This Cross is Suicide

 
  Well helloh fam jam,
It is time for another blog post! (Finally)




  There's a song by Sleeping Giant called "The Cross is Suicide". I don't ever listen to the song anymore (and I wouldn't recommend it unless you like metal) but the name of the song and the reasoning behind it has always stuck with me. I always remember it; then a month or so ago, it came up in a conversation between my best friend and I, and since then, it's been on the fore front of my mind almost constantly. I started praying about it, and studying out the Biblical truths behind it.


  The first scriptures brought to mind are from Matthew 16. Before Jesus was going to be crucified on our behalf, He told His disciples in verses 24-26, 
"Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?"
 And also, Galatians 2:20 which starts off saying, "We have been crucified with Christ."
 
   He carried the cross to be crucified, and we are to do the same. Now, obviously that doesn't mean we are physically to take a cross and hang ourselves on it. Christ's crucifixion was not about the actual death and rising again, itself. It was for what the death and rising represented and meant. It was a symbol.


The crucifixion on the cross was a symbol of sacrifice - Christ sacrificed His life for us and our sins.
It was a symbol of atonement - Someone whom was perfect and spotless had to pay the price.
It was a symbol of redemption - With His death we receive redemption and freedom from sin. The cross was a physical symbol for us to see, and to follow. He became a symbol for us. Our picking up of our cross and following is symbolic for the releasing of ourselves and our wills, for He, who endured the symbol; and who became our symbol of redemption and freedom. Which is what that passage is saying when He talks of losing our lives and souls to gain them.


   Galatians 5:24 says, "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."
 We, as humans, are faulty creatures; we sin out of very nature. We are born into sin. Many times when the Bible mentions our flesh, it is talking about our natural desires, which most of the time, are not what The Holy Spirit would choose- it is not what we would choose if relying on The Spirit. Our fleshly desires stand for our natural, sinful desires. Our taking up of our cross is also symbolic for the crucifixion of our flesh, which represents our sin. So we see that it means to turn from and crucify our natural wants and desires, but
  What does it mean to be crucified with Christ?

Well, back to those verses. "...must deny themselves...",
"...have been crucified with Christ.", "...have crucified the flesh..."


  The Greek word for "deny" is "aparneomai" which means to disown; to repudiate, invalidate, ignore, and deny the existence of flesh.

  So, we deny our natural selves. Deny our natural desires and sins, our fleshly and worldly wants. Ignore them and their existence; give them no value or thought; refuse to be associated with them; abandon them.
  It is the denying of oneself of a person; disassociating himself from his self-interests to serve The Higher purpose.  Which probably isn't a new concept for you if you are trying to live for The Lord. What got me, though, was this:


  See, many times, especially as Christ followers, we set out to do something for God, such as turning from our flesh and sin, or even to do something bigger that He has called you to, and we think it will be easy because it is for Him. We know He's there fighting for us the whole way (Exodus 14:14; Deuteronomy 3:22), that He protects us (Psalms 46:1; 2 Timothy 4:18), and doesn't leave or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:8; Hebrews 13:5-6). We set out with our battle cry strong, our faith strong, and our hopes high. All of those things are true, and extremely encouraging. But I think everyone has noticed that as the fight goes on, you start to grow weary and you lose some of your "oomph", so to speak.
And I think this is why.
 
  The Greek word for "crucify" is "stauroo" which means to crucify (destroy) the flesh; demolish its power utterly. It also implies that the destruction is with great pain. 
 
  We deny ourselves, yes, but in that is also the death of ourselves that we misconceive. I want to go back to some Scriptures now to reinforce all of this. First, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:31, "I face death every day- yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Then, Romans 6:1-14:
  "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin- because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
  Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again, death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; the life he lives, he lives to god.
  In that 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. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and offer every part of yourselves to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace."

  Through those verses, we perceive this "death" to be an easy task. Almost giving the connotation that this death Paul speaks of,  baptism into death, and this counting of ourselves dead, is a peaceful death. Just the lying down and going without any conscious effort. We just slip into it seamlessly as we slip into sleep, or as our loved ones do sometimes slip into death in their sleep. We view this death as an immediate reviving and strengthening escape. We just...die. Nothing else to it; just the mere death without any thought otherwise.


 We forget that this death is a crucifixion. An extremely painful and hard death.
 
 
  It is always much harder to enforce change or change old habits, than it is to just keep doing the same things you were. Not just in the changing the habits of sin, but in everyday life things. Any journey that you embark on for the Lord is going to be FAR harder than what you were doing prior. It is ever so easy to walk into things, but oh so much harder to walk out.
  My best friend, recently told me, "If you walk five miles into a forest, you can expect a five mile walk back out."
 
  Which is such a simplistic but blunt truth. And just as we talked about after he said that; the walk back out is harder because you've already walked the first five miles. You're already tired. And most of the time, when wandering into something, (especially something that is seemingly good) we don't leave any trail behind to find our way back out. When you are first walking in, everything is beautiful, different, and interesting. It's a new territory. It's luring in that you didn't know that this "thing" ever even existed before. Exploration is always fun, at first. It's this grand adventure with no fear of it's ambiguity. But once you've seen it all, it just becomes tiring and you want to just be back, but not have to go back. You aren't positive where exactly to start either because you have not a clue how you really got to where you are.
  



   When I first decided I actually wanted to recover from self harm, I thought it was going to be easy because I had FINALLY set my mind on it, and was determined to do it for The Lord and Him only. I was excited! I knew it was going to be hard because those things had become second nature to me. It was just a normal, daily part of life and I was going to have to drastically change everything that I knew as regular life. But I didn't fully understand just how hard it would be.


As I said before, our daily death we face is a crucifixion. It is a crucifixion we have to inflict upon ourselves.
This, then, is where the cross being suicide comes in.


  I think, a lot of times, people also have the false notion that a suicide is pretty. Social media plays into it by saying how you put on your nicest clothes, write a heart felt letter, take some pills, lie down and fall "asleep" gracefully; then your loved ones will find you, with hands folded, looking beautiful and at peace. But that couldn't be further from the truth.


 Suicides or suicide attempts are never pretty or peaceful. They are hard. Granted, you start off thinking that it's a good thing. You want nothing more. You know that this will be the end of trial and tribulation. You think it will be better for everyone and yourself once you are done. But once you get into it, it's even worse. 
Every time I tried in the past, it was messy and terrifying... I took pills and went to bed only to wake up with the worst feeling in my stomach I'd ever had and proceeded to spend a while bent over a toilet bowl, throwing up the poison I had put in my body. Cutting was never beautiful. It was never poetic. It was morbid. It left me with an awful mess to clean up. It left me with a grief stricken sickness looking at what I had done to myself. A lot of times, you get half way through and jolt to a stop with terror; a panicking thought of "wait-I-don't-want-this-I-change-my-mind!" (Thanks be to God that it wasn't too late for me.)


  Spiritual suicides are no different. It's hard. My Eating Disorder and cutting were my safe refuges, (False sense of safety in reality) they were my comfort, and my "good thing". Before recovery, I didn't see the need to stop. Why would I stop doing the very thing I thought was helping me most?
When I decided to start recovering, like I said before; I was motivated, strong and ready. I felt the power of God surrounding me. I wanted it so bad I could almost taste the freedom! But to then start denying myself of the things my flesh wanted and craved the most, was not fun. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. It was the hardest battle I have fought, to this day. It was and is a brutal murdering of myself. It was a suicide of the things I wanted and thought were best.


  Another thing my best friend said, was that so many times, when we go into battles for The Lord, we expect a Great Assassination. We go in anticipating a take out in the first round, because, after all, we do have THE Almighty God fighting for us and in our corner. But it isn't like that. We get faced with an arena match. It's just as strong, if not seemingly stronger than us. You get knocked down a ton of times. You feel beat up and torn down. You feel loss and smell defeat so much you almost forget the taste of victory. We do, in the end, win the war, because we do have God, but you're going to lose battles in between the ultimate win.
  The hard thing about this fight too, is that you are fighting yourself- your natural self- your flesh. You have to get up and look at the parts of yourself that aren't of the Lord and commit to murder them, even when sometimes it seems like you're doing more harm than good. You look yourself in the eyes and know a violent fight is ahead. 




  I don't say this to discourage any of you reading this that may be going through a hard time with trying to "count yourselves as dead to sin" or just trying to do the works God has called you to. I say this to say not to give up yet. It is a suicide. But it does get better. It gets easier as the fight progresses on. You feel weaker at first, but
God promises us in Isaiah 40:31, "But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."


And also returning to that passage in Romans 6:
Verse 4b- "...just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."
Verse 5- "..we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his."
Verse 7- "any one who has died has been set free from sin."
Verse 8- "...we believe we will also live with him."
Verse 13 "...offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life..."




  So while we do have to commit a suicide, we receive an eternal life. This death doesn't mean to die. We are put to death, in order to live; in order to gain life! An abundant life at that, according to John 10:10, when Jesus says that the enemy comes to steal kill and destroy, but that He comes so that we "may have life and have it abundantly."
 It is a goory and horrifying suicide of the natural self, in order that The Supernatural may inhabit you.


  The forgiveness you are fighting to give is a suicide. That addiction you are struggling to get free from is a suicide. The anger and bitterness you are trying to let go of is a suicide. The changing of your life for a new human to enter is a suicide. The things you are doing to further The Kingdom is a suicide. The turning of your thoughts from things that are not pure is a suicide. The giving up of your flesh's desires and passions is a suicide. The submission of your will is a suicide. The releasing of doing life in your own strength is a suicide. The finishing of school to be able to accomplish what you are called to is a suicide. The raising of children to follow The Lord is a suicide. The act of going to church when you don't want to anymore is a suicide.
 
 It's a painful suicide. Those things are the crosses we are commanded to pick up and carry.  "All should come and die, not for the symbol, but for The One who was symbolized. The cross is suicide." -Sleeping Giant







  What is your cross? What is the godly suicide you need to commit?