Come Ash Wednesday, and sure, everyone grasps, at some level that we are all but ashes to ashes, dust to dust, that we all die —- but, honestly, in the midst of our every day lives?

Who dares to take hold of the singular call of Christ to come die to self now?

Who dares to take hold of the singular call of Christ to come die to self now?

These aren’t easy, flashy things to lean into, and I stand at the window, and our souls know it:

There are trendy, viral things to say that eventually make the soul of us all sick — and then there are holy, virtuous things to actually live that makes one’s only soul truly whole for all of eternity.

Resource: A 40 Day Lenten Wreath at The Keeping Company

I feel that too, am convicted of that too:

There’s wide-way, a mainstream way of living that slaps on a comfortable sticker of Christianity, that talks easy of all the smooth, popular things that cost nothing, and that way ultimately gets narrower and narrower, as it does what gratifies and easily satisfies and feels good ultimately just for only one for self.

You only experience expansiveness when you pursue holiness.

And yet, as we go about out day, there is another way:

Who in the world dares the expansiveness of genuine Christianity, that takes the narrow, cruciform way of dying to self, of loving in ways that deeply cost self, that sacrifices for the other, that chooses a sacred way of life, that narrow way of being set apart for the heart of God — only to see that narrow way grow into a widening, vast, spacious cruciform way of life that lives as large as Love Himself.

Don’t let anyone tell or sell you any different, because all the ancients before us can point to what is deeper and realer, what is tried and true:

You only experience expansiveness when you pursue holiness.

Someone recently told that they were a full-grown, bad *** person, that they had paid their dues and earned the right to do whatever they wanted now. And, true, by and large — this is a free-will world and barring some qualifications, you’re free to do pretty much whatever you want.

But to be sure: Christ is the ultimate good and right renegade and He thought you worth not just paying some dues, but paying His very life for your ultimate freedom, so how could you claim Christ as yours and still do whatever you will, when He died to claim you as His? Like a marriage covenant bonds and binds you to another heart, so you aren’t your own anymore, but are committed to someone else — so the Cross is a covenant, where Jesus sets down His heart for yours, and you say yes, and set apart your life from the wide-ways to choose His.

Why balk at carrying a Cross?

Picking up your Cross isn’t the end of your life, but the beginning of your truest, flourishing life — a life of communion with Christ.

The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world…” writes Deitrich Bonhoeffer, the martyred theologian who died under the Nazi regime for walking the narrow-expansive way of Christ.

Abandon attachments to things of this world — to feel the securest attachment in the universe — attachment to God.

Because the point is, as “we embark upon discipleship, we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ.

Picking up your Cross isn’t the end of your life, but the beginning of your truest, flourishing life — a life of communion with Christ.

Resource: A 40 Day Lenten Wreath at The Keeping Company

Throughout all the shadows of our days, it’s what Bonhoeffer says:

Who can claim to follow a dying Christ, if not daily dying to something in your life? The most beneficial life for your soul — is the sacrificial choices in your life.

When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die… may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him — or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at His call.”

I confess…. I’ve been deeply convicted:

You can’t claim to follow a dying Christ, if you’re not daily dying to something in your life.

How am I following a Christ who went to the Cross — if I’m not daily picking up my cross — or any cross at all?

If there’s no sacrifice of self in your life — have you really accepted the sacrifice of Christ as the source of your life?

Sacrifice is always most like a shared meal, like a feast between man and God, like a communion—an expression of connection.

Sacrifice is not losing something but moving closer to Someone.

Sacrifice in Hebrew is korban… and literally means to come near, an approach, a moving closer, to move into a closer relationship.

Sacrifice is not losing something but moving closer to Someone.

Sacrifice isn’t about loss— sacrifice is about love. Surrender to love.

Sacrifice is about detaching from one thing—to attach to a greater thing.” (~excerpted from WayMaker)

The most beneficial life for your soul — is the sacrificial choices in your life.

Resource: A 40 Day Lenten Wreath at The Keeping Company
Resource: A 40 Day Lenten Wreath at The Keeping Company

I wash the dishes slow, fold and press the clothes, and that is always the call for this day, everyday:

Lay down the lesser loves, turn from the vortex of distractions, let your soul be washed of all that sullies holy things, and die to the cheap, and sacrifice something that costs, and taste a far richer comfort and fulfillment in the Only One who has ever loved you to death.

There’s a way to let things fall away, so you fall deeper in love with the Way. Every sacrifice can bring you nearer to everything you want to gain.

Fall to your knees and fall in love and find the keys to the passionate revival your hearts desperately seeks.

And on Ash Wednesday, at the beginning of Lent, there’s a people marked by dust, a marked sign of our mortality — and, this is not hugely popular, but it’s a holy paradox: there’s a people who choose sacrifice, who choose to take up their Cross again and choose to daily die to actually wholly live.

There’s a way to let things fall away, so you fall deeper in love with the Way.

There’s a sacred way to sacrifice all that’s in the way, between you and the Way.

Every sacrifice can bring you nearer to everything you want to gain.

And I’m convicted and ready and the day falls through the windows, across dusty sills, and gives way to warming the darkest places with more light.


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