I have been reading a new book: The Shack

It is about a man who's daughter is killed and he enters a time known as "The Great Sadness".  Then one day he gets a letter in his mailbox asking him to come to "the shack" (where his daughter died) and meet God.  Wondering if the letter is really from God or just a joke, he travels to the shack and what he finds there changes his life.

I say all this because there is a lot in the book that makes you think.  A lot that changes your view of who God is and what He is really like.  At least it changes mine.  It is especially interesting when God weaves what I am learning from the book with what He is teaching me in other areas.

This morning in church service, our pastor spoke on 2 Corinthians 4.  He was reading verses 11 and 12 "We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that His life may also be revealed in our mortal body." (emphasis mine)  He was talking about us dying to sin and Christ living in us. 

God really brought this point home this morning with a passage from  The Shack.  I had just been reading a section of the book where Jesus is having a conversation with the main character and this is what he says: "...my life was not meant to be an example to copy.  Being a follower is not trying to 'be like Jesus,' it means for your independence to be killed.  I came to give you life, real life, my life.  We will come and live our life inside of  you, so that you begin to see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, and touch with our hands, and think like we do.  But, we will never force that union on you.  If you want to do your thing, have at it.  Time is on our side." 

The thing is: I have to choose to die daily:  die to my sin, my selfishness, my independence.  I have to choose to allow Christ to live in me and through me.  Only then can I see through the eyes of the Father.  Only then can I hear through His ears.  Only then can I truly do the work of the Father.  On my own I will fail.  Only when I allow Christ to live in me will I be able to LIVE and only then through dying.

That is truly what I want: to see through the eyes of God, to hear through His ears, to touch through His hands, and to think like Him.  This requires sacrifice and submission.  Lord, I pray that I would continue to strive to die daily.  Help me to see the areas that I don't allow you to have.  Help me to see the areas that I need to crucify.  Help me to give those areas over to you.  Help me to die daily to myself so that You might live in me.  Amen.