Your life, Your soul!
Recently, while reading through the gospel of Matthew with my wife, Jesharelah, I was surprised to notice how extreme is the call to follow Jesus. Jesus hits every nerve as He tells us that if we want to follow Him, we cannot both have our life & not have our life at the same time. These verses truly are drastic.
For instance, in Matthew 16, Jesus just finishes explaining that His life will soon come to a close, that this world was not for Him but that He would suffer much persecution. Jesus alleged that He would actually experience organized attacks from the elders, chief priests, and scribes. He explained that He would be killed and that He would rise again. And in the context of this discussion about His death, He begins to explain what it will mean to follow Him.
Peter replies by saying that this isn't the kind of life he wants. Actually, he doesn't even want this kind of life for His Savior. But Jesus reproves him: "Peter, you are minding things of the world, not things of God." As soon as He says this, He turns to His disciples and tells them something that many of us Americans have forgotten
. He tells them what it means to mind things of God. And He tells them what it means to follow Him.
. He tells them what it means to mind things of God. And He tells them what it means to follow Him.
"Consider your life over, and follow me," He says. "Your pleasure, your wealth, your security are all over. Now follow Me!" Comparing the wealth of the world to the value of one's soul, He actually says that you will injure your eternal soul if you do not live for Him!
Wait a second! Are you actually saying that Jesus was so radical as to suggest that our eternal souls will suffer loss and be injured if we don't choose Jesus over temporary pleasures and possessions?
Yes! An honest consideration of Jesus' words leaves us concluding that we will actually miss out on real living and incur damage to our eternal soul if we choose not to use our time for Christ. The Lord Jesus is calling all those who want to follow Him to renounce their own desires. They may have no more plans of their own. They must have nothing else to live for but Him.
You see, Jesus is actually saying, "To follow Me, you must choose a pursuit of either things or of Me." The only legitimate choice for a true follower of Jesus Christ is to consider their lives over. There is nothing to salvage. All they have left is not for them, but for Jesus Christ! Even more radical is this: to give their living to Him, they are actually going to have to trade in the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, self, and security!
Right now, you may be thinking as I've thought sometimes. You might be saying, "I can live for Jesus, and still live the life I want." Let me remind you, as the Lord Jesus reminded Peter: Stop minding things of this world, and mind the things of God. The luxury of the world is not for you!
To consider my life over and follow Jesus Christ is to consciously use my free will and make a deliberate decision to renounce any so-called right to plan my life. My career must now be called into question. My college plans are now called into question. My plans of what and where I will live and what I will do there are all called into question.
My whole future is no longer securely planned out, because, after all, I took up a cross and I have no more rights to my life. All I have left is to deliberately choose to live for things that matter in eternity! This is the call of Jesus Christ to those who will follow Him. It is radical, selfless, and sacrificial, and all for His glory rather than our own. To be called a Christian means more than just a set of religious traditions, but to be daily fashioned in His image, to give all for His kingdom, to surrender ALL.
I believe there are certain deterrents that are aroused in the young person's mind when we speak of this concept of: death to self, and following of Jesus. I urge you to consider these issues, and to think about how our example, Jesus Christ, dealt with each one.
· The opposition of loved ones & other believers
· Forsaking of rights to own a house, lands, & the comforts of a luxurious life
· Dependence on God
· Obedience to God
· Proclamation of an unpopular message
· Organized attacks from established religious leaders
· Suffering for righteousness' sake
· Slander and shame
· Pouring out one's life for others
· Complete death to self and a pursuit of the luxuries, securities, & possessions of the present world!
But, I believe that what Jesus calls us to involves much more than a number of disincentives. It involves laying hold of a life that is life indeed! It means finding the purpose behind our existence. It means eternal rewards for the only thing we own which will continue forever: our souls.
Our natural predisposition is not to renounce our lives, rights, & security in order to follow Christ. Rather, our inclination is to save our trivial, selfish, petty, and vulnerable existences. We want to indulge our pleasures and appetites by basking in temporary comfort and ease. Our tendency is to live for the present pleasure. To sell our energy, time, and liveliness to buy a mock security. But notice what Jesus says: In the process of all this saving and investing in our inconsequential lives, we lose our lives.
On the one hand, we can miss out on and lose the true purpose of life and true spiritual joy. On the other hand, we may lose everything that we might have wanted in our lives for the Savior's sake. Some will think that we've lost all sense if we fling our own self-centered ambitions to the wind, if we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness & yield ourselves unreservedly to Him. But this life of abandonment to self and temporary pleasure is truly genuine living. It has a joy that defies description.
Suppose you actually accumulated all material possessions. Think of it! All that there is… You had access to unspeakable quantities of money for your personal use. You had rights to all the real estate in the world. You owned all the stocks and bonds. Everything that had any material value belonged to you! You had gained the whole world. But suppose, that in the frantic attempt to acquire all this wealth, that you missed the true purpose of life.
What good would it do you? You would have everything for a short while, until you died to leave it all forever. All you would have then is your soul. It would be an insane bargain to sell your one short life for all the trivial pursuits of this world and to injure your eternal soul in the process.
Jesus is telling all those who desire to follow him that they are going to need to renounce that which is of eternal insignificance. That they are going to have to die to the world and lose their life by spending it following Him. You cannot add 'following Him' to your present agenda. You must chose one or the other!
I am not saying that we ought to all live in a cardboard hut in a third world nation, preaching the gospel there. However, if when others look at you, they see someone who is concerned with the concerns of temporary things, luxury, or security, it is clear that you are not following Christ. As a Christian, you and I have died to all these things, and we now live to obey Christ and to speak forth an unpopular message. Your life is not yours, but Christ's!
Let me be candid with you and ask you a few questions about your life: When others look at you, is it easy to see a life lived for Christ and not for temporal things? Do they see you living to share Christ? Do they see that you are one that cares about things of eternity? Or do they see someone who is concerned about their toys of dust, mock security, & accumulation of more temporary pleasures?
Christians, I would like to ask you all, wherever you are, to consider your life and to consider your soul. Consider whether you could do without some of those temporary pursuits in exchange for more eternal usage of your time.
Consider how much your Savior gave for you! Consider your choices in the remaining days of your short life. And when it comes to making your choices, remember your life, remember your soul, and remember the value that God places on your soul!
