Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. . . . I have called you friends . . . —John 15:13, 15
“Will you lay down your life?” To lay down one’s life literally mean to lose your life or in another words “to die”. Many a times, we simply take this literally and proclaim that “we will die for Jesus”. Oswald Chamber highlighted that “It is much easier to die than to lay down your life day in and day out with the sense of the high calling of God.” Dying, to many of us, is a distant thing. And to many of us, dying is defintely a better deal for it allows us to get away from this world, its suffering, its unjustice, its pain….for even Paul put it that “For to me to live is Chrsit and to die is gain” Phip 1:21.
However, I believed that God doesn’t want us to die for Him, but He simply wants us to “lay down our life” for Him. What does it mean to “lay down our life” and not yet die physically per se? I believe that this “laying down” involves the surrendering of our will, our rights, our ambitions, our wants and our desires for the purpose and the glory of our Lord. This will require us to readjust our lifestyle, renew our mind and also to reprioritise our time and activities. This I foresee is harder than simply proclaiming that “we will die for Jesus” for those are simply words and none of us here (except for maybe a few) can really testify and indeed have a close brush with death to truly understand what is means “to die”.
“Salvation is easy for us, because it cost God so much. But the exhibiting of salvation in my life is difficult. God saves a person, fills him with the Holy Spirit, and then says, in effect, “Now you work it out in your life, and be faithful to Me, even though the nature of everything around you is to cause you to be unfaithful.”" Oswald Chamber
Will you lay down your life for Him who called you Friends?