Cheese Hats

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” (Gal. 2:20) I have heard it said before that to die for something is easier than to live for it. I don’t know if that’s true, nor do I really want to find out, but I will say that it is hard to do what this passage in Galatians talks about. Think of it, to be a Christian means that you have given your life up. You no longer live, but Christ lives in you.

Usually when I’ve thought about this concept I’ve thought about it as an end to the fun. We get this idea that when we give up our life to whatever God would have for us that he will probably want us to spend the rest of our lives doing whatever we hate the most (which for me would be selling Green Bay Packers stuff from a table in a cow pasture somewhere).

I think it’s true that when we die to ourselves and live for Christ we will be called to do things we don’t want to do. But I don’t think it will be pedaling Packers cheese hats, I think it will be things that are much more subtle. Living for Christ means giving up our time, materialism, hatred, racism, greed, immorality, pride, keeping grudges, stepping on people to get what we want, our “rights”, and maybe even Starbucks once in a while (I know that’s pushing it). You might look at that and say, “Duh, of course we give those things up.” But think about how hard it really is to do that. I have a constant pull toward so many of those things, and in dying to myself I give up my pursuit of them. Not keeping grudges is hard, especially when you think someone deserves it. Not buying and iPod and giving the money to someone who needs it is hard. Letting people spit on you without fighting back is hard. So we are called to give up many of our desires to follow Jesus, but not necessarily our good desires. We don’t have to sell cheese hats to follow Jesus, just seek Him and try to be like Him.