We don't live until we die

Here's a principle of life and ministry:

We don't life until we die.

Jesus said it like this in Luke 9:24, "For whoever wants to save His life will lose it, but whoever loses his life fro me will save it."

I go back to the story of Jonathan, Saul and the Philistines (check out my blog from Thursday, April 28th). 

Jonathan is going off to attack the Philistines while Saul is sitting underneath a pomegranate tree.

Here's Jonathan's strategy, as told us in 1 Samuel 14:8, "Jonathan said, "Come, then; we will cross over toward the men and let them see us.  If they say to us, 'wait there until we come to you,' we will stay where we are and not go up to them.  But if they say, 'come up to us,' we will climb up, because that will be our sign that the Lord has given them into our hands."

I am not a military expert but even I know that this is a horrible military strategy.  Jonathan says, "we are going to let them see us."

What Jonathan is living out is that you have to die before you can live.

You and I will never really live until we die and stop fearing death or anything that the world can bring.

We as followers of Christ must die to ourselves in order to fear nothing but God.

We serve whom we fear.  If we fear man - we will serve man.  If we fear God - we will fear God.

Jonathan knew that he had to go beyond the point of no return. 

In in dying that we live.  Great paradox.