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你有没有试过让牙医为你的牙齿做根管治疗呢？有了三次的经验之后，我对根管治已经有一点常识了。牙医用一个小钻把坏牙里面的毒素彻底清除，一直深入到牙根，随后他便把洞填补好，把牙齿完全修补妥当，牙齿就不会再痛了。

基督徒生命的每日操练也是参照这个模式进行的。在耶稣面前降服，就是“死而后生”，把我们的罪、我们的创伤和我们所有的包袱卸给祂，好让祂能够藉着圣灵以更新的生命充满我们。这个过程比根管治疗当然复杂得多，其结果能给人的一生真正带来改变。

不过，藉着丧掉生命来得着生命的呼召，是相当令人难以理解的，这本不是我们的本性。然而，在这个月里，当我们思想这个主题时，我们将会看到，死而后生是一个喜乐、感恩和恩典的旅程。

在一个以敬拜为题的讲座中，作家Marva Dawn说：“在敬拜聚会之前，想像一下，若每一个信徒都这样祷告：‘主啊，求祢使用这个敬拜，让我看见自己应当怎样为祢舍掉生命。’结果会怎样？”

当我试着想像会有什么结果时，我便看到了圣灵的果子——仁爱、喜乐、和平、忍耐、良善、信实、节制等等——能够在群体中蓬勃生长，因为毒素已被清除了。这是一个死而后生的复活的群体所结的果子。

Have you ever had a dentist do a root canal on one of your teeth? I’ve learned a few things from having three root canals done. With a tiny drill the dentist cleans out all the toxins in an infected tooth, right down to the roots. And then the dentist refills all the drilled-out areas to restore the tooth to pain-free wholeness.

The life of Christian discipleship aims to follow that pattern every day. To surrender to Jesus is to “die to live,” giving over to him our sin, our wounds, and all our baggage so that he may refill us with new life through the Holy Spirit. It’s much more complex than a root canal, and the results are literally life-changing.

The call to find our lives by losing them is a bit hard to grasp, though. This doesn’t come naturally to us. But as we reflect on this theme this month, we will see that dying to live is a journey of joy, gratitude, and grace.

In a talk she gave on worship, author Marva Dawn said, “Imagine if every believer prayed before a worship service, ‘Lord, please use this worship to show me again how to die for you.’”

I did try to imagine it, and I pictured communities in which the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, self-control, and more—could grow in abundance as toxins were cleaned out. That’s the fruit of a community that is dying to live.