Life application is nothing more or less than applying in our lives that which we have learned, and most generally we only apply those things which we believe will be beneficial to us.
“For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:” (Eph. 5:29)
Again, there are no contradictions in the Word of God, only things that are not yet made clear to us. So, with that in mind, I offer you Luke 14:26.
“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
No one on a daily basis applies in their life those things which will be detrimental to themselves intentionally, no one seeks for great pain and suffering each day without respite. Suicides are always, and I believe I can use that absolute, committed in a deeply adverse emotional state, the consistent application of detrimental adverse effects upon oneself on a daily basis would necessitate deductive reasoning skills for that specific end, and that is beyond rare.
So then, why do the Scriptures say no man has yet hated himself, yet we are told to hate our own lives?
I will answer that question with a question for you. All that you have given up in your life, all those bad habits, sinful lusts, desires outside of the will of God by those who have been crucified with Christ are indeed admirable and reveal love for the Lord Jesus Christ as the reason for doing so. But what good things, as you would name them, have you also laid at His feet and said, “These are yours to do with as you please.”
“Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,” (Phil. 3:8)
Life application for those who are hid in Christ is nothing less than dying fully and completely to self, from offering all that we own to Him, to all that we are. We apply the totality of all we are to Him, willingly and without any reservations of any kind. No one who has not done so can in all humility say, “Thy will be done.”
When Job said, “But I will maintain mine own ways before him,” it revealed the truth that this was yet a lesson he still needed to learn.
We can only apply in our lives that which we choose to apply because the Almighty has decided to give each and every one of us free will to decide for ourselves that which we believe to be either profitable or unprofitable to ourselves. If you truly consider it my friends, it is a lite thing to give up those things in our lives that we now recognize as detrimental to our walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, giving up those things we still like to consider as good, as beneficial to us is an extremely different matter.
“For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1st Cor. 4:7)
It is either everything all the time, or it is as nothing.
We are expected to apply every facet of our lives, every part of our being to the will of the Almighty, solely for His glory, and in joy of the doing so.
I cannot help but to put this verse here for you again, for in reality it sums up perfectly the intent of this letter.
“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Phil. 1:21)
He has shown you the path of life, we are to apply ourselves fully to it, the entire application of our life is to be devoted solely to His will for us. That is how you die to self, that is how you learn to hate even your own life while realizing that the new life He has given you is the life that you will never hate.
That my friends is called the joy of the Lord.
