"Deathday" on a Birthday

The Lord has been faithful to me, leading me thus far to see the completion of my forty-fourth birthday and entering into the forty-fifth birthday of my human life on this earth. If the Lord were to grace me to live at least ninety years or so, He has led me to half of my life on this earth. Within these many years of my life which He has graciously granted me, I pray that He also fulfills the very purpose for which He created me as a human being. Since I was regenerated at the age of nineteen on 31 Dec  1997, I have been living my Christian life for twenty-five years now. My prayer has always been that I may enjoy and experience Christ daily and grow in the divine life unto maturity to be a living overcomer being built up with the saint in the Body for the ultimate fulfillment of God's eternal economy.

To me, I have ceased all the earthly and worldly ways of celebrating birthdays for decades now. My inner being would not allow me to do so any longer after I have grown to some level in the divine life. Nevertheless, I do thank the Lord personally every year on this specific day, for His mercy and grace being added to me for at least one more year. With the close family circle, I pray and thank the Lord for His grace all these years and look to Him for further grace.

Today, as I was spending time with the Lord in the morning, I was impressed by this one point of "Death Day". My "Birth Day" has become "Death Day" in a very positive way. I have been brought to a deep realization that my old man, my natural man whether good or bad, has to be put to death. Every new year should be a reminder of how much death have I experienced myself, and how much of the resurrection life of Christ have I experienced. I can well relate with Job when he confessed:

Indeed, I am worthless. What shall I reply to You? I lay my hand over my mouth.  Job 40:4

This is no self-introspection but a revelation that without the Lord I am indeed worthless. All that I am in myself has to come to an end. And all that Christ is to me be who I should be. Having seen the revelation of God's hand in my life, I truly echo what Job had declared: 

I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye has seen You; Therefore I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes. Jb 42:5-6

This is no new teaching, but in oneness with the word of the apostle Paul to Philippians:

To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death. Philippians 3:10

Today in our prayer and pursuit of the truth, I personally chose the hymn 426 by Br. Witness Lee which expresses my inward feeling of receiving God's light as I come before Him.

1      Remove my covering, Lord,
  That I may see Thy light,
  And be deceived no more,
  But all things see aright.

Chorus  
  Oh, may Thy living light, Lord,
  Scatter all my night, Lord,
  And everything make bright, Lord,
  For this I pray to Thee.

2 I hardly know myself;
  Deceived so much by pride,
  I often think I’m right
  And am self-satisfied.

8 I long to be unveiled,
  In everything made clear,
  No more to be deceived
  Or to my pride adhere.

Thank the Lord for His mercy to reveal to me on this day what this day should really be, a death day. Death to all of myself so that I may live out the resurrection life of Christ who lives in me. A self "deathday" on a wonderful birthday! Praise the Lord!