The Crucified Life How to die to self and live to Christ Introduction

Welcome to episode 299.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I am starting a brand new lesson. I know that anyone that has been listening to me about Ezekiel's wheel rattle on and on, it seemed like 10, 12, I don't know how many episodes it was, but we have— we are finished with Ezekiel's wheel. We're not done with it, but we're not going to do any more podcast episodes specifically about Ezekiel's wheel. Well, we're going to go to another topic that I think God wants me to talk about and that is called The Crucified Life. And what that's going to be about, it's going to be about learning to die to self and live in Christ. And I believe that's so important as a Christian, and not enough emphasis is put on death. And I know that sounds morbid, and we've talked about this multiple times, but my favorite scripture is Revelation 12:11, and they overcame him By the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. I believe that verse is a warrior verse, and I believe that's how we kick the snot out of Satan, is by using that verse. It gives us a playbook. We've got the blood of the Lamb, that is Jesus. He did all the work, he did all the heavy lifting, he did the dying so that we could live. We've got our testimony. God didn't give us that, we've just lived our lives, and then we can tell others what Christ has done through us and for us and how that has changed our lives, and that disarms the enemy. And then it's the sacrificial lifestyle. It is the dying to self. And they did not love their lives to the death. And I believe that we need to get death right. And we've talked about this multiple times. I talked about the obituary. We're going to get back into that. I believe it is critical for a Christian to know where we're headed. And I'm not talking about heaven. I think we're all going to stand before Father God. We're either going to stand before him in the Great White Throne Judgment or we're going to sit at the Judgment Seat of Christ. We are going to sit or stand in front of Father God. I believe the great news is for us Christians, we are not going to answer for anything that we did up until the time we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.. I believe God throws that into the sea of forgetfulness. I believe that we then are going to be sitting on the judgment seat of Christ, and this is not even in my notes, but we are going to sit on the judgment seat of Christ and we're going to answer for everything that we did after we've accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We're going to answer good and bad, and the motivation is for building God's kingdom. And I believe up until the time when I started this podcast, I don't know that I was doing a whole lot for God's kingdom, you know, I would hit and miss. I would do some things and I would get fired up, but then I'd go back into my life and I'd go back into doing things my way, me and Elvis, and we did it our way. So I think it's important that we get death right. We need to figure out that we're all going to die. That's not news here, that you don't have to listen to a podcast episode to figure that out. No one's getting out of this thing alive. There's only been two people in history, Bible history, that has ever not died. And one of them is Elijah, and the other one is Enoch. And there's— that's the only two. And so for all the other billions of people that have come and gone, all have died. So I want you to get this right. We are gonna die.

You are—

if you're listening to this episode, you're alive right now, you are gonna one day, if Jesus tarries and he does not return before your death, you are going to die. If we can learn to embrace that— and I know this may be a little morbid and you may click off of this, that's okay, but I think this is important— and one of the things that the Bible teaches, and it's Romans 12:1. We love Romans 12:1 on this podcast. In fact, I pray it every morning. I present my body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable which is my reasonable service. I believe that it all starts right there. My day begins dying. And in Galatians 2:20, it says that I am crucified with Christ, and yet I live. And it is not me that lives, but it's Christ that lives in me. And I'm going to read that real quick because I know I just chopped that all up. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. That is how we live the crucified life. We do Romans 12:1, we present our bodies a living sacrifice. Paul says, I beseech you, I'm begging you, brothers, by the mercies of God, because God is so merciful, I'm begging you, present yourself a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is our reasonable service. We just present ourselves every day. I want to encourage you, that's what we're going to do. The crucified life is what we're going to talk about, but it begins with Romans 12:1 and Galatians 2:20. We just got to understand that we are here to die, and if we die on this side of the ground, if we choose to die to self and accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, then the second death that's talked about in Revelation has no power over us. I believe everyone is going to see two deaths, and I believe that if you do not die to self, if you do not die here on earth before your body dies, if you do not accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior— and the only way to do that, it says, it's pretty clear, we'll talk about that in the next episode But if you do not accept the death penalty that Christ puts on us, that we need to die to ourselves and live in Christ, if you don't do that, then you are going to face the second death. I believe Christians said the second death is your mortal body dying. When our body dies, we've accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, so our flesh dies. We become alive in Christ. So what happens, I believe, is our spirit man comes alive. So now the spirit that is inside of me— instead of my body being alive, my spirit man is alive. My body is now dead. And we're going to read scriptures. Just settle down, we're going to get to it. But I just want this to be an introduction. We need to learn how to live the crucified life And to do that, we need to die to self and to live in Christ. So we are going to learn that these next few lessons. We're going to learn that. And for those of you fanatics that have been with me on this whole journey, next episode is episode 300. I don't know what I'm going to do for that episode yet, but I'm hoping and I'm praying that God allows me to do something kind of fun. I don't know, I'm still trying to figure this thing out. So I just want to thank you. Let's pray real quick. I wanted this one to be kind of short. I have noticed that people are bumping off a little bit early, so I think I'm going too long with my 12 or 14 minutes, and I apologize for that. I tend to ramble on a little bit, but let's pray. God, I thank you so much for this listener. I thank you for your word. God, I thank you for sending your Son. Holy Spirit, I thank you for coming here to earth and never leaving us nor forsaking us. God, we thank you. We love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.

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