As the prophets of old before Him, Christ promised that He would rise from the dead. That is a celebrative and uplifting promise. However, the truth is, He also predicted His death. His death was the worst of all deaths because His death was a ransom for the sins of the world. He died swathed in the unmitigated wrath of God’s righteousness. Embedded in every claim or promise regarding His glorious resurrection is the face of death; the fulfillment of His resurrection is pedestaled upon the darkness of death.
This truth of experiencing the resurrection is also true spiritually for Christians. Christians surely want to walk in and experience the power of the resurrection of Christ, but seldom do we feel an equal desire to die with Christ.
Christ’s embracement of the resurrection meant equally embracing His death, and the same is true for us. Resurrection without death is impossible!
Christ called us to die before we could live. “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:38).
Paul reminds us that in this life, dying to self is not a one-time experience because the flesh is enlivened by the things of this world. He said, “I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31).
His prayer was an example of wanting to walk in the fullness of our Lord Jesus. “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Philippians 3:10).
Praying for resurrection power and life without embracing dying to self and being conformed to Christ’s death is simply another deceptive attempt at living for Christ from the energy of positive thinking, a tawdry imitation of the Christian life.
