“that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death…but whatever things were gain to me, those I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,”

Philippians 3:10, 7-8

The first sentiment is easy and very churchy. It’s what we think we’re supposed to want, to say and to mean. It’s all well and good until He starts taking things and we start losing those things we hold so dear. Then counting our dearest treasures as rubbish in view of the surpassing value of knowing Him, suddenly it isn’t so easy. It’s hard. It’s brutal.

Dying to self and denying ourselves is never easy, except on paper and in our head. Move that to a heart thing and we find out we are incredibly selfish and, quite frankly, we don’t really trust and believe Jesus. We don’t believe He is good because if He was truly Good He would know how much we need that. You can name your own that, possession, relationship, person, job, treat, pet, position, it’s a need and you feel entitled to it. He’s good if He takes what you’re willing to freely give, the things on the fringes of your heart. Those are easier to let go of than the gifts you treasure.

One of the hardest things to give up is the very thing you know He gave you. You’re facing your own Mt. Moriah, you have the wood, the knife, the altar is there. But where on earth is the sacrifice?

It’s living in you. It is the very thing you’re holding onto with a death grip. It is the thing you know deep in your marrow that He gave you, He told you and now you’re having to die to yourself. You have to lay it all down on that altar, not knowing if there will be a ram caught in the thicket by his horns.

You pray and pray that this cup, this cup of affliction and suffering, this cup of pain and loss when you’ve lost so much already, will please pass from you.

But you’re still holding that cup. The cup that burns in your hands and you’re looking around, wanting someone, anyone to come and take that cup from you. You’re dying for someone to rescue you and heal your burning hands.

But still you’ve got the cup.

You know in your soul as the word reverberates in your mind that Jesus says “Die to that thing. Kill it. Deny yourself. Pick up your cross. The very cross you said you’d gladly bear and bear it all the way to the death. The very cross you want someone else to take, pick it up and die on it. Die to the very thing you want more than life itself. “

Because only in the dying do we live. Only in the losing are we found. The only way out is the way in. The way to life is the way to death.

So sacrifice it already. Surrender it and yourself in tears if you need to. But give it and your anxious heart to Him. No guarantees and no bargaining. Just simple trust.