Give Up Your Life

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?” Matthew 16:24-26

PETER HAD JUST RUNG the bell with his solid confession about who Jesus is: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (verse 16). Jesus responded by saying that Peter was blessed because he didn’t come up with this himself, but in fact the Father in heaven had revealed it to him. But then Jesus said that he was headed to Jerusalem, where he would be killed at the hands of the religious leaders. Peter blew it this time. His response? “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!” This time Jesus didn’t say he was blessed. Instead he said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s” (verses 22-23). And then he told the disciples that if they were going to follow him, they would have to give up their lives too. But in losing their lives for his sake, they would actually save them.

Next Jesus asked the question that reverberates from his day to our day, from the disciples who surrounded Jesus to the disciples sitting around the table in our homes: “What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?” That’s the potential tragedy that keeps us setting the treasures of Christ before our children day after day, even as we point out the vacuousness of what the world tells them will make them happy. And that is the promise for all who are willing to suffer for and follow after Christ: We can face losing everything because we know we stand to gain everything.

Lord, if I’m honest, I don’t like the possibility that ________ might have to lose in this life to follow after you. When my heart is broken over what she may not obtain in this life, give me eyes to see all she stands to inherit, all she will never lose but in fact all she will gain in you. Show me how to help her see the temporal value of this world and the eternal value of having you.