Let Us Die That We Might Truly Live

“Because the death of sin has made natural death enter, with the dissolution of sin, natural death is also destroyed. Those who do not die beforehand die in truth. But those who by their own will make the person of lusts die from them through the death of this sin the death of the natural person is dissolved. Therefore, it is excellent that we should die before our death so that we might also live before our life. Whenever death of the will precedes, it also dissolves natural death. Whenever natural death is first destroyed by the power of freedom whoever is dead becomes alive before he lives.”

St. Philoxenos of Mabbug, Memra 11 on Asceticism, Chapter 3 as in The Discourses of Philoxenos of Mabbug: A New Translation and Introduction. Vol. 235. Liturgical Press, 2014. p329.

Thus the one who dies to their attachments and that which binds them to the world or to themselves, this one becomes alive. The one who binds themselves to the material goods or pleasures of this life will soon too pass away, much as his gods (the material goods) will too. No insurance policy, no stock investments, no wealth, riches, or relationships can free us from death’s snare for they too shall become dust. Let us die to these things that we might live to Him Who has destroyed death.

What else is our baptism other than our voluntary death to this dead life and our renewal and birth into the Life of God as we are indwelt by The Holy Spirit.