in the secret place, with the small and the seemingly ridiculous so that he would truly come to the place of total self sacrifice, total surrender before the rest of the book takes place. I love how his heart is so consumed with the God that He communes with and that there are hints of visions and third heaven experiences, that He cannot argue with the compulsion of the Holy Spirit. He is a man of such simple living and yet even in the level of humility he first walked in, God killed every part of him.

I am so challenged this week and as I move into lent that I should truly understand and begin to walk in the life I have chosen, to be utterly slave to Christ, His bondservant, a living martyr with "no more claim to his life than a dead man". We do not have to live this way to walk the Christian life or to commune with God. There are many great men and women of God who did not choose the radical path who were blessed and received warmly into Gods arms. The difference? The level of authority we walk in and the fruit we see on this earth. We are the ones who determine our fruitfulness and how far we go with God because it is determined by how far we let God move through us (cf the vine and the branches). The amount we have died to and bound and dealt with in our own lives is the level to which we can pray over other people. How can we pray that which we have not walked either physically or in the spirit?

And how can we understand humility unless first we learn how to lay down everything we have, including our rights? Who are we to say "I have a right" to this or that? If we have decided to live as a bondservant to God, then we have a right to nothing. Everything we are and have is a blessing and a grace gift. How freeing is that?! It sounds like bondage and yet it is not at all! It is a revelation that we can never be offended, never be disappointed again! We are ever without a right or ability to acheive anything and yet we are so blessed and highly favored of God that we can look around and every avenue of our lives drips His kindness, His grace, His mercy! From the breath we breathe to the people in our lives, provision, discipline, love, direction, a roof over our heads, food, joy, peace, happiness, health. Everything everything everything that we have is a grace gift from God when we have totally surrendered ourselves and our rights to Him. No longer can we ever say that by some earning power we have a 'right' to something, instead I have no right to be happy or fed or warm or comforted or supported or loved and yet He is my daddy God who has the right to do whatever He wishes and yet to me and you He has given in abundance what I ask. In this mindset, I can never be offended, instead always overwhelmed with His kindness.

Surely death to self is the greatest revelation of grace we can have?

I am reminded and I repeat once again the revelation that hit me this week from Julie Meyer's vision of heaven. The ultimate most beautiful act of worship in the whole of the heavens happens right here...

"At a distance, I could feel the vibrations of the rolling of the crowns, the casting of the crowns down. They cast them down in awesome agony. They don't throw them down or set them down but with all of their might they cast down their crowns as if to throw all, as if to throw EVERY BIT of themselves before this One so Holy. And I saw that those who are closest to the Lord, in the very court of heaven, spend their time falling down. And they never get weary, they just keep bowing low, falling down and gazing at this One, sitting upon the throne.

...to take everything we have been given by this grace, not just on earth but even our crowns in heaven, and to throw them down as the ultimate act of worship and surrender. To die to self, to worship the creator with every atom He ever gave us. God I want to understand because I want to worship you in Spirit and Truth simply because You are Worthy.