Who Would You Be Willing To Die For And Other Questions to Ask Yourself?

Asking yourself questions are crucial disciplines that can help one become a better person. The following questions are not in any order of priority because all of them are important, and some more than others may resonate with you. The ones I selected will hopefully start a discussion on what other questions should we ask ourselves.

First question: Who would you be willing to die for? Why is this question significant? To me it says who is important in your life? A corollary could be “what are you willing to die for”? What cause is such that you would go to the ultimate to defend?

Here is a sobering thought related to those questions. Romans 5:7-8 says, “Now, no one is likely to die for a good person, though someone might be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”

Think long and hard on this passage. Paul, the author, is saying that rarely will someone die for a very good person, but Jesus was willing to die for people that hated him. You might say, “Jesus is God in the flesh, and he is at another level.” That is a fair statement, but Jesus was also fully human as well as fully God. In his humanity, he didn’t want to suffer, but love outweighed his reluctance. So yes, we don’t have divinity as part of our DNA, but what we do as believers is worth our death?

There is a story during World War II, where some Jews escaped from a concentration camp. Upon this discovery, the Nazis decided to execute on the spot ten Jews as punishment. One of the men pleaded for his life because he had a wife and children. Another man, who was single and not picked as one of the ten, volunteered to take this man’s place and was summarily executed. Would you have volunteered? Obviously this man felt his life needed to be sacrificed to spare the family man.

My next question is if you had one week to live, what would you do with your life? Would you keep living the way you are; go to work just like any other day; spend time doing the things you typically do; or would you radically change your life? At first glance this seems like an unfair question, because instinctively people might say things like I will quit work and spend all my waking moments with those I love. Or some might say that they would do a bucket list item, like travel to a foreign country for a few days and then come home and wait for the inevitable.

But I once heard someone say if their life was being lived consistently as God wanted they wouldn’t change much. Their illustration was if they were a surgeon, and that work had operations planned, then they would go and do the best possible surgery they could. In other words, why do something different if that is what you should be doing all along? Just a thought!

Paul says it this way in Philippians 1:21-23, “For to me, living is for Christ and dying is even better. Yet if I live, that means fruitful service for Christ. I really don’t know which is better. I’m torn between two desires: Sometimes I want to live, and sometimes I long to go and be with Christ.”

Okay, how about this one? If you suddenly had all the money you will ever need, how would you live? This question is for me a way to gauge if I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. If you immediately say that I would change everything, career, home, even relationships, then why don’t you even now? Well, Bob, it is because I don’t have all the money in the world. That is true, but I think it is an excuse. Doing the career you want, the type of home that is important to you are your goals, or should I say your values, regardless of money. As Christians, if God has placed something in your heart to do and your unwillingness is due to money, then you are living beneath what the Lord has intended.

A fourth question is if God came to you today and asked you one thing you would like him to do for you, what would be your response? This actually happened to Solomon in 1 Kings 3:5, where God appears to him in a dream and simply asks Solomon what would he like and it is granted. God actual initiates the conversation and asks Solomon to name anything and it is his. This is like the ultimate spiritual dream. So what one thing would be your answer? The answer will say a lot about your heart, your values, and your convictions.

One more question I propose is this: When was the last time you felt truly amazing? If you say, I can’t remember, then why is that? What is causing you to feel depressed, angry, sad, all the time? In our Christian faith we are taught that Jesus gives us his peace (John 15:27). We are taught that through the Spirit we can have joy, no matter the obstacles (Philippians 4:4). If we know Jesus, we have eternal life and can have an intimate relationship with the God of the universe. This sounds amazing to me. But, I like the rest of you don’t feel amazing a lot.

I would love feedback on these questions. This will make for interesting discussion and maybe might change the outcome of our lives.