‘I and I’
Posted by John | Filed under Uncategorized
by John Fischer
Have you ever been so sick of yourself you just wish you were not around? Have you ever wanted to tell yourself to take a long vacation and maybe not come back right away? This kind of thing happens to me when, for one reason or another I get a good glimpse of myself stripped of my normal rationalizations and self-talk with which I numb the horrible reality of my true sinful nature. I don’t think I’m alone. Don’t we all have ways around our worst? Bob Dylan put something along these lines in one of his lyrics when he wrote: “I and I, one says to the other, ‘No man sees my face and lives.’” But while we’re trying to look past our worst, everyone else has to look at it.
Well I’m glad to announce there’s a solution for this problem. It’s actually been around for a long time in the Bible, it’s just that we have ways of keeping ourselves from really seeing what these scriptural admonitions really mean. It’s called being a “living sacrifice,” and Paul talked about it in the book of Romans in the New Testament. “I urge you… offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1)
What does this mean, if it doesn’t mean to kill myself and then ask God for directions? Turning myself into a living sacrifice is truthfully the only way to solve this problem, because it successfully removes the source of the problem — me. That’s the whole point of a “living sacrifice” — I can die and go on living, and because I am dead (along with all my selfish, stupid issues) I can actually be worth something to God and other people, and finally, maybe even myself.
But how does this really work without being some kind of mind game? Well first, we’re not alone in this; we have the Holy Spirit who helps us through the process. And secondly, this whole process actually has already happened outside of time and space. We were, in some real way, spiritually in Christ when He died and rose again, so that by considering ourselves dead to self and alive to Christ, we are agreeing with things as they really are “on earth as it is in heaven,” even though we still have to live through the process.
I apologize for working your brain so hard this morning, but this is actually not as difficult as it seems. Somewhere else Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20) I think the two “I”s here are the same two Dylan was talking about. So that being a living sacrifice is to render one of them dead and be the other.
So next time your selfish self rears its ugly head, just tell it, “Sorry, you’re dead,” and get on with living for God and those around you. Believe me, everyone else will be grateful you did!
One Response to “‘I and I’”
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vhght Says:
May 16th, 2009 at 10:36 amIf we are friends, how lucky I am, for we have too many same habits, and I like writing too.
