September 18th
Live
Matthew 10:39 (ESV)
39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Mark 8:35 (NLT)
35If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.
Luke 17:33 (ESV)
33Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.
John 12:25 (NLT)
25Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.
Wait a minute!! These are the same verses as yesterday!! Yes they are. If God recorded them more than once, perhaps it is good that we read them more than once 😊.
Jesus expresses a profound conundrum in these verses. It seems to defy the very laws of reason and physics. How is it that giving up something actually gives us more? How can I keep and hold onto something, and it results in me having less?
C.S. Lewis helps us with these words from his chapter on Hope in Mere Christianity.
The Christian says, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exist. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food…Humans feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I can find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”
In a nutshell, this life is not all there is. There is a world to come that will be a higher life than this one and last forever. To live as if this life were all there is, even if you got all this life had to offer, would leave you with less. In Jesus’ words, you lose. Because every desire in us is there to “arouse” an ultimate desire, not a temporary one. When we “lose” our life, we are saying that this life is preparation for the next, and we will live accordingly.
It is not to say that “losing” your life is without cost, but – oh my, you get and gain more than you could ever imagine – forever.
Let’s pray this prayer together…
God, by your Spirit, prompt our hearts to come to you, expectant to see – to see your will and your ways, to see you at work. Let us not hold on to this life, nor be distracted by the temporal, that we may live, truly live this life with our eyes on the life to come.
