In the blanks below write the two most significant statements in today’s reading assignment. Be prepared to discuss why the statements you chose were significant to you.
“We must then become skillful at dying – to self. That daily dying must be done in the right way, and for the right reasons, however, if it is to produce the right result – important cautionary advice.
“Matter cannot be explained without atoms, and the Christian life can be understood, nor reproduced, without the ongoing death to self that Jesus called self denial – a great truth.”
What do we mean when we say that death is the atomic level component of Christianity?
“It is at the heart of the smallest, most basic, foundational building blocks of the faith – Christ died so that we could live.”
What happened in the scientific world when scientists and philosophers did not understand the basic building blocks of matter?
“Science could not advance much at all, based on inaccuracies and lack of true facts.”
List below areas of your life where you know that God wants you to practice death (i.e., self denial) so that your life can produce godly fruit. .
“Pocket Gems games; other apps; Facebook games; Sims; TV shows; horror movies; staying up too late due to the first three; especially putting these ahead of people or even tasks, which amounts to the same thing; also, I need to be careful not to gossip (just ‘cause it’s a true story doesn’t mean it’s not gossip)”
Dearest Rachel –
It’s more than a little odd to see this particular set of notes describing ‘death’ as that upon which our faith is based, considering how that’s what ultimately prompted me to scour the house and find these notes in the first place (as well as what causes me to treasure them, as they’re what I’ve been left in terms of communication from you).
And yet, it’s not out of line for it to do so. Indeed, most religions throughout the world have been in reaction to the inherent inequities of life on this mortal plane. Whether we admit it or not, all of us see ‘wicked’ people succeeding and ‘good’ people failing (which, by the way, is strange in that even those who claim to be without any sort of faith can determine ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in one person or another without any benchmarks to serve as a comparison), and agree that this is a wrong that ought to be righted. As it doesn’t happen in this plane of existence, it’s almost natural to assume that there is one yet to come that will balance the scales; hence, the foundation of nearly all major religions. It’s an oversimplification, absolutely, but one should be able to peer into the core of most of them and find a doctrine regarding the everlasting future, wherein accounts are to be settled, often with a Judge that is by definition greater than any human (i.e., God or a collection of gods – although those two possibilities are mutually alien to adherents of the opposite belief).
Now, certain religions, given the unfairness of this life – and the understanding that the next will somehow ‘fix’ its wrongs – are indifferent to the present world we live in. The focus is entirely on the distant future, and the assumption that the present is irreparable, so why bother with the here and now? Some, in fact, appear to be outright hostile to the idea that humanity should try to improve its lot in the present world; how dare we make any effort to make our lives more comfortable, when ‘God’ (by whatever name they give Him) has ordained that we should live in the filth He has set us in.
Meanwhile, there are others that make ‘repairing the world’ a basic tenet of their philosophy; doing good as a means of being the hands of God in a world that He has set us to do so. Which is close to what I understand to be our own situation; while we must understand that human nature precludes us (as humans) from ever truly ‘fixing’ the world as we live in it, we ought to do our best to do so, so that others might “see [our] good works and give glory to [our] Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16) To a certain extent, we are an advertisement for our faith and our God.
But again, this goes against our selfish human nature, which is where the “daily dying” you’re discussing here comes in. The denial of our self is how we are meant to make the world around us a little better, thereby drawing others to us and Him.
Mind you, this is not supposed to be a means of appealing to God Himself; we can no more be ‘good enough’ for Him to judge us ‘good’ than we can jump Lake Michigan. He judges us ‘good enough’ because of the ‘good’ that His Son performed on our behalf – dying for us (there’s the tie-in) so that we didn’t have it. Our daily dying isn’t a means for us to pay Him back, since it would be woefully inadequate for us to do so; it is meant as an act of gratitude for what was done for us. It is literally the least we can do in recompense.
And yet, as humans, it’s intensely difficult for us to do so. We are selfish creatures, only able to perceive life from behind our own eyes. We do not always (or even often) understand other people’s perspectives or desires, and only occasionally do we even want to, as that requires effort we’d rather not expend on them when there are other things clamoring for our attention that we’d rather give it to. But, just as science could not process beyond a certain point without an understanding of atoms and molecules as the building blocks of matter, so too, until we grasp that we need to die to our own wishes and desires for the sake of others, we will not be able to attract them to the Father and the saving life He offers them, just as He has given to us.
You knew there were areas where you fell down, and I know (and have gone on at great length) about where my own attention is still directed; I’ve got a long way to go yet. So I’d ask that you would keep an eye on me, honey, and wish me well in my attempts to put my self down for others’ – and His – sake. I’m truly going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 