Die to live

I was reading one of Spurgeon's sermons online earlier. Some of the things he mentioned unpacked the meaning of "... come and die to find that I may truly live".

First, we must die if we are to live. There is no spiritual life for you, for me, for any man, except by dying into it. Have you a fine-spun righteousness of your own? It must die. Have you any faith in yourself? It must die. The sentence of death must be in yourself, and then you shall enter into life. The withering power of the Spirit of God must be experienced before his quickening influence can be known: "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it." You must be slain by the sword of the Spirit before you can be made alive by the breath of the Spirit.

Next, we must surrender everything to keep it. "He that loveth his life shall lose it." Brother, you can never have spiritual life, hope, joy, peace, heaven, except by giving everything up into God's hands. You shall have everything in Christ when you are willing to have nothing of your own. You must ground your weapons of rebellion, you must drop the plumes of your pride, you must give up into God's hand all that you are and all that you have; and if you do not thus lose everything in will, you shall lose everything in fact; indeed, you have lost it already. A full surrender of everything to God is the only way to keep it. Some of God's people find this literally true. I have known a mother keep back her child from God, and the child has died. Wealthy people have worshipped their wealth, and as they were God's people, he has broken their idols into shivers. You must love your all if you would keep it, and renounce your most precious thing if you would have it preserved to you.

Next, we must lose self in order to find self. "He that hateth his life shall keep it unto life eternal." You must entirely give up living for yourself, and then you yourself shall live. The man who lives for himself does not live; he loses the essence, the pleasure, the crown of existence; but if you live for others and for God you will find the life of life. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." There is no way of finding yourself in personal joy like losing yourself in the joy of others.

Once more: if you wish to be the means of life to others, you must in your measure die yourself. " 

Interestingly I read another material taking about dying to others ( in the context of leadership and service).

Henri Nouwen says, “In order to be of service to others, we have to die to them.” While this might seem like another fairly radical statement, what Nouwen is saying here is that we must die to needing those we serve for our own survival. We can love the sheep and serve them and be committed to them. We can be vulnerable with them and receive from them the gifts that God is giving to us through them. But our ability to survive spiritually and emotionally—to have our human needs for identity, self-worth, calling, love and approval met—must come from the richness of our own intimacy with God which can only be cultivated in a balanced rhythm of solitude and community.

The idea of dying to live might seem like a counter-intuitive concept. Yet, Jesus subtly brought up an example making it easy to understand.

"And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."—John 12:23-25.