“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” Matthew 16:25.

It’s been said that “the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why” (Mark Twain). We don’t have much control over the first, but concerning the second; have you figured that out?  If you’ve answered the knock at the door of your heart, and accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, then you are on the right track. God created you for His purpose (Revelation 4:11). You have been redeemed; paid for with a very precious price. This means that your life no longer belongs to you, but to God.  You must die to your will just as Jesus did in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:42).

As stated above, if you’ve accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior then you are on the right track. The track to dying out to self; SALVATION. But accepting Christ is only the first step. Different doctrines will teach you different things about what you need to do to receive and lock in salvation. Usually claiming one scripture from God’s word to justify their teaching.  However, salvation is actually a process that involves change. One scripture can serve as a starting point, but dying to our will and ways will take time, and much more than one scripture. Grasping this process of change, requires understanding that we are trichotomous beings; made up of three distinct parts: spirit, soul, and body or flesh.

Before turning to Christ, the spirit-man (inner man), lies dormant (asleep) within us. But when we accept Christ, God, who is spiritual, breathes life into our spirit-man. We are born again! However, just as we begin life in the natural as babies, we also begin life in the spirit as babies. We don’t instinctively know how to really love God and live a spirit-led life; we must be taught (John 14:26). The soul-man, which consists of our intellect, our will and our emotions (our mind) controls us. It tells our body, or flesh how to behave. The soul-man and body were being developed as we grew in the natural, and when we first come to Christ, everything that we have experienced in our lives that has shaped our intellect, our will and our emotions is still present. This is what we must die to.

Now, most of us consider ourselves to be good people, but this is usually according to societal and worldly concepts. Even if we consider the way we think, feel and act to be good or right, we must keep in mind Isaiah 55:8. We must be willing to offer these things up to God, and allow them to be renewed and transformed by His spirit (Romans 12:2) in order to become that new creation God says we are in 2 Corinthians 5:17. It is not an easy process; there will be many tests and trials. We are victorious only when our spirit-man is made strong and overcomes our flesh (what we want or think) (Revelation 3:21), allowing us to walk in the perfect will of God because we love and trust Him. But we are incapable of doing this in and of ourselves.

I remember as a new believer, I somehow thought that excepting Christ would automatically change me. But I remember having the same struggle that Paul writes about in Romans 7:18; I wanted to live a life  which was pleasing to God in every way, I owed Him that. But because no good thing dwells in my flesh, I could not.  It was later that I discovered that I could only really change (die to my will and my ways) by feeding my spirit-man, thus allowing it to grow and develop, and that my spirit-man could only be fed; grow and develop through God’s word (Hebrews 4:12) and (John 6:63).  Galatians 3:3 puts it well: God being spiritual and us being fleshly, we cannot expect to perfect (finish) what He started.  We must allow His word (God Himself – see John 1:1) to perfect this process of change.

Now, just listening to someone preach the WORD will not be enough (James 1:22). This can cause us to be deceived about really knowing the word of God (God Himself), when in fact, it’s all in our heads. Matthew 15:8 let’s us know that our hearts must be in it. It must be meditated upon, prayed and applied to situations to affect change in us and our lives. Meditating upon it, and asking the Holy Spirit to bring understanding will get it from our heads to our hearts and our spirit (inner man). Praying it will move God to allow situations in our life to occur that we can be tested in. Applying it to the situation will allow us to be victorious and cause our love for God and our faith in Him and His word to grow.

Maybe you’ve been led to this site and have not yet accepted Christ.  Or maybe you have already accepted Christ, but realize there is more to salvation than what you were taught. Either way, if you are willing to die to your will and your ways, simply, tell Him, and seek Him with all of your heart (Jeremiah 29:13). He will lead you.