Community: Die to Yourself

Right now I'm reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. I'm almost through it, and I could have been finished with it a week ago if I didn't spend so much time playing Minecraft. I am enjoying the relaxation though.
Anyway, I highly recommend this book so far.

I just finished a chapter where he talks about living in a house with 5 other guys. I can relate. He talked about the struggles of sharing space and sharing lives. I can relate.
I love this though; this is how he ended the chapter. It was a dialogue between him and someone he had observed. "I asked him how he kept such a good attitude all of the time with so many people abusing his kindness. Bill set down his coffee and looked me in the eye. 'Don,' he said. 'If we are not willing to wake up in the morning and die to ourselves, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether or not we are really following Jesus.'"

I'm not suggesting that my friends at the Man Sanctum abused any kindness I might have shown. What I am suggesting is that this is the only way that Christian community works. We have to die to ourselves daily; part of which means realizing that the world is not a play staring me. No legitimate Christian community takes place without this; and if you read the New Testament, you see that Christian community is vitally important in our lives.

Sometimes that means doing the dishes all the time because no one else does, even if I didn't make any of them dirty. But I'm not tooting my own horn here; this comes with the realization that I neglect other things and fall short of people's expectations in other ways. I have a habit of leaving my junk around the house; the list could go on for a while. The key to community is grace. A grace that only comes from the ultimate grace that Christ has shown us.

If you don't die to yourself - in other words, kill your pride - then you have to ask yourself if you're really following Christ. "He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a Cross."