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There is a daily dying that is —

I. INEVITABLE. There is a daily dying of —

1. Our corporeal frame. In each human body the seed of death is implanted, the law of mortality is at work. There is decay with every respiration and heart-throb. The water does not more naturally roll towards the ocean, or a falling body gravitate towards the centre of the earth, than the human frame runs every moment to dissolution. This fact should teach us —

(1) That worldly-mindedness is an infraction of reason. What a monstrous absurdity it is to set our supreme affections upon objects from which we are departing every moment! No anchor can stop this ship of destiny. All "Life Insurance" offices recognise and act upon this fact. Every man's life is less valuable to-day than it was yesterday.

(2) That sorrow for the departed should be moderated. Their departure was but obedience to the resistless law of their nature, and that same law is daily bearing us whither they are gone. Why battle with destiny?

(3) That Christianity is an invaluable boon to mortals. It does two things — it teaches us that there is a future world of blessedness, and points us the way by which that blessed world is reached.

2. Our social world. We live not only with others but by them. But the social circumstances which feed our life are changing every day. The circle of the nursery in which we once lived is gone; the circle of the school and other circles in which we lived have broken up long ago.

3. Our mental motivity. The motives that influence us to action are elements of life, and they are constantly dying. A realised purpose has lost its motivity. Many of the loves, hopes, fears, romances, ambitions, which once formed much of our life, have been buried long ago in the ever-widening cemetery of the soul.

II. OPTIONAL. This death is of two kinds.

1. There is the criminal. In the depraved soul, sensibility of conscience, generosity of impulse, elasticity of intellect, freedom of thought, spirituality of feeling — the sinner is constantly murdering these, and their blood cries to heaven for vengeance. "To be carnally minded is death."

2. There is the virtuous. The highest life of man is a daily dying to all that is mean, false, mercenary, unspiritual, and uncharitable. The apostle felt this when he said, "I," that is my carnal self, "am crucified with Christ"; nevertheless, "I," that is my spiritual self, "live," etc., etc.

(D. Thomas, D.D.)

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KJV: I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

WEB: I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.