Lose To Gain

By Rose Cunningham

“Then He called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” Mark 8:34-37

We were made by God, for God. He made us to be with Him. The original sin that has infected the very DNA of all mankind was a choice to be independent from God.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good from evil.” Genesis 3:1-5

Ever since that fateful choice, to separate from God and do the one thing that He forbid, we descendents of Adam and Eve have been broken at our most basic level: Who do we live for? Every problem on earth stems from this. We are all so lost that there is no hope of any of us finding our way home outside of Jesus’ intervention with the ransom for our sin and His Spirit to lead us to the Father. There is no other Way.

Unfortunately, the inclination of sin, to be for ourselves and not for God, often leaves us in this illogical place: I want Jesus to forgive my sin and save me from hell, but I still want to be for me, to live my life my way. This doesn’t work. Separation, independence from God IS hell.

Read the excerpt from Mark 8 again. The usual summary of this passage is that following Christ is costly, that you must give up everything to follow Him. This is true in a sense. It really does require the whole of you. You really must lose your life to save it. But the idea of the costliness of the choice, and the reluctance to do so, only makes sense when you hold that your life is worth something compared to that which you would gain. If my life, as defined and directed by me, seems very precious to me, and the life Christ offers, as defined and directed by Him, is of uncertain worth, then I will never give myself to Him. In that light, what He demands is unreasonable and well, frankly, unloving.

If, however, I recognize that my life, as defined and directed by me, is worth precisely nothing; that separated from Him, I am in hell already; then there really is no cost involved at all. I give nothing to gain everything. Rather than being unreasonable, instead it is a relief. Rather than leaving everything behind, instead I come back to all that was lost. Rather than being a heavy command, instead it is a fantastic opportunity. It all depends on how you view yourself and how you view Him.

Learn From Christ

By Rose Cunningham

“For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. He who has ears, let him hear. To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her actions.”

Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”

At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was Your good pleasure.”

“All things have been committed to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one know the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:13-30

That was a long passage of Scripture for one little article, but it was necessary for the point. In reality, I wanted to print the whole of Matthew 11. I encourage you to read it. The last three verses are a wonderful invitation from our loving Savior to come to Him, learn from Him and receive rest for our souls. What a gift! Rest for your soul! The many things that encumber our souls and cause weariness and burden can be relieved by coming to and learning from Christ.

Do you even realize how much burden your soul carries? We, each of us, begin to manifest the sin within us so early in life that we often don’t recognize it as that which can be relieved. It is ‘who I am’, not able to be separated from us. Add that to the impact of the sin of all the people around me, and we can feel pretty entrenched. Now, throw into the mix, the particular sin of man-made religion and its rules and fabricated views of God, which are then used by individuals and societies to validate their expectations and judgments of us. That is a heavy burden!

Jesus knows about the burdens we carry. When He walked as a man, He was without personal sin but He was definitely confronted with everyone else’s. The contradictory demands and expectations of people, the viciousness of their condemnation and accusation when they didn’t get what they wanted, the self-absorption that left whole communities unresponsive to even His miraculous acts, let alone to the proclamation of the truth: Jesus knows about burden. More importantly, He knows how to carry the light burden and leave everything else behind. He saw all the junk that people wanted to put on Him, but in His gentleness and humility, He refused everything but the easy yoke of living only to please the Father.

This is His invitation to us: Come to Him, take His yoke and learn from Him the way of gentleness and humility that is the light burden and relief for our souls. Come to Him to know the Father and the only expectation that matters. Come to Him to learn how to walk through a world of strident demands of ‘give me what I want’ but remain concerned only for what the Father wants. Come to Him to learn the way of life and peace. Your soul was created to be with Him. Only with Him will your soul find rest.