Day 29

What Rises — A Life That Glorifies God

Today's Scripture: John 12:23–25 (NLT)

As we come now to the very end of this month, we must look at what was finally rising in Jesus' own dying — and through it, what is finally rising in ours. The hour had come, He said, for the Son of Man to be glorified. And then, in the same breath, He spoke of the seed falling into the ground and dying. What was the connection? In Christ's mind, His own glorification was not through escape from the cross; His glorification was through the cross. The death was the glory. The dying was the rising. The descent into the grave was the very means by which He would be exalted to the right hand of the Father, and the name above every name would be given to Him.

This is the deepest pattern in the universe, and it is the deepest pattern in the life of every believer who walks the road we have been walking this month. The glory of God in our lives is not produced by the parts of us that have remained alive to self. The glory of God in our lives is produced precisely through the parts that have died. The dying is the means by which God is glorified through us, and the believer who has come to understand this no longer fears the dying. They welcome it. They see it for what it really is — the very mechanism by which the Father is being put on display through the surrendered soul of His child.

Listen to the second sentence: "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." Read those words carefully, because they are some of the most paradoxical and life-changing words ever spoken. The way to lose your life is to love it too much. The way to keep your life is to hate it — in the sense of refusing to let it rule, refusing to clutch it, refusing to make it the center of everything. The soul that grasps its own life as the highest good ends up losing the very life it grasped. The soul that holds its own life loosely, willingly, surrenderably — that soul keeps it, and keeps it forever.

This is the truth that has stood at the heart of every day of this month. Death to self is not, finally, death. It is the only road to real life. The crucifixion of the flesh is not the loss of who you are; it is the discovery of who you were always meant to be. The dying is not the destruction of the soul; it is the liberation of the soul from the false ruler that was strangling it. And what rises out of all this dying is not less of you but more of you — the true you, the Christ-formed you, the you that the Father has been envisioning since before the foundation of the world.

This is why a life that glorifies God is finally the life that has been most willing to die. A life that holds itself back, that protects its preferences, that refuses the cross, will never finally glorify God in its fullness, because the glory of God in a life is in direct proportion to the dyings that have been welcomed in that life. The most God-glorifying lives in the history of the church have been the lives that have died the most — the martyrs, the missionaries who went and never came back, the hidden saints who served in obscurity and never sought recognition, the believers who suffered long illnesses with steady faith, the parents who poured themselves out for children who could not yet appreciate the cost. These are the lives in which the Father has been most glorified, because these are the lives in which the dying has gone deepest, and the dying is the medium through which the glory most clearly shines.

You may not be called to any of the grand-scale dyings of the great saints. Most believers are not. But you are called to the daily dyings that the Lord has appointed for your particular life. The dying that fits your particular calling, your particular family, your particular work, your particular gifts. And in the faithful, ongoing acceptance of those dyings, the same Father who was glorified through Stephen and Polycarp and the missionary martyrs will be glorified through you. Not less truly. Not less honorably. Not less eternally. The size of the dying does not finally determine the glory; the willingness of the heart that yields to it does.

So as you come to the end of this month, lift your eyes. The dyings have not been pointless. They have been the very means by which the Father has been glorifying Himself in you, and through you, and out from you to a watching world. And the glory will continue to grow in your life to the degree that you continue to welcome the dyings that He brings.

A life that glorifies God is the rising of every crucified soul. May yours, by His grace, rise in fullness all your days.

Prayer

Father, I have wanted my life to count. I have wanted to glorify You. Show me again, as I come to the end of this month, that the way I have most wanted is the way I have most resisted — the way of dying. Crucify in me the love of my own life that has kept me from real life. Give me the grace to hate it in the right way, so that I might keep it unto life eternal. Be glorified in me through every dying You bring. Amen.

Today's Challenge

Take time today to look back over this month. Where has the dying been most real? Where has the rise been most visible? Thank the Father for the work He has done, and offer the rest of your life — every day still ahead, every dying still to come — as a continuing offering to the One who loved you and gave Himself for you.

"A life that has died the most has glorified God the most, because the glory of God in a soul shines most brightly through the places that have been put to death."