I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself to me.     Galatians 2:20 ESV

How would you answer today’s question, are you prepared to die? I’m not talking about prepaid funeral plans and wills and burial plots. I’m talking about dying to self. I’m talking about being ready to surrender your life to Christ.

We think about a physical death where we leave this world and go on to where we will spend eternity. Hopefully, that is in heaven with our Lord and Savior. Before we get to that point, however, we must consider dying to our flesh. We must consider preparing for an eternity in heaven by living for God while we are still here on earth.

To live for Christ, we must die to our own wants and desires and live a life that is pleasing to Him. We prepare to die in our flesh by seeking Jesus with our whole hearts. We must love Him with our whole hearts and acknowledge Him in all we do (Proverbs 3:5-6).

Surrendering to Christ is not an easy thing to do. It literally means that we turn everything over to Him. We turn over our bad habits and our sins to Him. We trust in Him with those problems we are trying to solve on our own. We trust in Him with the things we want to hold onto be it our sins or our problems. As human beings, we hate to give up control.

The funny thing about it though is that we have no control. We believe we are in control, and we try to be in control, but we have no control. The sooner we figure that out, the easier our lives will be. We don’t take a breath without God’s approval. God gives us life. He knows how many hairs are on our heads and when we will die.

God gives us free will, but He knows what we will do with it. When we consider whether or not we are prepared to die, we might want to look at what we have done with the free will God has given us. Have we used it to do what we wanted to do and to satisfy our greed or our fleshly desires? Or have we used it to bring glory and honor to Him?

We will experience two deaths if we surrender to Christ. We will first die to ourselves. We are told in our Scripture passage today that when we surrender our lives to Christ it is no longer, we who live, but Christ who lives in us. Our lives are all about Him. We strive to have less of us and more of Him.

If we die to ourselves while we are alive here on earth and surrender our whole lives to Him, then we are certainly prepared to die a physical death and face judgment. When we die to self, we surrender to Him. We confess our sins to Him. We repent of our sins, and we want to do better. We ask Jesus to come into our hearts and help us do the things that please Him. We want His will in our lives. We want to serve Him. Then our physical death is just a promotion to an eternity lived in heaven with Christ.

Have you died to self and trusted in Him? Are you living your life for Him? If not, you may want to reconsider that. If you haven’t died spiritually and been resurrected as a new creature in Christ, you are not prepared to die physically. Sadly, none of us know when our lives here on earth will be over.

So, we must prepare now. We must seek Him and love Him with our whole hearts. We must trust Him and surrender our lives to Him. When we do this, we are prepared to go home to spend an eternity in heaven with Him.

Have a great day!