“Lose Yourself”

Matthew 10:39 –
“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Matthew 16:24 –
“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

The life of discipleship to Jesus begins with the losing of our self.

John 12:24 –
“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

In our world today, we are not taught this idea of self-sacrifice. But Jesus teaches us that self-sacrifice is the way to truly find our life.

As we seek to follow Jesus and learn from Him, we cannot do so without the denial of our self.

Why does Jesus insist upon this?

We have to ask the questions:
“How tightly do I hold onto my life?”
“How comfortable am I with the current state of my life?”

Jesus calls us to deny ourselves and lose our lives so that He can have free reign to transform us, not so that we lose our identity but so that we discover our true identity. Remember, he says that when we lose our life we actually find it.

The call to discipleship is the call to change.

We must have the willingness to:

• Leave certain things behind (habits, views, feelings)
• Live life as a pilgrim
• Travel light
• Difference between a settler and a pilgrim – settlers are “nailed to the earth” (Hebrews 11:13-16) Where is our home?
• Listen – sitting and listening vs. distracted, we must not become so busy that we can hear
• To be led – (Matthew 11:28-30) Rest is conditional upon our learning from Him & following Him. Do we resist Christ? How do our ingrained patterns of behavior affect our willingness to be led?
• To die (Mark 8:34) – Have we faced the reality of death? What is He asking us to let die?

Some problems we may encounter:

• Laziness (spiritual) – we want it now and quick, but nothing in this life worth doing comes easily
• Discouragement – the Spiritual life can be tough. We are not promised an easy life. Jesus tells us to expect persecution, suffering, and trials. In addition, we will fall.
• Self indulgence – the opposite of self-denial. We want to gratify the Spirit-nature NOT the sin-nature.

“Incurvatus In Se”

Latin term meaning curved in on oneself. This term has been used to describe sin and the disconnect between us and God.

The effect of Sin has caused us to turn inwards to ourselves and away from God. We have put our trust in ourselves instead of God. This is the effect of sin (Genesis 3).

Discipleship to Christ helps to correct this inward curve.

Next Week: Section 2 - The Life: The Easy Yoke

Trackback URI | Comments RSS