Laying Down Your Life Instead Of Laying Down And Dying

Jn 13:38
38 Jesus replied, “Will you lay down your life for Me?

Oswald Chambers says that dying is easier than continually laying down our lives. Maybe that is why sometimes we wish we could die when we are depressed – we just don’t want to keep working at this life. But what does He mean when He asks us to lay down our lives?

The word for “lay down” means something that is passive and horizontal as opposed to vertical and active. It brings to mind someone laying prostrate before God. What if laying down your life is not work, as we suppose, but just the opposite? It is stopping fighting, and laying down ourselves and everything we have at His feet. It is being passive and not fighting Him to get our own way anymore. It is giving up our struggle to control things and accept God’s choices for our lives.

We often think of living the Christian life as facing one exhausting battle after another However, how many of those battles are of our own creation, originating out of our insistence to have things the way we want them? We wear ourselves out over issues in our life that we can do little or nothing about, clinging to our dissatisfaction with ourselves, our lives, others and God.

But what if we just layed face down on the ground and gave it all up? What if we let go of all that our hands have been clutching and let it fall away? What would happen?

Imagine the peace and ease that would come from no longer trying to fix your life single-handedly, as if it was all up to you, or it would never happen. Imagine just laying there and resting while Someone else picked up the pieces of your life you had been unsuccessfully attempting to grasp like water in your hands. Imagine really laying at God’s feet and seeing how enormous He truly is, and realizing how tiny your problems were in comparison to the mighty power He wielded. Perspective – you would finally have true perspective.

So how about laying down your life today? Not dying, but laying down the pressures and stresses of managing a world that doesn’t belong to you and never will. Lay down your life for Jesus, lay there prostrate before Him as He gathers the pieces of your life together and makes some