Dying Daily

In 1868, when he was 34 years old, Charles Spurgeon preached on three words from 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I die daily”.

The idea of living daily is obvious to us. And in our modern time, people will have stickers of palm trees in their windows and the slogan ‘No Bad Days’. But the reality is that there must be a dying toward the entrapments outside, and a dying toward the corruption inside.

Spurgeon thought that it didn’t matter if you were high or low, you needed to be skilled in the art of dying daily. He said:

Make a believer a king or a pauper, and the art of dying daily will help him in either position ; and whether he shall rule as a potentate, or smart as a slave, dying daily will be an equal benefit to his soul. Put him under every temptation, and this will help him, for he will not be tempted by the offers of so brief a happiness — his soul has a grip upon eternal realities, and vain shows it utterly despises. “See here, tempter,” saith he, “I have a kingdom which cannot pass away; vain is your offer of the kingdoms of this world. See here, foul fiend, I have the beauty and the joy which never can fade: wherefore tempt ye me with these vanities, these painted nothings?”

We can assume that our need to die daily is connected to our prosperity or lack of it. Maybe we have felt entitled to ease because things have gone poorly for us. Or maybe we feel that although we’ve prospered, we should eat the fruit of our labors and not have to die daily. But the Christian believer is not ultimately tricked by their circumstances. They know that here we have no “continuing city” and so the world is not our home.

As Spurgeon pointed out:

Above temptation’s billows the believer lifts his head with calm joy, because he breathes the atmosphere of heaven. Daily dying is as useful to the saint in his joys as in his griefs, in his exaltations as in his depressions. It is a blessed thing for him in the vale and on the mountain, in strength and in sickness, on the battlefield of activity or in the hospital of suffering. He shall be tutored for immortality, trained for bliss, fitted for heaven, by learning to die daily. God teach us this art, and he shall have the glory of it. Amen.

ACTIONS 🥅🥅

1. Are you learning how to die daily? Are you developing the 'art' of it?

2. Compare how your life looks when it is fruitful compared to when it is being pruned (John 15:1-5). Have you assumed that God doesn't care, simply because you don't look as flourishing as before? Do you trust that he can make you flourish again?

3. Do you see your losses and crosses as a 'tutoring for immortality'? In other words, are you thinking more about heaven? Can you start to meditate on heaven?