“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).

“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matt 16:24).

“Though He slay me, I will hope in Him” (Job 13:15)

~ This daily dying that Jesus speaks of can be better understood through Walter Wangerin Jr.’s phrase, ‘little deaths.’ The idea is in the Matthew verse above – meaning, we live our lives from spiritual cradle to physical grave, and in between these two, our lives are dotted by a thousand little deaths – a thousand daily deaths – a thousand daily no’s. Every time we deny ourselves, we die a little death. And we are to do this daily – die little deaths, to ourselves, to the world, and everything else in between. These little deaths are not easy, but they are how we grow and get us where we need to be.

Yet, left to our own devices, we will never fully die the little deaths, as we should, and so there will come a time, when God will have to slay us. This will just put to death all kinds of sin in our life. This will not be easy but it is worth going through as we will come out as gold.

“But God knows the way that I take. When he has tested me, I will come out pure as gold” (Job 23:10).