Day Thirty-Two
Losing it — for His Sake
“For whoever would preserve his life and save it will lose and destroy it, but whoever loses His life for My sake, he will preserve and save it [from the penalty of eternal death].” Ampl Lk 9:24
Let’s face it – as a culture we are gripped with preservation. We expend vast quantities of time and dollars to find the product that will preserve our youth! Whether through vitamins, skin care products, or exercising we fight to hold aging at bay. We want to go faster, higher, more completely than ever before –personally, professionally, and certainly in a spiritual sense. But the Lord of the universe puts a different face on things. He tells us to “lose it – for His sake”. Not lose it as in have a melt down. His losing is foreign, unnatural to us. He turns our understanding upside-down. Losing it – what does it really mean?
Think of the Cross of Christ – what function did it perform? Simply – it was the agent of suffering, of physical breaking, and of death in Jesus’ life. It was, from the Roman’s perception, a torture instrument but also a platform from which to control the masses through fear.
On the Cross, Christ lost His life – when He surrendered it – or gave it up. He didn’t die from the effects of the Cross. It would have required more time for Him to expire through its impact. He literally gave up His life before the Cross took His life. But profoundly, He gave up His life based on the plans and dictates of the Father. It was the Father’s will that He should go to the Cross and suffer as He did. It was the Father’s will to bruise Him and chastise Him for our sins. Thus, Jesus was perfectly fulfilling the Father’s will in His death – even as He had in His life.
In the same way Jesus had “The Cross” – you and me – as members of His Body – we have a cross also. While our crosses are not constructed of wood, they are however “constructed.” They are designed to facilitate our deaths. Not our physical death. They are situations where choices arise. At the moment they arise, I can either walk out my preferences (just as Jesus could have refused the Cross), or I can do what is the Father’s will. To do His will however, I must deny myself, disown myself, forget, lose sight of myself and my own interests, refuse and give up myself. It is in the choice of walking out the Father’s will in daily situations that we actually find our cross. It is when I choose to travel the course which calls me to cleave steadfastly to Jesus, to conform wholly to His example in living and if need be dying also – that I experience my cross. This is where I feel the cost – of dying to self.
There are moorings, little anchors deep within us, where our soul attaches to our physical body. Where the will of the soul engages the body, or conversely where the body and its appetites dictate (if allowed) to the soul. It is here though – at their juncture, that the Lord desires the work of His cross to penetrate. Where the Word of God (which is alive and full of power) is sent as a two-edged sword to pierce and penetrate to the dividing line of the soul and the spirit, and even of the joints and marrow [the deepest parts of our nature]. It thus exposes and sifts and analyses and judges the very thoughts and purposes of our hearts (Ampl. Heb 4:12).
Where the Word of God touches us in this way, we are quite literally “undone.” We are freed from ourselves – from being enslaved to our will, or appetites, or desires, or motives – in short, from our old nature. In the deepest place of our being – we are freed to be conformed to Christ. Before – we could only be ourselves. Now we can be truly His.
In this place – of “losing it for His sake”, we may not look very attractive. Initially, we may even put up a fight until we realize the hand that we are so violently trying to throw off – is the Master’s hand. But if we are ever to be truly His – in the deepest sense, we must daily embrace the cross that is ours. We must lose our lives for His sake, then He will preserve it and save it – for then it will be fully hidden in Him!
Be-loved, be-freed, be HIS!
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