Dying Daily to Self – Key to Appropriating Power
(Overcomer Wu)

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me” Galatians 2:20

This verse is familiar to many Christians, yet applying the verse to our daily living is something that few Christians either know how to practice or care to practice. We need to realize that there can be no true experience of “dying daily” where there is no intelligent sense of having previously, by faith, died definitely. By this we mean that there must have taken place a decided transaction of identification with Christ in His crucifixion on the cross, in His burial in the grave, in His resurrection and even His ascension. It is the plan and it also is the provision of God that every blood-bought child of His may “walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4) as He has purposed they should. Let it be emphasized that there can be no true, practical experience of walking in “the power of His resurrection, and be made conformable unto His death” (Phi 3:10), and in “newness of life,” where there has been no previous personal experience of identification with Christ in His crucifixion -- in “dying with Jesus.”

When by faith, our “dying with Jesus” and our burial with Him have been actualized – when these steps are accomplished in our experience, then our rising with Him (Col 2:12) may also be reckoned upon, and its reality may be experienced in our life. By appropriating “the power of His resurrection,” and thereby experiencing His presence with us and being “alive unto God” (Rom 6:11) and yielding our whole being to Him, it is possible for us personally and practically to “die daily” unto self. “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Rom 6:3-4). True walking with Christ is true Christian conduct, which issues only from a true Christian character and nature, which is “Christ, who is our life” (Col 3:4). “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal 2:20).

Dying to Self and living to Christ does not mean an immediate sinless perfection for the rest of our lives. We must walk in this way of the cross afresh daily, yielding ourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and present our bodies a living sacrifice unto God. The glorious fact that He died for our sins, and that our sins can no longer rise up against us, brings joy and peace. Yet it brings a still greater joy and peace with the assurance that this is a life that is well-pleasing unto God, to realize in faith the death to sin, self, and the world through the death of Christ.

Some Christians may ask, “Christ Jesus has done it all, what is there left for me to do?” The answer is -- “simply to ‘die daily.’” If we do not die to our self, Christ cannot live in our stead. If we are to walk in newness of life, the self must be left on the cross by identifying with the death of Christ. "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God” (Rom 6:12-13). We need the continuous yielding of ourselves to God and the appropriation, by faith, of “the power of His resurrection.” This is the only power that can enable us to “live divinely” unto God, and so “die daily” unto self.

The Apostle Paul being passionately conerned for the spiritual growth of the saints at Ephesus, and by implication, in all saints everywhere, prays: "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all” (Eph 1:17-23). This is the exceeding greatnesss of “the power of His resurrection.” This power is founded in Christ alone. “Christ is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:24). Praise the Lord that this overcoming Power is also ours to experience because we the believers have appropriate Christ as our life. Indeed these powers of Christ is ours when we die daily to our weak, pitiful self. How blessed it is to reckon ourselves as weak, for those who reckon themselves to be strong as the least likely to die to themselves and consequently they suffered from spiritual impotence without realizing it. We only need to live to Him to allow this “power” to operate in us; and for Christ to live, we must first die to our self.

The risen power of Christ is available for those who are “risen with Christ” and that life is a life of power, of liberty, of victory, of joy, of fruitfulness, of soul-saving and soul-blessing relationship with others--not through anything in the human instrument, but through the power of Christ working in the instrument. Power was the subject of one of His great post-resurrection promises. “You shall receive power, after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you.” Praise the Lord! It is His desire to give us His resurrection power, ascending power, and subjecting power in our daily lives when we are dead to self!