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Mattie Montgomery
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The Death Process
Jesus didn't die on the cross so you wouldn't have to. He died on the cross to show you how. And this statement I believe really alters the perception on Gods call on our lives. And what Jesus really achieved on the cross. And in meditating on the cross I've been seeing the depth of this truth and the revelation there is to be gained from it. I believe that in every step Jesus took towards the grave in the physical, he set a standard of the process we, as people choosing to die to ourselves, would inevitably take in the physical.
Jesus initiates the process in John 10 when he said 'No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.' See this, I believe there are countless people who are waiting for God to forcefully move them into a posture of self sacrifice. But the standard set by Jesus is one that shows that the choice is ours. That to lay down our lives everyday is a decision we make consciously, intentionally, and constantly.
So as Jesus continues to walk out this commitment to the completion of that which he was sent, he is arrested and upon being sentenced he is flogged relentlessly. Having the skin of his back ripped from his body to the point of which you could see his ribs and intestines. He was literally having the flesh ripped off of him. And even in this he is pointing to our process as those who would take up our cross and follow him. He's saying that inevitably we will have our flesh ripped away. The things we call self to which we have grown so attached will be sometimes be violently torn from us. It's painful and agonizing but even in that process we can look to Christ and know that he has walked this path before us and we know there is Glory at the end.
And immediately after being whipped Jesus is handed over to roman soldiers who fashion a crown of thorns and place it on his head, as they mock him and spit on him, they take a rod and beat the crown of thorns deeper into his skull. This image points to a crown, an authority that is painful in heaven.
Now this brings us to the concept of spiritual authority. It's an unpopular but vital teaching in the development of any believer that we learn to submit to spiritual authority. To a pastor or a teacher, someone who is willing to address and confront sin and weakness in our life. And someone whose ministry and vision we support weather we think it's our ministry and vision or not. We are called to submit to authority who is willing to cut on our flesh and to demand of us that we act like a king even during the painful process of death.
And then let out through the city and set up outside Jerusalem at a place called Golgotha, Jesus has his hands and his feet nailed to a cross and is hung up to die. Now as Jesus the spotless lamb is being sacrificed for the sin of the world, the cross acts as an alter. And I see a tremendous call on what we call ministry and that his feet, his ability to go, and his hands, his ability to do, were laid on this alter.
Beloved I see such a tendency in us to simply go and do what we want and ask that God bless it, and put favor on it. But in looking to Christ at the perfect picture and standard of living, even in death. We see that even our aspirations to go and do must be placed on the alter. And that as we choose to lay down our life we mirror the process that Jesus went through, in faith at as the process is carried out the power of God will glorify us with him. And we will stand with our savior in victory and eternal life at the right hand of God the father for eternity.
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