I die every day! 1 Corinthians 15:31
In the movie The Matrix, the enigmatic Morpheus offers the hero Neo an unsettling choice. Was Neo willing to discover the truth about his existence? Doing so would mean intentionally dying to his comfortable shadow-life within the Matrix. But embracing his own “death” to unplug from a world of robotic make-believe was the only way for Neo to become truly alive, awake, and free.
Long before The Matrix, St. Paul challenged God’s people to embrace this same basic spiritual truth: we must die to truly live. It’s true; slumbering in sinful habits and spiritual slavery can appear deceptively comfortable, even as the process drains us numbly of our very souls. But choosing such a false life assures we remain controlled and manipulated by our Enemy.
Choosing death each day seems a terrifying choice, as we contemplate what the cross of Jesus truly means. But each day we wake, we trace the sign of the cross over our hearts, as we reaffirm our Baptism into Jesus. Our death is forever joined to His. His new life, by God’s grace, becomes our own.
As a result, sin no longer has power over us. Those deceptive dreams have little appeal for us now, for we have embraced the death of Jesus and arisen, forever alive and awake, in Him.
Jesus, Your death and life have set me truly free. In Your holy name I pray. Amen.
~written by Denyse Blasdel
My cursor hovers over the “yes” button. Am I sure I want to unfriend this person? No I don’t want to. My friend is beautiful, kind, thoughtful, funny and smart. Everything I’ve ever wanted to be. On top of it all, she was so approachable. No matter how shy or awkward I felt, she made me feel like I had something worthwhile to share.
I can feel Satan staring at me with quiet disbelief. “Seriously? Are you going to play judge this time? We both know what you’ve done. All the pride. The desperate grasping at attention. The utter contempt for your blessings most people will never get? Is this what you call friendship, abandoning her in her darkest hour?” As usual, Satan’s half right. My sins may be different, but not any better. And she was there for me with words of encouragement when I had a preemie newborn and two other children to care for. If the roles were reversed, she’d be by my side with her gentle nature, leading me out of the forest of destruction.
But the Bible is very specific about this kind of sin. As if God were saying to me, “Yes, I really meant that,” I Corinthians 5 pops up in my daily devotions. I want to beg God, “Can’t we just ignore this, just this one time? Don’t you know how much good she’s inspired me to do? Can’t that outweigh this wrong? Just this once?” But of course it can’t.
But the last part of I Corinthians 5:5 says, “so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.” God is telling me I have to walk away from someone who won’t walk away from her sin not to punish or pretend I have a right to judge, but as the only hope we have to bring her back. God knows everything, and He knows nothing else can possibly work.
In the end, my heartbroken spirit knows God is right and I hit the “unfriend” button. Not out of anger or retribution or some sick sense of superiority. Not even out of a sense of justice. I press “unfriend” because I am painfully aware of what my sin has cost me, and I care about my friend enough to try to warn her away from the same burden. So like the prodigal son’s father checking the horizon daily, I wait for an email or phone call that may never come. And I pray for the wisdom to heal if it does. And no matter what, I trust God when He says that leaving this space of friendship empty is the only way to be a light of help for her.
