Day 49 - A Good Day to Die
One of the principal tenets of Christianity is the irony that “death brings life.†Christ died so that we can live! The Scriptures underscore this important truth as we seek to live for Christ in our daily lives, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:25)
“‘It is a good day to die’ was the battle cry of the ‘Dog Soldiers’ of the Cheyenne Tribe of the plains Indians. The Dog Soldiers were the most feared fighters of the plains. And their power came from their embracing death as central to combat. ‘It is a good day to die’ is not about fatalism; it’s about a celebration of life and doing what one is put in the world to do. In the Dog Soldier’s case, that was to make war. So the joyfulness of that, the affirmation of it, made them both powerful and admired.†(Howell Raines: Booknotes, p.246)
Before the fall of Communism, the cruel dictator in Romania tried to silence the evangelical pastors by threatening them with death. “We’re already dead,†was the response of these courageous pastors! “If you kill us, you’ll sprinkle our blood on our preaching tapes that will be heard throughout Romania,†they declared. For these pastors, it was a good day to die. Their unflinching courage in the face of death made them invincible and the Gospel of the Kingdom was victorious over the oppression of Communism!
As ironic as it seems, the way to “live†for Jesus is being willing to die daily. The Dog Soldiers were right, it really is a good day to die.
Today’s Scripture Promise: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)