Tuesday, April 18
All in
Scripture: Luke 9
Luke 9:23–25 Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. 25 For what does it benefit a person if he gains the whole world but loses or forfeits himself?”
Observation
This is Jesus’ classic call to discipleship—a few verses that are worth memorizing and pondering regularly. Today I want to focus on the idea of losing your life to find it.
Jesus indicates that we find our true life and our true self (our soul) in following Him: in denying ourselves, taking up our cross daily and following Him. When I lose my life in this way, for His sake, I find it. The life I’m looking for, the life I long for, is found in following Jesus, being His disciple. Being all in.
To drive this home, Jesus adds this comparison: finding your life in Christ is better than gaining the whole world! Imagine gaining the whole world—think of having everything, all the power, fame, success, money, things…everything the world offers. If you have all that, but lose your soul, you lose. Period. You…your life…your soul is worth infinitely more than all the world could offer you.
Application
These verses challenge me to think seriously about my discipleship. Am I all in for Jesus? Or is He a handy add-on to make my life better?
When I was reading Judges earlier, I was struck that the people of Israel would seek the Lord when they had a good leader, but as soon as the leader died, they wandered away. Their relationship with God was leader-dependent. Their discipleship was wafer thin. Weak. It made me think about us, about the state of our discipleship. How do we build strong, sturdy, robust disciples, who are solidly rooted in Jesus, and not dependent on one other person for their faith, but are all in?
Today, I want to live all in for Jesus, losing my life for His sake. And I want to help others do the same. I want to be and build sturdy disciples.
Prayer: Lord, I love You. I want to be all in for You. And I want to help others be all in. Show me where I’m tempted to find my life in something else rather than You. Nothing is better than You!
More: Judges 1-2, 1 Corinthians 5