Luke 23

“Let Him save Himself.” “Save Yourself” “Save Yourself and us.” (From verses 35, 36, and 39).

As the people around mocked Jesus, they taunted Him to save Himself. As He said in the garden of Gethsemane, if He so wished He could call upon legions of angels, but then the Scriptures would not be fulfilled. He could not save both Himself and us. He could not save both Himself and us. He could only save one. He chose us.

We, Jesus’s followers, need to follow in His footsteps. We need to lay down our lives for others. For we cannot live a life of self and save them. Like Jesus, we must choose. And to the extent we choose to die, we choose for others to live.

Dying to self is not easy; I suppose dying rarely is. I struggled against it every day, making progress at times, then going backward. But steps are made, and inch by inch I creed towards death. And it is by dying that we truly live.

So let us fly towards death, to run and greet it. Our Saviour has paid its penalty, we get only its rewards. He has made the way, we need only to walk in it. And when our kernels of wheat fall to ground and die, then, and only then, will we produce much fruit.