From the editor
Ronny and I began reconnecting through a series of long voice messages—the kind where one man is thinking aloud, another is listening, and both are trying to understand what God is teaching them. Ronny speaks with the urgency of someone who has spent years studying the cross, the Holy Spirit, and the battle within the believer. He does not write as a man who has completed that journey. He writes as a man who is still in it. Please enjoy this piece from Ronny, and thank you Ronny for your contribution!
— Jared Dean, Editor
"We're all messy, moving, and made for so much more."
We use the phrase die to self a lot in the church.
We talk about picking up our cross. We say that we need to surrender. We know the language, brother—but knowing the words and arriving at the place where they become real are two different things.
I started studying this because I wanted to understand sin more deeply. I wanted to know why a man can feel close to God one day and feel as though he has fallen off a cliff the next. I wanted to understand why old thoughts, old habits, and old ways of living can continue fighting for our attention even after we believe in Jesus.
What I have been learning is that dying to self is not a single victorious moment. It is a long transformation—and I am nowhere near finished.
The central truth
Dying to self is not the work of making ourselves better. It is the work of surrendering ourselves to the Holy Spirit.
The Scripture beneath the journey
“If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
Romans 8:13
It Is Usually Not Like the Movies
I think sometimes we expect transformation to look like a movie. A beam of light comes down from heaven, everything changes in a moment, and suddenly we are walking on water.
Could God do something dramatic? Of course He could. But most of the work the Holy Spirit has done in me has not happened that way.
It has been slower. It has required study, prayer, honesty, and time. It has required me to return to the Word when I did not feel victorious. It has required me to keep walking when I felt as though I should be farther along than I was.
Everything with the Holy Spirit is transformation. He does not merely give us an emotional experience and then leave us where He found us. He begins changing the inner man.
The Holy Spirit does not only show us what is wrong. He stays with us while He transforms what He has revealed.
When the Spirit Turns on the Light
Dying to self requires a man to become honest about what is happening inside him.
The Holy Spirit begins shining a spotlight into places we would rather leave in the dark. It can feel like open-heart surgery. He reveals motives, fears, pride, resentment, appetites, and patterns that we have learned to excuse or avoid.
That process can be painful because the flesh does not volunteer to surrender. It does not politely step aside because we have learned a new Bible verse. It fights to remain in control.
But the Spirit’s conviction is not abandonment. He reveals what is present because He intends to lead us into something better. He exposes the disease because He is committed to the healing.
The image I keep returning to
God Is Working on the Trunk
I have started picturing the inner life like a tree.
The individual sins we notice are like fruit hanging from its branches. We see the behavior, the reaction, the failure, or the temptation, and we immediately begin trying to pull that piece of fruit off.
God cares about the fruit, but He sees more deeply than we do. He sees the trunk. He sees the whole person beneath the visible behavior—the loves, fears, wounds, loyalties, and habits that keep producing what appears on the branches.
The Holy Spirit is not interested only in making us look improved from the outside. He goes after the deeper life from which the fruit grows. Sometimes He does not merely trim a branch. He takes an axe to what has ruled us.
We Do Not Begin With Ourselves
One of the things that kept me confused for years was that I kept looking at everything from the bottom up.
How do I overcome this? How do I make myself worthy? How do I climb back into God’s favor after I have failed?
But the Father does not begin by looking upward from my effort. He points downward to what His Son has already done.
Through Christ we have redemption and forgiveness. His righteousness is not a ladder we climb. It is a gift we receive. Jesus did not come merely to make bad people behave better. He came to make dead people alive.
Dying to self does not mean paying again for what Jesus has already paid. It means surrendering the life He redeemed so that the Spirit can teach us how to live as people who have been made alive.
The foundation
Dying to self is not an attempt to earn salvation, manufacture righteousness, or persuade God to love us.
It is our response to the mercy already shown to us in Jesus Christ. Grace does not make surrender unnecessary. Grace makes true surrender possible.
The Cross Must Become Daily
Jesus told His followers to take up their cross daily. I am beginning to understand why that word matters.
The flesh does not take a permanent vacation because we had a strong morning of prayer. Yesterday’s surrender does not remove the need for surrender today.
We continue returning to Scripture. We continue asking the Holy Spirit to illuminate what is happening inside us. We continue confessing what He reveals. We continue choosing obedience when the old self would rather remain in charge.
That does not mean every day feels victorious. Some days I feel strengthened. Other days I become painfully aware of how much farther I have to go. Both kinds of days can become part of the transformation if they keep driving me toward Christ.
An important distinction
Dying to Self Is Not Learning to Hate Yourself
There is a difference between the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the voice of condemnation.
Condemnation tells us to stare endlessly at ourselves until we become convinced that we are beyond hope. The Holy Spirit tells the truth about our sin while continually directing us toward Jesus.
The purpose of the cross is not to leave us obsessed with our unworthiness. It is to free us from the rule of the old life and teach us to live in the righteousness, mercy, and power of Christ.
I Am Still Learning
The unfinished journey
Every day, I am learning that carrying my cross is not the end of life. It is the place where life in the Spirit begins.
Scripture and influences
Luke 9:23: Jesus’ call to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Him.
Romans 8:13: The call to put the deeds of the body to death by the Spirit.
Galatians 2:20: Paul’s testimony of being crucified with Christ and living by faith in the Son of God.
Ephesians 1:7: Redemption and forgiveness through the blood of Christ.
John Owen: The Mortification of Sin, an important influence on Ronny’s study of indwelling sin and spiritual transformation.
Watchman Nee: The Spiritual Man, which has helped shape Ronny’s thinking about the inner life and fellowship with the cross.
A question for the road
Am I asking God only to remove the visible fruit—or am I willing to let the Holy Spirit transform the trunk?
Editorial note: This guest essay was developed from a series of voice conversations between Ronny and Jared Dean. It was structured and edited for Mid Story Moments while preserving Ronny’s central argument, imagery, theological convictions, and brother-to-brother voice. The final version should be reviewed and approved by Ronny before publication.
— Ronny
Guest Contributor · Mid Story Moments
Writing about the cross, the Holy Spirit, and the unfinished work of spiritual transformation.