We have a friend who seems to always be using the phrase: “It’s to die for.” She says things like: “Have you been to the new restaurant? The food there is to die for.” “Have you gotten the new iPhone? It’s to die for.” This saying never made sense to me. Few things in life are really worth dying for, and if you died for this thing, you would never enjoy it or anything else again. There certainly are some things worth dying for but it would have to be something far more important than a meal or object that would not soon be remembered anyway.

However trite the above saying might be, Paul said something similar to the saints at Corinth: “…ye are in our hearts to die and live with you” (II Corinthians 7:3b). There actually are things and people worth living and dying for. Paul was willing to die for the cause of Christ. Persecutors had tried unsuccessfully to silence him when he preached Christ and a new dispensation of grace available to Jew and Gentile alike. But the Apostle Paul would not be silenced because he did not live for himself. His attitude was, “For me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21). Paul had embraced the truth that Christ “died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto Him which died for them and rose again.” In other words, the Savior was worth living for and he was doing just that. But he also thought ministry to other saints, like those at Corinth, was worth dying for. He told the saints in II Corinthians 7:3, “ye are in our hearts to die… with you.” In other words, he was willing to die for their spiritual benefit. That’s why he told the saints at Philippi the same thing: “if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all” (Philippians 2:17). He also accepted the possibility of dying for Christ and those he ministered by seeing it as “gain” or “far better” (Philippians 1:21- 23). Going home to his Savior would only be a joyous reunion.

Have you come to the place spiritually where you are willing to truly live for Christ and others, or even to die for Him and other believers? Today is the day you need to mentally pack for this journey, surrender to Christ, and report for duty. HE is to live or to die for.