White Funeral

Thirteen years ago when I read today's (Jan 15) My Utmost for His Highest entry by Oswald Chambers, I was cut to the heart. (full devotional here) I had been a Christian for 7 years, had served in various capacities and had even been to a few Promise Keeper events. Yet the challenge and conviction of what Chambers wrote haunted me.

You must agree with God and stop being the intensely striving kind of Christian you have been. We avoid the cemetery and continually refuse our own death.

Has there been a point in your life which you now mark as your last day? Is there a place in your life to which you go back in memory with humility and overwhelming gratitude, so that you can honestly proclaim, “Yes, it was then, at my ’white funeral,’ that I made an agreement with God.”

So, by God's grace on Jan 15, 1998, I had my "white funeral". That was not the day of my conversion, but it was the day that through the Spirit I came to the end of my self. Is there effort involved in living the Christian life? Absolutely. But any effort I expend that further's the kingdom of Christ and brings glory to God is borne not by me but by the Holy Spirit.

Paul puts it in the form of a rhetorical question in Gal 3:3 "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" The implied answer is No!

Let end with two more quotes from Chambers:

No one experiences complete sanctification without going through a “white funeral”-the burial of the old life. If there has never been this crucial moment of change through death, sanctification will never be more than an elusive dream.

Are you willing to experience that “white funeral” now? Will you agree with Him that this is your last day on earth? The moment of agreement depends on you. 

To God Alone be the Glory.