For whoever desires to save his life
will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Matthew
16:25
Christians
are commanded to lose their lives. This means they ought to deliberately
release their lives to God and His kingdom. One of the greatest hindrances to
you being on mission with God will be your view of what constitutes your
“legitimate rights”; that is, those things that you feel you have a right to
experience and enjoy. It’s not difficult to turn over to Christ those things
that are not a sacrifice or that you would prefer to do without anyway. Rather,
it is the things that are good and that are dear to you that may stand between
you and God’s will.
It’s good
to be near your grown children and grandchildren, for example, but God may want
you to go to another city or continent on mission with Him. It’s good to get
adequate rest, but you may receive a call of distress in the middle of the
night. You may assume that you have a right to certain material things, yet God
may ask you to release all of your possessions to Him and His purposes (Matt.
19:21).
Jesus
modeled perfectly this attitude toward life. He had a legitimate right to enjoy
the comforts of heaven. Yet, He did not look at it as a right He should hold on
to, nor did He see leaving all that was His as a sacrifice too costly to make
(Phil. 2:5-11). As a result, God highly exalted Him and brought salvation to a
broken world.
Has the
world convinced you that there are certain rights that you must protect? Are
you trying to save your life? Have you noticed that in so doing, you are
actually losing the life God wants you to have?
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