For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?
Luke 9:24-25 NIV
To lose my life in order to save it seems like a contradiction. How is it possible that losing my life could result in saving it? It is like turning right to go left. It doesn’t make sense. Yet, it is what Jesus tells us to do.
But Jesus is talking about two different lives here. The first is the life I have now on earth. While the other is the life I can have with Jesus. I can have one or the other. If I surrender to him the life I have now, I will gain eternal life. But, if I am unwilling to give up this life for Jesus, I will lose out on life with him now and throughout eternity.
Many people try to have both. To hang on to this life, seeking to gain all they can. And hope that, when this life is over, that heaven awaits them. But Jesus tells us that we cannot have both. When I cling tightly to this life, I lose out on eternal life with him.
Giving up this life now does not mean that I must die physically. Instead, it means that as I live this life, I live it for my Lord rather than myself. I do what he wants me to rather than what I want. And not just some small portion of my life, but all of it. To lose my life is to make him Lord of all of it.
Jesus goes on to say that if I were to gain all that this world has to offer, what would it profit me? When I leave this life behind, all that I gained in this life is also left behind. And, even worse, I will have forfeited my soul.
Losing your life now will deprive you of much this world might offer. But the reward is much greater than anything we might lose now.
