Most are familiar with the acclaimed movie series "Die Hard." All five films orbit around the character of John McClane (Bruce Willis), a gritty and hard-headed police detective who continually finds himself amid crises where he is constantly fighting against doom, disaster, and death. Some would say it's the most incredible movie series ever. Perhaps. Whatever that is for you, I know it's a great movie series to lead us to our following command, "Deny Yourself." An invitation of Christ, if applied, will create "determination" in the soul where people live free and kill the die-hard character trait of "spinelessness."
The expression "Old habits die hard" is a well-known phrase and conveys selfishness, pushing good habits out of a person's life and keeping the bad ones from denying a good life. Jesus understood this challenge and gave the command we read in Luke 9:23: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself [bad habits], and take up his cross daily [learning and understanding to produce good habits], and follow me [freedom]." This urgent teaching is about getting our corrupt ways, the die-hard ones, out of the Christian's life to live an epic good life with God and others.
Every human has an option to follow someone, whether past, present or forthcoming. With Jesus, it's all three. As most know, Jesus' first coming happened in the season setting where the "Die Hard" movies took place…Christmas. The second coming of Christ, like another movie in the "Die Hard" series, Live Free or Die Hard, is about the freedom that comes when a person personally accepts "Good" over evil through following Christ now and always. And finally, forthcoming, like the last movie in the series, A Good Day to Die Hard, is about increasing and growing "Goodness" with the next generation until The Day of the Lord happens, collectively. No matter a person's orientation to time, all have an option to meet the need to follow someone daily, and that someone ought to be Jesus if a person expects to deny the agony of sinful habits and the pain of following anyone else.
To follow Jesus is not fake like John McClane's character in the "Die Hard" movies. It's about a reality to decide to fight evil with "Goodness," whatever the setting and plot. It's an actual choice to doubt the world's wicked ways and allow the habits of the ultimate "Good" guy, Jesus, to save your life permanently. Again, the hero of life, Jesus, taught The Wonderfully Weird Commands to give his disciples a "determination" to produce an award-winning character to conquer the bad guys in the end. It is a victory that pushes out spinless practices to show what it means to "Die Hard" in God's Goodness.
Today, choose not to be "spinless" in the faith but choose "Deny Yourself" to show that "Good" always wins in the end. A conquest that always produces a "Die Hard" life through the Wonderfully Weird Commands of Christ.
With care and grit,