"Come and Die."  What an invitation by Jesus.  "Deny yourself.  Take up your cross.  Living sacrifice.  Love Him more than family, friends or self.  Turn the other cheek.  Go the extra mile."  On and on we read similar challenges to our selfish ambitions, our self-protection and our perceived needs for self.  These are only a few examples of Jesus' compelling invitation to those who would declare their faith in Him and be invited into His family.  If I didn't know better, I would think that He was scaring people away and that He was giving every frightening example to help people excuse themselves from following Him.  What gives?  The fact is, I think that is exactly what He was doing.  He was setting the bar high for He knew that mankind is fickle and it would require more than a few miracles to convince them to declare their faith in Him and then live their life as His disciple.  As long as everything was rosy and "prosperous" they would follow Him.  But how would they react to persecution, to inconvenience, to disappointment, to self-sacrifice for others, to pain and suffering?  No doubt if they came to Him thinking they would be "prosperous" just because they followed Him, when things got hard they would desert Him and their faith in Him and look for another alternative.  What would it take to help the people to understand the cost of being His disciple?  What must He require of them to understand the truth of what they would be facing?  I think He made it clear.  It would require anabandonment of their life to Him and their commitment to trust Him ...absolutely.  They had to sell out, and this is what it means when He says,"Come and die."  Have I scared you away?  Don't blame me.  It's His words and challenges, not mine.

Who wants to step into any kind of blazing fire of threat, such as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the furnace of Babylon?   No one would want to, including me.  How many of us would want to walk around in that super heated furnace and then emerge the next day unharmed and un-scorched?  All of us would, right?  What would it take to be part of such a magnificent work of God?  For those young men, it was clear as to what it required.  It required them to step out in faith with what they believed about their Living God.  They had to die to self-protection, put it all on the line, and trust that Sovereign God's plan, and only His alone, would be accomplished.  They heard then the same invitation Jesus gives us today.  "Come and die, and see what I will do."  Man did God show His love and power and protection for those men, and at the same time showed a non-believing King who these men served.  Read Nebuchadnezzar's response after this miracle:

Then Nebuchadnezzar said, "Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king's command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. Therefore, I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way."  (Daniel 3:28-29 NIV)

Now before we go down the path with thinking that all such challenges will turn out like this one, we need to look more closely at where the biggest challenge was with these men and how they faced it.  Read the following scripture and spot where their battle was really fought and won by them:

These men were given an escape option from the furnace if they would take it.  Worship false gods of gold, and they would be forgiven.  These men had no idea how it would turn out, if God would deliver them, or allow them to burn.  But there was no compromise with them.  They made the decision to die to self, to die to self-protection, and to die to any plan including their own, to make sure God's plan was honored in their life.  That had a death before the furnace, and it was not a physical death.  Their death happened before they stepped into that furnace.  They won the victory over the fear of death at that point because they died to self.  That was where their biggest fight was for them, as it is for you and me today.  Look what happened to them as God gave their lives back to them, but oh so much more.  As with Jesus and His resurrection, their death was conquered and life was prolonged, but their life was never the same.  They had their own kind of resurrection.  You see, when a true follower of Christ will take His invitation to come and die there is another invitation by Him that follows it.  It is to come and be raised up.  Tomorrow we will explore that invitation, for it is not just about be raised from the grave after we die, but it includes the benefit to be raised up to a new life.