We all desire a life of ease. Anything complicated, sacrificial, difficult, and even rewarding, we always try to steer away from those kinds of situations. As much as possible, even if we are competitive by nature, we always just want a stagnant life. We want an unchangeable life with a worldly lifestyle that only follows the desires of our flesh. Now, our verse today will teach us of a new life and how to live our life really to the fullest.
It is already common knowledge that we are sinful and that once we sin, we will face consequences. What we do not know is when to identify what is sin and what is not. When we are not in Christ, we are ignorant people. We do not know what is sin and we do not know if what we are doing is sin. As long as this world accepts what we are doing, we already made up a good comfort in our heads that we are not doing anything wrong. In fact, we have this familiar principle in life, “As long as you are not treating other people wrong, then you are a good person.”
That is such a very wrong notion and a very dangerous one. It is not because we are not treating others badly, we are already good and righteous people. We have to always remember that we are sinful and each one of us deserves eternal punishment. We did not sin against man, but we sinned against our holy God. Thus, we deserve to be punished and to suffer. Well, since we talked about us having a life at ease, we are just saying that our god is our stomach and whatever our flesh craves, we always give in.
However, our verse today reminds us that whoever wants to save their lives, will lose it and whoever loses their lives for Christ will find it. Now, this is not a life at ease. This is a life full of sacrifice to the point of throwing everything for ourselves and making Christ’s glorification our first priority. It is indeed hard to understand that we must lose our lives and stop saving them. Well, what God meant by this is that we should stop saving treasures here in this temporary world (our lives, our wealth, our relationships) because we will not be able to take it with us when we finally die. What we must do is to lose all of this and follow Christ.
Following Christ and losing our treasures here on earth for Him will give us something more valuable which is our eternal life. That is why when Christ said that whoever loses their lives for Him, they will find it. For the life that does not only revolve around the riches of this world, the fame we will get, and the relationships we will have, but it is all about what we will have for a longer time, for eternally specifically. So, as we live our lives, let us not work out to save our lives here on earth, but we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling in Christ Jesus.
Therefore, we must follow Christ, not follow our earthly desires. Let us not save our life here because we will just lose it, but instead, we must lose our lives for Christ, and then we will find it in Him. We must take up our cross and follow Christ. Let us also bear in our minds that following Christ has costs and that is denying ourselves. Not an easy life, but worth it and the best life we could ever live. After all, Christ has died for us and has given us all the opportunities and chances to live for Him so that we will then have eternal life instead of eternal condemnation. May we all become disciples of Christ, having His glorification above all else instead of ours.
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