A Beautiful Death: How to die to self at home
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As an occupational hazard of pastoral ministry, I have had the opportunity to observe private family life in a way most people don’t get to. Sure, we know our own family’s “dirty laundry,” but I never saw just how normal dysfunction is until I became a pastor. And that’s the great secret of living in a family: It’s hard and almost everyone gets it wrong to one degree or another.
The great paradox of the home is that the people we love the most are the hardest to get along with. We count on our homes to be a safe place in the middle of a comparatively dangerous world, but so often reality falls short of our expectations and our homes are where the bitterest arguments and deepest wounds are sustained. But that can change.
The Bible describes the most fulfilled life as one marked with death. Each believer is called to personally identify themselves with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus declared, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25). The command to take up a cross was a command to die. Romans 6:5 clarifies this command when it reveals that “if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.” Practically, then, I can live as if “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). That’s why my motto is, “I am a servant, and I am already dead.” If I have any hope of leading a family that represents Jesus well, this must be especially true at home.
Here’s the solution briefly: while home may not be as emotionally safe as it should be, dead people don’t worry about being emotionally safe.
Throughout his ministry, Jesus called people to radical allegiance to himself. He commanded his followers to take up their crosses — to consider themselves already dead — over and over again. You read his command in Matthew 16 already. He said something similar, but much more family-related in Matthew 10:37-39, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”
Notice the order of allegiance Jesus expects. He comes first. We die to ourselves especially where our family is concerned. It is only through this kind of death to self that we can begin to love our own household. We have to learn to love from him since “love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7).
Only after deciding on this kind of radical allegiance to Jesus can you obey the command to do “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4). Imagine what your home life would look like if everyone thought this way. Imagine if your family cared more about your needs than their own. Imagine if you really felt safe at home like home should feel. Imagine if the people closest to you felt that way too. The tool Scripture gives for accomplishing this is in the very next verses, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). The Bible goes on to describe Jesus’ death and resurrection. Each believer is commanded to personally identify with the death and resurrection of Jesus, especially at home. This is why we are called to “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21).
In practice, developing this attitude has a synergistic effect. As I care more for the people in my house more than for myself, it becomes easier for them to care about me, so they do, and I find less need to care about myself. And they find less need to care about themselves. Everyone is cared for, everyone becomes less selfish, and love reigns in the house. You just have to die to yourself at home first.