THE LAID-DOWN LIFE

The Laid-Down Life is a phrase used in the New Testament to simply mean, ‘I would/will give my life’ or ‘I would die for you.’ Jesus said, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow later.” Peter said to him, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you!” Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me?” (John 13:36-38)

Earlier in John 10, Jesus gives a clearer idea of the Laid-Down Life. In describing the Good Shepherd (good parent, good disciple, good child, good worker, good friend, good teacher or good business leader) he mentions these qualities:

Jesus said, ‘I am the door.’ A Laid-Down Life provides a door of security to allow for those we love and are responsible, to come and go safely. He then said, ‘I will lay down my life for the sheep.’ He is not a hired hand who can be enticed away from the responsibility and protection of those we love by money, pride or power. Then he said, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.” He knows his own flock and also knows ‘those who are not his.’ He said ‘those who know him listen to his voice.’ 

So this to me is the Laid-Down Life: It is a person willing to give their life and die if necessary for those they love and have responsibility. But to me a far greater challenge is to live a specific dedicated life of loving and serving those whom we have been given. If along the way we get taken out/die/killed… we get taken out. Living for it is far more difficult than dying for it.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus